Madame Bovary

hapter Ten

He had only received the chemist’s letter thirty-six hours after the
event; and, from consideration for his feelings, Homais had so worded it
that it was impossible to make out what it was all about.

First, the old fellow had fallen as if struck by apoplexy. Next, he
understood that she was not dead, but she might be. At last, he had put
on his blouse, taken his hat, fastened his spurs to his boots, and set
out at full speed; and the whole of the way old Rouault, panting, was
torn by anguish. Once even he was obliged to dismount. He was dizzy; he
heard voices round about him; he felt himself going mad.

Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a tree. He shuddered,
horrified at this omen. Then he promised the Holy Virgin three chasubles
for the church, and that he would go barefooted from the cemetery at
Bertaux to the chapel of Vassonville.

He entered Maromme shouting for the people of the inn, burst open the
door with a thrust of his shoulder, made for a sack of oats, emptied a
bottle of sweet cider into the manger, and again mounted his nag, whose
feet struck fire as it dashed along.

He said to himself that no doubt they would save her; the doctors would
discover some remedy surely. He remembered all the miraculous cures
he had been told about. Then she appeared to him dead. She was there;
before his eyes, lying on her back in the middle of the road. He reined
up, and the hallucination disappeared.

At Quincampoix, to give himself heart, he drank three cups of coffee
one after the other. He fancied they had made a mistake in the name in
writing. He looked for the letter in his pocket, felt it there, but did
not dare to open it.

At last he began to think it was all a joke; someone’s spite, the jest
of some wag; and besides, if she were dead, one would have known it. But
no! There was nothing extraordinary about the country; the sky was blue,
the trees swayed; a flock of sheep passed. He saw the village; he was
seen coming bending forward upon his horse, belabouring it with great
blows, the girths dripping with blood.

When he had recovered consciousness, he fell, weeping, into Bovary’s
arms: “My girl! Emma! my child! tell me--”

The other replied, sobbing, “I don’t know! I don’t know! It’s a curse!”

The druggist separated them. “These horrible details are useless. I will
tell this gentleman all about it. Here are the people coming. Dignity!
Come now! Philosophy!”

The poor fellow tried to show himself brave, and repeated several times.
“Yes! courage!”

“Oh,” cried the old man, “so I will have, by God! I’ll go along o’ her
to the end!”

The bell began tolling. All was ready; they had to start. And seated in
a stall of the choir, side by side, they saw pass and repass in front of
them continually the three chanting choristers.

The serpent-player was blowing with all his might. Monsieur Bournisien,
in full vestments, was singing in a shrill voice. He bowed before the
tabernacle, raising his hands, stretched out his arms. Lestiboudois
went about the church with his whalebone stick. The bier stood near the
lectern, between four rows of candles. Charles felt inclined to get up
and put them out.

Yet he tried to stir himself to a feeling of devotion, to throw himself
into the hope of a future life in which he should see her again. He
imagined to himself she had gone on a long journey, far away, for a long
time. But when he thought of her lying there, and that all was over,
that they would lay her in the earth, he was seized with a fierce,
gloomy, despairful rage. At times he thought he felt nothing more, and
he enjoyed this lull in his pain, whilst at the same time he reproached
himself for being a wretch.

The sharp noise of an iron-ferruled stick was heard on the stones,
striking them at irregular intervals. It came from the end of the
church, and stopped short at the lower aisles. A man in a coarse brown
jacket knelt down painfully. It was Hippolyte, the stable-boy at the
“Lion d’Or.” He had put on his new leg.

One of the choristers went round the nave making a collection, and the
coppers chinked one after the other on the silver plate.

“Oh, make haste! I am in pain!” cried Bovary, angrily throwing him a
five-franc piece. The churchman thanked him with a deep bow.

They sang, they knelt, they stood up; it was endless! He remembered that
once, in the early times, they had been to mass together, and they had
sat down on the other side, on the right, by the wall. The bell began
again. There was a great moving of chairs; the bearers slipped their
three staves under the coffin, and everyone left the church.

Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He suddenly went in again,
pale, staggering.

People were at the windows to see the procession pass. Charles at the
head walked erect. He affected a brave air, and saluted with a nod those
who, coming out from the lanes or from their doors, stood amidst the
crowd.

The six men, three on either side, walked slowly, panting a little. The
priests, the choristers, and the two choirboys recited the De
profundis,[22] and their voices echoed over the fields, rising and
falling with their undulations. Sometimes they disappeared in the
windings of the path; but the great silver cross rose always before the
trees.

[22] Psalm CXXX.

The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down hoods; each of them
carried in her hands a large lighted candle, and Charles felt himself
growing weaker at this continual repetition of prayers and torches,
beneath this oppressive odour of wax and of cassocks. A fresh breeze was
blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting, little dewdrops trembled at
the roadsides and on the hawthorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds
filled the air; the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the
crowing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling of a foal
running away under the apple-trees: The pure sky was fretted with rosy
clouds; a bluish haze rested upon the cots covered with iris. Charles as
he passed recognised each courtyard. He remembered mornings like this,
when, after visiting some patient, he came out from one and returned to
her.

The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up from time to time,
laying bare the coffin. The tired bearers walked more slowly, and it
advanced with constant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave.

They reached the cemetery. The men went right down to a place in the
grass where a grave was dug. They ranged themselves all round; and while
the priest spoke, the red soil thrown up at the sides kept noiselessly
slipping down at the corners.

Then when the four ropes were arranged the coffin was placed upon them.
He watched it descend; it seemed descending for ever. At last a thud was
heard; the ropes creaked as they were drawn up. Then Bournisien took
the spade handed to him by Lestiboudois; with his left hand all the
time sprinkling water, with the right he vigorously threw in a large
spadeful; and the wood of the coffin, struck by the pebbles, gave forth
that dread sound that seems to us the reverberation of eternity.

The ecclesiastic passed the holy water sprinkler to his neighbour. This
was Homais. He swung it gravely, then handed it to Charles, who sank to
his knees in the earth and threw in handfuls of it, crying, “Adieu!” He
sent her kisses; he dragged himself towards the grave, to engulf himself
with her. They led him away, and he soon grew calmer, feeling perhaps,
like the others, a vague satisfaction that it was all over.

Old Rouault on his way back began quietly smoking a pipe, which Homais
in his innermost conscience thought not quite the thing. He also noticed
that Monsieur Binet had not been present, and that Tuvache had “made
off” after mass, and that Theodore, the notary’s servant wore a blue
coat, “as if one could not have got a black coat, since that is the
custom, by Jove!” And to share his observations with others he went from
group to group. They were deploring Emma’s death, especially Lheureux,
who had not failed to come to the funeral.

“Poor little woman! What a trouble for her husband!”

The druggist continued, “Do you know that but for me he would have
committed some fatal attempt upon himself?”

“Such a good woman! To think that I saw her only last Saturday in my
shop.”

“I haven’t had leisure,” said Homais, “to prepare a few words that I
would have cast upon her tomb.”

Charles on getting home undressed, and old Rouault put on his blue
blouse. It was a new one, and as he had often during the journey wiped
his eyes on the sleeves, the dye had stained his face, and the traces of
tears made lines in the layer of dust that covered it.

Madame Bovary senior was with them. All three were silent. At last the
old fellow sighed--

“Do you remember, my friend, that I went to Tostes once when you had
just lost your first deceased? I consoled you at that time. I thought of
something to say then, but now--” Then, with a loud groan that shook his
whole chest, “Ah! this is the end for me, do you see! I saw my wife go,
then my son, and now to-day it’s my daughter.”

He wanted to go back at once to Bertaux, saying that he could not sleep
in this house. He even refused to see his granddaughter.

“No, no! It would grieve me too much. Only you’ll kiss her many times
for me. Good-bye! you’re a good fellow! And then I shall never forget
that,” he said, slapping his thigh. “Never fear, you shall always have
your turkey.”

But when he reached the top of the hill he turned back, as he had turned
once before on the road of Saint-Victor when he had parted from her. The
windows of the village were all on fire beneath the slanting rays of the
sun sinking behind the field. He put his hand over his eyes, and saw
in the horizon an enclosure of walls, where trees here and there formed
black clusters between white stones; then he went on his way at a gentle
trot, for his nag had gone lame.

Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed very long that
evening talking together. They spoke of the days of the past and of the
future. She would come to live at Yonville; she would keep house for
him; they would never part again. She was ingenious and caressing,
rejoicing in her heart at gaining once more an affection that had
wandered from her for so many years. Midnight struck. The village as
usual was silent, and Charles, awake, thought always of her.

Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling about the wood all
day, was sleeping quietly in his château, and Léon, down yonder, always
slept.

There was another who at that hour was not asleep.

On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his knees weeping,
and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating in the shadow beneath the load
of an immense regret, sweeter than the moon and fathomless as the night.
The gate suddenly grated. It was Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his
spade, that he had forgotten. He recognised Justin climbing over the
wall, and at last knew who was the culprit who stole his potatoes.