Madame Bovary (24 page)

“Oh! And your friends?” she said. “You’re not thinking of them.”

“My friends? Which ones? Do I have any? Who cares about me?”

And he accompanied these last words with a kind of whistle between his lips.

But they were obliged to draw apart because of a great tower of chairs that a man was carrying behind them. He was so overburdened that one could see only the tips of his wooden shoes and the ends of his two arms, held straight out in front of him. It was Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was transporting the chairs from the church in among the throng of people. Highly imaginative concerning anything to do with his own interests, he had discovered this means of drawing a profit from the fair; and his idea was a success, for he was being accosted on all sides—the villagers, who were hot, were indeed quarreling over these straw-seated chairs with their smell of incense, and they leaned back with a certain veneration against the stout slats soiled by wax from the tapers.

Madame Bovary took Rodolphe’s arm again; he continued as though talking to himself:

“Yes! I’ve missed out on so many things! I’ve been so alone! Ah! If only I’d had some goal in life, if I’d known some affection, if I’d found someone … Oh, I would have expended all the energy I possess, I would have surmounted everything, conquered everything!”

“Yet it seems to me,” said Emma, “that you’re scarcely to be pitied.”

“Oh? You think so?” said Rodolphe.

“Because … well …,” she went on, “you’re free.”

She hesitated:

“Rich.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” he answered.

And she was swearing that she was not making fun of him, when a cannon shot resounded; immediately everyone began crowding, in confusion, toward the village.

It was a false alarm. The prefect had not arrived; and the members of the jury were perplexed, not knowing whether to begin the proceedings or continue to wait.

At last, on the far side of the Square, a large hired landau appeared, drawn by two thin horses being fiercely whipped by a coachman in a white hat. Binet had time enough only to shout, “Fall in!” and the colonel to imitate him. There was a rush toward the stacked rifles. They hurled themselves at them. A few even forgot their collars. But the prefect’s coach-and-pair seemed to sense the difficulty, and the coupled nags, swaying from side to side on their slender chain, drew up at a slow trot in front of the portico of the town hall just at the moment when the national guard and the fire brigade were deploying there, marching in place to the beat of the drums.

“Mark time!” shouted Binet.

“Halt!” shouted the colonel. “File to the left!”

And after a present-arms in which the rattling of the rifle bands sounded like a copper cauldron tumbling down a flight of stairs, all the rifles were lowered.

They then saw, descending from the carriage, a gentleman dressed in a short coat embroidered in silver, bald over his forehead, his hair tufted on the crown of his head, with a pallid complexion and a most benign expression. He half closed his large, heavy-lidded eyes in order to study the crowd, at the same time lifting his sharp nose and arranging his sunken mouth into a smile. He recognized the mayor by his sash and explained to him that the prefect had been unable to come. He himself was a prefectural councilor. Then he added some excuses; Tuvache responded to these with civilities; the other confessed himself overwhelmed; and they remained thus, face-to-face, their foreheads almost touching, surrounded by the members of the jury, the town council, the local dignitaries, the national guard, and the crowd. The councilor, resting his little black tricornered hat against his chest, reiterated his salutations, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, smiled in turn,
stammered, searched for words, protested
his devotion to the monarchy and his recognition of the honor that was being bestowed on Yonville.

Hippolyte, the stableboy at the inn, came forward to take the horses by their bridles from the coachman and, limping on his clubfoot, led them through the gateway of the Lion d’Or, where many of the countryfolk had gathered to examine the carriage. The drum rolled, the howitzer boomed, and the gentlemen filed up to sit on the platform in the armchairs of red Utrecht velvet lent by Madame Tuvache.

These men all looked alike. Their soft, fair faces, a little tanned by the sun, were the color of sweet cider, and their fluffy side-whiskers escaped from high, stiff collars held straight by white cravats tied in broad bows. Every vest was of velvet, shawl style; every watch bore, at the end of a long ribbon, some sort of oval seal made of carnelian; and every man rested his hands on his thighs, carefully stretching the crotch of his trousers, whose hard-finished fabric shone more brilliantly than the leather of his stout boots.

The ladies of the party stayed in back, under the portico, between the columns, while the crowd of common folk was opposite, standing, or sitting in chairs. Indeed, Lestiboudois had brought over all those he had moved out of the meadow, and he kept running to the church to get even more, causing such congestion with his commerce that it was very difficult for anyone to reach the little flight of steps up to the platform.

“What I think,” said Monsieur Lheureux (addressing the pharmacist, who was passing him on his way to his seat), “is that they should have set up a pair of Venetian masts there: hung with something a bit severe and sumptuous, it would have made a very pretty sight.”

“Certainly,” answered Homais. “But what can you expect! The mayor took everything into his own hands. He doesn’t have much taste, poor Tuvache, and in fact he hasn’t a trace of what’s called artistic sense.”

Meanwhile, Rodolphe, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to the second floor of the town hall, into the
council chamber
, and since it was empty, he had declared that here they would be in a good position to enjoy the spectacle more comfortably. He took three stools from around the oval table, under the bust of the king, and having brought them over to one of the windows, they sat down side by side.

There was some agitation on the platform, prolonged whisperings,
confabulations. Finally the Councilor stood up. They now knew that his name was Lieuvain, and this name was repeated from one to another in the crowd. After he had checked over several sheets of paper and applied his eye to them the better to see, he began:

“Gentlemen,

“May I first be permitted (before speaking to you about the object of today’s gathering, and this sentiment, I am sure, will be shared by all of you)—may I first be permitted, I say, to pay tribute to the higher administration, the government, the monarch, gentlemen, our sovereign, that beloved king to whom no branch of public or private prosperity is a matter of indifference, and who with a hand at once so firm and so wise guides the Chariot of State amid the unceasing perils of a stormy sea, knowing, moreover, how to command a respect for peace as well as for war, industry, commerce, agriculture, and the fine arts.”

“I really ought,” said Rodolphe, “to move back a bit.”

“Why?” said Emma.

But at this moment, the Councilor’s voice rose to an extraordinary pitch. He was declaiming:

“The time is past, gentlemen, when civil discord bloodied our public squares, when the landowner, the businessman, even the worker, drifting off at night into a peaceful sleep, trembled lest he be brutally awakened by the sound of incendiary alarms, when the most subversive of maxims were boldly undermining the foundations …”

“Because,” Rodolphe went on, “I might be seen from down below; and then I’d have to apologize for the next two weeks, and what with my bad reputation …”

“Oh, you’re slandering yourself!” said Emma.

“No, no, it’s deplorable, I swear.”

“But, gentlemen,” the Councilor went on, “if I dismiss these dark pictures from my memory and return my gaze to the present situation of our fair nation, what do I see? Commerce and the arts are flourishing everywhere; everywhere new lines of communication, like so many new arteries in the State’s body, are establishing new relationships; our great manufacturing centers have resumed their activity; religion, now more firmly established, smiles in every heart; our ports are full, our confidence reborn, and France breathes again at last! …”

“Besides,” added Rodolphe, “perhaps, from society’s point of view, they may be right?”

“How do you mean?” she asked.

“Why, don’t you know,” he said, “that there exist souls who endure endless torment? They are driven now to dream, now to take action, driven to experience the purest passions, then the most extreme joys, and so they hurl themselves into every sort of fantasy, every sort of folly.”

She looked at him, then, the way one contemplates a traveler who has journeyed through mythical lands, and she said:

“We poor women haven’t even that diversion!”

“A sad diversion, for one doesn’t find happiness in it.”

“But can one ever find happiness?” she asked.

“Oh, yes, you happen upon it one day,” he answered.

“And this,” the Councilor was saying, “is what you have come to realize. You farmers and workers of the fields; you peace-loving pioneers in an endeavor so essential to civilization! You men of progress and morality! You have realized, I say, that the storms of politics are truly even more to be feared than the disturbances of the atmosphere …”

“You happen upon it one day,” Rodolphe repeated, “one day, suddenly, when you had despaired of it. Then new horizons open out; it’s like a voice crying, ‘Here it is!’ You feel the need to confide your whole life to this person, to give her everything, to sacrifice everything for her! You don’t have to explain anything; you sense each other’s thoughts. You’ve seen each other in your dreams.” (And he was looking at her.) “Here it is at last, the treasure you’ve been seeking for so long, here it is before you; it shines, it sparkles. Yet still you doubt it, you don’t dare believe in it; you’re still dazzled by it, as if you were coming out of the darkness into the light.”

And as he finished speaking, Rodolphe added pantomime to his words. He passed his hand across his face, like a man overcome with dizziness; then he let it fall on Emma’s hand. She withdrew hers. But the Councilor was still reading:

“And who would be surprised, gentlemen? Only one who is so blind, so deeply immersed (I’m not afraid to say it)—so deeply immersed in the prejudices of another age that he still fails to appreciate the spirit of our farming population. Where, indeed, can one find more patriotism
than in rural areas, more devotion to the common good, more—in a word—intelligence? And by intelligence, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, that vain ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and reasonable intelligence that applies itself above all else to the pursuit of useful goals, contributing thus to the good of every man, to the betterment of all, and to the preservation of the State, fruit of respect for the law and performance of duty …”

“Ah! Again!” said Rodolphe. “They’re always going on about one’s duty—I’m bored to death by the word. They’re a bunch of old drivelers in flannel vests, church hens with foot warmers and rosaries forever singing in our ears: ‘Duty! Duty!’ Lord help me! Our duty is to feel what is great, cherish what is beautiful—not to accept all of society’s conventions, with the humiliations it imposes on us.”

“And yet … and yet …,” objected Madame Bovary.

“No! Why rant against the passions? Aren’t they the only beautiful thing on earth, the source of heroism, enthusiasm, poetry, music, the arts—everything, in fact?”

“But still,” said Emma, “we have to pay some attention to society’s opinions and abide by its morality.”

“Ah! In fact there are two moralities,” he replied. “The petty one, the conventional one, the one devised by men, that keeps changing and bellows so loudly, making a commotion down here among us, in a perfectly pedestrian way, like that gathering of imbeciles you see out there. But the other one, the eternal one, is all around and above us, like the landscape that surrounds us and the blue sky that gives us light.”

Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with his pocket handkerchief. He went on:

“And why would I presume, gentlemen, to demonstrate to you here, today, the usefulness of agriculture? Who furnishes us our needs? Who provides our sustenance? Is it not the farmer? The farmer, gentlemen, who sows with his diligent hand the fecund furrows of our countryside, causes the wheat to sprout, which, ground and reduced to powder by ingenious machinery, emerges under the name of flour, and, thence transported to our cities, is soon delivered to the baker, who creates from it a food for the poor man as well as for the rich. Is it not also the farmer who fattens his plentiful flocks in the pastures to provide us with clothing? For how would we clothe ourselves, how would we feed ourselves, without the
farmer? In fact, gentlemen, is there any need to go even so far in search of examples? Who among you has not reflected many a time on the great benefit we derive from that modest creature, that ornament of our poultry yards, which
furnishes at once a downy pillow for our beds, succulent flesh for our tables, and also eggs? But I would never come to an end if I had to enumerate one after the other all the different products that the earth, when it is well cultivated, lavishes like a generous mother on her children. Here, we have the vineyard; there, the cider orchard; yonder, rapeseed; elsewhere, cheeses; and flax—gentlemen, let us not forget flax! which in recent years has enjoyed a considerable increase, to which I would like most particularly to call your attention.”

He did not need to ask for their attention: for every mouth in the crowd hung open, as though to drink in his words. Tuvache, next to him, was listening wide-eyed; Monsieur Derozerays, from time to time, quietly closed his eyelids; and farther off, the pharmacist, with his son Napoléon between his knees, was cupping his hand around his ear in order not to lose a single syllable. The other members of the jury kept slowly dipping their chins into their vests to signal their approval. The members of the fire brigade, below the platform, were leaning on their bayonets; and Binet stood motionless, his elbow out, the tip of his sword in the air. He could perhaps hear, but he could not have seen anything, because the visor of his helmet was descending onto his nose. His lieutenant, Monsieur Tuvache’s youngest son, had gone even further with his own; for he was wearing one so enormous that it rocked back and forth on his head, allowing the end of his
calico kerchief to protrude. Under it, he was smiling with a quite childlike gentleness, and his pale little face, on which drops of moisture shimmered, wore an expression of drowsy bliss and exhaustion.