The Greatest Novels & Novellas of Gustave Flaubert. Gustave Flaubert

Insult to you! Oh! And I, who would place you on a throne! I who bear with me your memory as a talisman! For I am going to punish myself by exile for all the ill I have done you. I am going away. Whither I know not. I am mad. Adieu! Be good always. Preserve the memory of the unfortunate who has lost you. Teach my name to your child; let her repeat it in her prayers.”

      The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up to, shut the window, and when he had sat down again —

      “I think it’s all right. Ah! and this for fear she should come and hunt me up.”

      “I shall be far away when you read these sad lines, for I have wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun the temptation of seeing you again. No weakness! I shall return, and perhaps later on we shall talk together very coldly of our old love. Adieu!”

      And there was a last “adieu” divided into two words! “A Dieu!” which he thought in very excellent taste.

      “Now how am I to sign?” he said to himself. “‘Yours devotedly?’ No! ‘Your friend?’ Yes, that’s it.”

      “Your friend.”

      He re-read his letter. He considered it very good.

      “Poor little woman!” he thought with emotion. “She’ll think me harder than a rock. There ought to have been some tears on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t my fault.” Then, having emptied some water into a glass, Rodolphe dipped his finger into it, and let a big drop fall on the paper, that made a pale stain on the ink. Then looking for a seal, he came upon the one “Amor nel cor.”

      “That doesn’t at all fit in with the circumstances. Pshaw! never mind!”

      After which he smoked three pipes and went to bed.

      The next day when he was up (at about two o’clock — he had slept late), Rodolphe had a basket of apricots picked. He put his letter at the bottom under some vine leaves, and at once ordered Girard, his ploughman, to take it with care to Madame Bovary. He made use of this means for corresponding with her, sending according to the season fruits or game.

      “If she asks after me,” he said, “you will tell her that I have gone on a journey. You must give the basket to her herself, into her own hands. Get along and take care!”

      Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handkerchief round the apricots, and walking with great heavy steps in his thick iron-bound galoshes, made his way to Yonville.

      Madame Bovary, when he got to her house, was arranging a bundle of linen on the kitchen-table with Felicite.

      “Here,” said the ploughboy, “is something for you — from the master.”

      She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought in her pocket for some coppers, she looked at the peasant with haggard eyes, while he himself looked at her with amazement, not understanding how such a present could so move anyone. At last he went out. Felicite remained. She could bear it no longer; she ran into the sitting room as if to take the apricots there, overturned the basket, tore away the leaves, found the letter, opened it, and, as if some fearful fire were behind her, Emma flew to her room terrified.

      Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; she heard nothing, and she went on quickly up the stairs, breathless, distraught, dumb, and ever holding this horrible piece of paper, that crackled between her fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On the second floor she stopped before the attic door, which was closed.

      Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter; she must finish it; she did not dare to. And where? How? She would be seen! “Ah, no! here,” she thought, “I shall be all right.”

      Emma pushed open the door and went in.

      The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that gripped her temples, stifled her; she dragged herself to the closed garret-window. She drew back the bolt, and the dazzling light burst in with a leap.

      Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country till it was lost to sight. Down below, underneath her, the village square was empty; the stones of the pavement glittered, the weathercocks on the houses were motionless. At the corner of the street, from a lower storey, rose a kind of humming with strident modulations. It was Binet turning.

      She leant against the embrasure of the window, and reread the letter with angry sneers. But the more she fixed her attention upon it, the more confused were her ideas. She saw him again, heard him, encircled him with her arms, and throbs of her heart, that beat against her breast like blows of a sledge-hammer, grew faster and faster, with uneven intervals. She looked about her with the wish that the earth might crumble into pieces. Why not end it all? What restrained her? She was free. She advanced, looking at the paving-stones, saying to herself, “Come! come!”

      The luminous ray that came straight up from below drew the weight of her body towards the abyss. It seemed to her that the ground of the oscillating square went up the walls and that the floor dipped on end like a tossing boat. She was right at the edge, almost hanging, surrounded by vast space. The blue of the heavens suffused her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; she had but to yield, to let herself be taken; and the humming of the lathe never ceased, like an angry voice calling her.

      “Emma! Emma!” cried Charles.

      She stopped.

      “Wherever are you? Come!”

      The thought that she had just escaped from death almost made her faint with terror. She closed her eyes; then she shivered at the touch of a hand on her sleeve; it was Felicite.

      “Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on the table.”

      And she had to go down to sit at table.

      She tried to eat. The food choked her. Then she unfolded her napkin as if to examine the darns, and she really thought of applying herself to this work, counting the threads in the linen. Suddenly the remembrance of the letter returned to her. How had she lost it? Where could she find it? But she felt such weariness of spirit that she could not even invent a pretext for leaving the table. Then she became a coward; she was afraid of Charles; he knew all, that was certain! Indeed he pronounced these words in a strange manner:

      “We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon again, it seems.”

      “Who told you?” she said, shuddering.

      “Who told me!” he replied, rather astonished at her abrupt tone. “Why, Girard, whom I met just now at the door of the Cafe Francais. He has gone on a journey, or is to go.”

      She gave a sob.

      “What surprises you in that? He absents himself like that from time to time for a change, and, ma foi, I think he’s right, when one has a fortune and is a bachelor. Besides, he has jolly times, has our friend. He’s a bit of a rake. Monsieur Langlois told me — ”

      He stopped for propriety’s sake because the servant came in. She put back into the basket the apricots scattered on the sideboard. Charles, without noticing his wife’s colour, had them brought to him, took one, and bit into it.

      “Ah! perfect!” said he; “just taste!”

      And he handed her the basket, which she put away from her gently.

      “Do just smell! What an odour!” he remarked, passing it under her nose several times.

      “I am choking,” she cried, leaping up. But by an effort of will the spasm passed; then —

      “It is nothing,” she said, “it is nothing! It is nervousness. Sit down and go on eating.” For she dreaded lest he should begin questioning her, attending to her, that she should not be left alone.

      Charles, to obey her, sat down again, and he spat the stones of the apricots into his hands, afterwards putting them on his plate.

      Suddenly a blue tilbury passed across the square at a rapid trot. Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid to the ground.

      In fact, Rodolphe, after many reflections, had decided to