Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (great reads txt) 📕

six masks, débardeuses19 and sailors, Léon’s comrades, who were talking about having supper.

The neighbouring cafés were full. They caught sight of one on the harbour, a very indifferent restaurant, whose proprietor showed them to a little room on the fourth floor.

The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt consorting about expenses. There were a clerk, two medical students, and a shopman⁠—what company for her! As to the women, Emma soon perceived from the tone of their voices that they must almost belong to the lowest class. Then she was frightened, pushed back her chair, and cast down her eyes.

The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was on fire, her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her head she seemed to feel the floor of the ballroom rebounding again beneath the rhythmical pulsation of the thousands of dancing feet. And now the smell of the punch, the smoke of the cigars, made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried her to the window.

Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour broadened out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine hills. The livid river was shivering in the wind; there was no one on the bridges; the street lamps were going out.

She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yonder in the servant’s room. Then a cart filled with long strips of iron passed by, and made a deafening metallic vibration against the walls of the houses.

She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told Léon she must get back, and at last was alone at the Hôtel de Boulogne. Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.

She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cauchoise, and the Faubourg, as far as an open street that overlooked some gardens. She walked rapidly; the fresh air calming her; and, little by little, the faces of the crowd, the masks, the quadrilles, the lights, the supper, those women, all disappeared like mists fading away. Then, reaching the Croix-Rouge, she threw herself on the bed in her little room on the second floor, where there were pictures of the Tour de Nesle. At four o’clock Hivert awoke her.

When she got home, Félicité showed her behind the clock a grey paper. She read⁠—

“In virtue of the seizure in execution of a judgment.”

What judgment? As a matter of fact, the evening before another paper had been brought that she had not yet seen, and she was stunned by these words⁠—

“By order of the king, law, and justice, to Madame Bovary.” Then, skipping several lines, she read, “Within twenty-four hours, without fail⁠—” But what? “To pay the sum of eight thousand francs.” And there was even at the bottom, “She will be constrained thereto by every form of law, and notably by a writ of distraint on her furniture and effects.”

What was to be done? In twenty-four hours⁠—tomorrow. Lheureux, she thought, wanted to frighten her again; for she saw through all his devices, the object of his kindnesses. What reassured her was the very magnitude of the sum.

However, by dint of buying and not paying, of borrowing, signing bills, and renewing these bills that grew at each new falling-in, she had ended by preparing a capital for Monsieur Lheureux which he was impatiently awaiting for his speculations.

She presented herself at his place with an offhand air.

“You know what has happened to me? No doubt it’s a joke!”

“How so?”

He turned away slowly, and, folding his arms, said to her⁠—

“My good lady, did you think I should go on to all eternity being your purveyor and banker, for the love of God? Now be just. I must get back what I’ve laid out. Now be just.”

She cried out against the debt.

“Ah! so much the worse. The court has admitted it. There’s a judgment. It’s been notified to you. Besides, it isn’t my fault. It’s Vinçart’s.”

“Could you not⁠—?”

“Oh, nothing whatever.”

“But still, now talk it over.”

And she began beating about the bush; she had known nothing about it; it was a surprise.

“Whose fault is that?” said Lheureux, bowing ironically. “While I’m slaving like a nigger, you go gallivanting about.”

“Ah! no lecturing.”

“It never does any harm,” he replied.

She turned coward; she implored him; she even pressed her pretty white and slender hand against the shopkeeper’s knee.

“There, that’ll do! Anyone’d think you wanted to seduce me!”

“You are a wretch!” she cried.

“Oh, oh! go it! go it!”

“I will show you up. I shall tell my husband.”

“All right! I too. I’ll show your husband something.”

And Lheureux drew from his strong box the receipt for eighteen hundred francs that she had given him when Vinçart had discounted the bills.

“Do you think,” he added, “that he’ll not understand your little theft, the poor dear man?”

She collapsed, more overcome than if felled by the blow of a poleaxe. He was walking up and down from the window to the bureau, repeating all the while⁠—

“Ah! I’ll show him! I’ll show him!” Then he approached her, and in a soft voice said⁠—

“It isn’t pleasant, I know; but, after all, no bones are broken, and, since that is the only way that is left for you paying back my money⁠—”

“But where am I to get any?” said Emma, wringing her hands.

“Bah! when one has friends like you!”

And he looked at her in so keen, so terrible a fashion, that she shuddered to her very heart.

“I promise you,” she said, “to sign⁠—”

“I’ve enough of your signatures.”

“I will sell something.”

“Get along!” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “you’ve not got anything.”

And he called through the peephole that looked down into the shop⁠—

“Annette, don’t forget the three coupons of No. 14.”

The servant appeared. Emma understood, and asked how much money would be wanted to put a stop to the proceedings.

“It is too late.”

“But if I brought you several thousand francs⁠—a quarter of the sum⁠—a third⁠—perhaps the whole?”

“No; it’s no use!”

And he