Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (great reads txt) 📕

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left), sitting in an armchair near the window, staring with an idiotic look at the flags of the floor.

“Now,” said the chemist, “you ought yourself to fix the hour for the ceremony.”

“Why? What ceremony?” Then, in a stammering, frightened voice, “Oh, no! not that. No! I want to see her here.”

Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a water-bottle on the whatnot to water the geraniums.

“Ah! thanks,” said Charles; “you are good.”

But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd of memories that this action of the druggist recalled to him.

Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk a little horticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles bowed his head in sign of approbation.

“Besides, the fine days will soon be here again.”

“Ah!” said Bovary.

The druggist, at his wit’s end, began softly to draw aside the small window-curtain.

“Hallo! there’s Monsieur Tuvache passing.”

Charles repeated like a machine⁠—

“Monsieur Tuvache passing!”

Homais did not dare to speak to him again about the funeral arrangements; it was the priest who succeeded in reconciling him to them.

He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen, and after sobbing for some time, wrote⁠—

“I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her shoulders. Three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, one of lead. Let no one say anything to me. I shall have strength. Over all there is to be placed a large piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see that it is done.”

The two men were much surprised at Bovary’s romantic ideas. The chemist at once went to him and said⁠—

“This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, the expense⁠—”

“What’s that to you?” cried Charles. “Leave me! You did not love her. Go!”

The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the garden. He discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God was very great, was very good: one must submit to his decrees without a murmur; nay, must even thank him.

Charles burst out into blasphemies: “I hate your God!”

“The spirit of rebellion is still upon you,” sighed the ecclesiastic.

Bovary was far away. He was walking with great strides along by the wall, near the espalier, and he ground his teeth; he raised to heaven looks of malediction, but not so much as a leaf stirred.

A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare, at last began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the kitchen.

At six o’clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was heard on the Place; it was the Hirondelle coming in, and he remained with his forehead against the windowpane, watching all the passengers get out, one after the other. Félicité put down a mattress for him in the drawing-room. He threw himself upon it and fell asleep.

Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected the dead. So bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he came back again in the evening to sit up with the body; bringing with him three volumes and a pocketbook for taking notes.

Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles were burning at the head of the bed, that had been taken out of the alcove. The druggist, on whom the silence weighed, was not long before he began formulating some regrets about this “unfortunate young woman.” and the priest replied that there was nothing to do now but pray for her.

“Yet,” Homais went on, “one of two things; either she died in a state of grace (as the Church has it), and then she has no need of our prayers; or else she departed impertinent (that is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expression), and then⁠—”

Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it was none the less necessary to pray.

“But,” objected the chemist, “since God knows all our needs, what can be the good of prayer?”

“What!” cried the ecclesiastic, “prayer! Why, aren’t you a Christian?”

“Excuse me,” said Homais; “I admire Christianity. To begin with, it enfranchised the slaves, introduced into the world a morality⁠—”

“That isn’t the question. All the texts⁠—”

“Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it, is known that all the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits.”

Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, slowly drew the curtains.

Emma’s head was turned towards her right shoulder, the corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like a black hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs were bent into the palms of her hands; a kind of white dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk in from her breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips of her toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite masses, an enormous load, were weighing upon her.

The church clock struck two. They could hear the loud murmur of the river flowing in the darkness at the foot of the terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to time blew his nose noisily, and Homais’ pen was scratching over the paper.

“Come, my good friend,” he said, “withdraw; this spectacle is tearing you to pieces.”

Charles once gone, the chemist and the curé recommenced their discussions.

“Read Voltaire,” said the one, “read D’Holbach, read the Encyclopaedia!”

“Read the Letters of Some Portuguese Jews,” said the other; “read The Meaning of Christianity, by Nicolas, formerly a magistrate.”

They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at once without listening to each other. Bournisien was scandalized at such audacity; Homais marvelled at such stupidity; and they were on the point of insulting one another when Charles suddenly reappeared. A fascination drew him. He was continually coming upstairs.

He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he lost himself in a contemplation so deep that it was no longer painful.

He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of magnetism, and he said to himself that by willing it