Madame Bovary (45 page)

When she returned home, Félicité showed her a gray sheet of paper behind the clock. She read:

“In accordance with the written instrument, in formal execution of a judgment …”

What judgment? In fact, another paper had been delivered the day before, of which she had no knowledge; and so she was stupefied by the following words:

“Madame Bovary is hereby commanded by order of the king, the law, and the courts …”

Then, skipping a few lines, she saw:

“Within not more than twenty-four hours.”—What? “To pay the total sum of eight thousand francs.” And there was even, lower down: “To this she shall be constrained by every legal recourse, and notably by the seizure of her furniture and effects.”

What was she to do? … Within twenty-four hours; tomorrow! Lheureux, she thought, no doubt wanted to frighten her again; for she suddenly understood all his maneuvers, the purpose behind his obliging manner. What reassured her was the very exaggeration of the sum.

Yet, by dint of buying, never paying, borrowing, signing notes, then renewing those notes, which increased each time they came due, she had ended by amassing for Sieur Lheureux a capital that he was awaiting impatiently, to use in his speculations.

She presented herself at his shop with a casual air.

“Do you know what’s happened to me? It must be a joke!”

“No.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned away slowly and said, crossing his arms:

“Did you think, my dear lady, that I was going to serve as your outfitter and banker for all eternity simply for the love of God? I must recover my outlay—let’s be fair!”

She exclaimed over the debt.

“Too bad! The court has acknowledged it! There’s been a judgment! You were notified! Besides, it isn’t me, it’s Vinçart.”

“But couldn’t you possibly …”

“Not a thing!”

“But … still … let’s talk it over.”

And she cast about for excuses; she had known nothing … it was a surprise …

“Whose fault is that?” said Lheureux, bowing to her ironically. “I slave like a Negro, and you’re out kicking up your heels.”

“Ah! Don’t moralize!”

“It never hurts,” he replied.

She was craven, she begged him; and she even laid her pretty long, white hand on the merchant’s knee.

“Don’t touch me! One would think you were trying to seduce me!”

“You’re a scoundrel!” she cried.

“Oh, oh! How you do go on!” he answered, laughing.

“I’ll tell everyone what you are. I’ll tell my husband …”

“Well, I have something to show him—your husband!”

And Lheureux took from his strongbox the receipt for eighteen hundred francs that she had given him at the time of the Vinçart discount.

“Do you think,” he added, “that he won’t understand your little theft, the poor dear fellow?”

She collapsed, more stunned than if she had been hit over the head with a club. He was walking back and forth between the window and the desk, saying over and over:

“Oh, I’ll show it to him … I’ll show it to him …”

Then he approached her, and, in a soft voice:

“It’s not funny, I know; yet no one has ever died of it, and since it’s the only way you have left to pay me back my money …”

“But where will I find it?” said Emma, wringing her hands.

“Oh, nonsense! With as many friends as you have … !”

And he gave her a look so shrewd and so terrible that she shuddered to the depths of her being.

“I promise you,” she said, “I’ll sign …”

“I’ve had enough of your signatures!”

“I’ll sell …”

“Come now!” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “you’ve nothing left.”

And he called through the peephole that opened into the shop:

“Annette! Don’t forget the three remnants of number fourteen.”

The servant appeared; Emma understood and asked how much money he would need to stop all the proceedings.

“It’s too late!”

“But what if I brought you a few thousand francs, a quarter of the sum, a third, almost all of it?”

“No! It’s no use!”

He pushed her gently toward the stairs.

“I beg you, Monsieur Lheureux, just a few more days!”

She was sobbing.

“Ah, that’s good! Tears!”

“You’re driving me to despair!”

“I really don’t care!” he said, closing the door behind her.

She was stoical, the next day, when Maître Hareng, the bailiff, presented himself at her house with two witnesses to draw up the inventory of the seizure.

They began with Bovary’s consulting room and did not write down the phrenological head, which was considered a
tool of his profession;
but in the kitchen they counted the plates, the pots, the chairs, the candlesticks, and, in her bedroom, every knickknack on the étagère. They examined her dresses, the linen, the dressing room; and her life itself, down to its most private recesses, was spread out at full length, like a cadaver being autopsied, under the eyes of these three men.

Maître Hareng, buttoned up in a thin black coat, wearing a white cravat and very tight shoe straps, repeated from time to time:

“If you’ll allow me, madame? If you’ll allow me?”

He often exclaimed:

“Charming! … Very pretty!”

Then he would go back to writing, dipping his pen in the horn inkwell he held in his left hand.

When they were finished with the other rooms, they went up to the attic.

She kept a desk there in which Rodolphe’s letters were locked up. It had to be opened.

“Ah! A correspondence!” said Maître Hareng with a discreet smile. “But if you’ll allow me … ! For I must make sure the box does not contain anything else.”

And he tilted the papers slightly, as though to make some napoleons fall out of them. She was seized with indignation at the sight of that thick, red hand, its fingers soft as slugs, resting on those pages in which her very heart had beaten.

At last they left! Félicité came back. She had sent her to keep watch and intercept Bovary; and they quickly installed the bailiff’s watchman up under the roof, where he swore he would remain.

During the evening, Charles seemed to her careworn. Emma studied him with an anguished gaze, believing she could read accusations in the wrinkles on his face. Then, when her eyes rested again on the mantelpiece decorated with Chinese screens, on the wide drapes, the armchairs, all
those things that had sweetened the bitterness of her life, she would be overcome with remorse, or, rather, with a vast regret that stimulated her passion rather than killing it. Charles placidly poked the fire, his feet on the andirons.

At one moment the watchman, probably growing bored in his hiding place, made a slight noise.

“Is someone walking around up there?” said Charles.

“No!” she answered. “An attic window’s been left open, it’s blowing in the wind.”

She set off for Rouen the following day, a Sunday, in order to call on all the bankers whose names she knew. They were in the country or away on a trip. She did not give up; and those whom she was able to meet, she asked for money, protesting that she needed it, that she would pay it back. Some of them laughed in her face; all of them refused her.

At two o’clock, she hurried to Léon’s place, knocked on his door. No one opened. At last he appeared.

“What brings you here?”

“Does it bother you?”

“No … but …”

And he confessed that the landlord did not like them to entertain “women.”

“I have to talk to you,” she said.

Then he reached for his key. She stopped him.

“No! At our place.”

And they went to their room at the Hôtel de Boulogne.

As soon as she got there, she drank a large glass of water. She was very pale. She said:

“Léon, you have to do me a favor.”

And, shaking him by his two hands, which she was squeezing tight, she added:

“Listen, I need eight thousand francs!”

“You’re out of your mind!”

“Not yet!”

And immediately, telling him all about the seizure, she revealed the trouble she was in; for Charles was ignorant of everything, her mother-in-law detested her, Père Rouault could do nothing; but he, Léon, must set about finding this indispensable sum …

“How do you expect me to … ?”

“How spineless you’re being!” she exclaimed.

Then he said stupidly:

“You’re exaggerating how bad it is. Perhaps with a thousand ecus your man would calm down.”

All the more reason to try something; they couldn’t possibly fail to locate three thousand francs. Besides, Léon could sign for it instead of her.

“Go on! Try! You must! Hurry! … Oh, try! Try! I will love you so much!”

He went out, came back after an hour, and said with a solemn face:

“I went to three people … no use!”

They sat face-to-face, on either side of the fireplace, motionless, silent. Emma was shrugging her shoulders and tapping her feet impatiently. Then he heard her murmur:

“If I were in your place, I would certainly know where to find it!”

“Well, where?”

“In your office!”

And she looked at him.

A diabolical boldness emanated from her burning eyes, and her lids lowered in a lascivious and encouraging manner; —so that the young man felt himself weakening under the mute will of this woman who was urging him to commit a crime. Then he was afraid, and, in order to avoid further explanations, he struck himself on the forehead, exclaiming:

“Morel is supposed to come back tonight! He won’t refuse me, I hope.” (This was one of his friends, the son of a wealthy businessman.) “And I’ll bring it to you tomorrow,” he added.

Emma did not seem to greet this hope with as much joy as he had imagined. Did she suspect he was lying? Blushing, he went on:

“But if you don’t see me by three, don’t wait any longer, dear. I have to go, forgive me. Goodbye!”

He clasped her hand, but it felt quite inert to him. Emma no longer had the strength to feel anything.

Four o’clock chimed; and she rose to go back to Yonville, obeying, like an automaton, the force of her habits.

The weather was fine; it was one of those clear, raw March days when the sun shines from a pure, cloudless sky. The people of Rouen in their
Sunday best were out for a walk, looking happy. She reached the place du Parvis. People were coming from vespers; the crowd was pouring out through the three doors like a river through the three arches of a bridge, and among them, stiller than a rock, stood the verger.

Then she remembered the day when, anxious and full of hope, she had entered that great nave, which, extending before her, was not as deep as her love; and she walked on, weeping under her veil, dazed, faltering, nearly fainting.

“Look out!” shouted a voice from behind a carriage gate as it opened.

She stopped to make way for a black horse that came out prancing between the shafts of a tilbury driven by a gentleman in sable furs. Who was it? She knew him … The carriage plunged forward and disappeared.

Why, it was he, the Vicomte! She turned back: the street was deserted. And she was so stricken, so sad, that she leaned against a wall to keep from falling.

Then she thought she had been mistaken. The truth was, she had no idea. Everything, within and outside her, was abandoning her. She felt lost, tumbling haphazardly through indefinable chasms; and it was almost with joy that she saw, when she reached the Croix Rouge, good old Homais watching as a large box full of pharmaceutical supplies was loaded onto the
Hirondelle.
In his hand he held, wrapped in a scarf, six
cheminots
for his wife.

Madame Homais was very fond of these heavy little turban-shaped loaves that are eaten with salted butter during Lent: a last relic of Gothic food, dating back perhaps to the century of the Crusades, and one with which the robust Normans used to stuff themselves, believing that before them on the table, in the light of their yellow torches, between the jugs of hippocras and the giant slabs of pork, lay the heads of Saracens waiting to be devoured. The apothecary’s wife would chomp them heroically, like the Normans, despite her deplorable set of teeth; and so, each time Monsieur Homais went to town, he did not fail to bring some back to her, buying them always from the great baker in the rue Massacre.

“Charmed to see you!” he said, offering Emma his hand to help her into the
Hirondelle
.

Then he hung the
cheminots
from the thin straps of the baggage net
and sat there bareheaded, his arms folded, in a posture both pensive and Napoleonic.

But when the Blind Man appeared as usual at the foot of the hill, he exclaimed:

“I can’t understand why the authorities continue to tolerate such dishonest occupations! These unfortunate creatures ought to be locked up and forced to do some sort of work! Progress, upon my word, moves at the pace of a tortoise! We’re wallowing in utter barbarity!”

The Blind Man was holding out his hat, and it swung to and fro at the edge of the carriage window like a pucker of tapestry that had come loose from its tack.

“That,” said the pharmacist, “is a scrofulous disease!”

And though he knew the poor devil, he pretended to be seeing him for the first time, murmured the words “cornea,” “opaque cornea,” “sclerotic,” “facies,” then asked him in a fatherly tone:

“Have you had this dreadful infirmity for long, my friend? Instead of getting drunk in cafés, you’d do better to follow a regimen.”

He urged him to take only good wine and good beer and to eat good roast meat. The Blind Man continued his song; he seemed, in fact, nearly imbecilic. At last, Monsieur Homais opened his purse.

“Here—here’s a sou; give me back two liards; and don’t forget my advice; you’ll find you’re better off for it.”

Hivert allowed himself to voice some doubts as to its efficacy. But the apothecary guaranteed he would cure the man himself, with an antiphlogistic salve of his own making, and he gave his address:

“Monsieur Homais, near the market, well enough known thereabouts.”

“Now, in return for our trouble,” said Hivert, “you’ll
perform your act
.”