Madame Bovary (49 page)

Homais was blossoming with pride in his role as Amphitryon, and
the distressing thought of Bovary contributed vaguely to his pleasure, by causing him to reflect selfishly on his own situation. Moreover, the presence of the doctor intoxicated him. He was displaying his erudition, making confused and hasty references to cantharides, the upas tree, the manchineel, the viper.

“And I’ve even read, Doctor, about certain people who were discovered to have been poisoned—quite struck down—by blood sausages that had been too thoroughly fumigated! At least, so says a very fine report composed by one of our leading pharmaceutists, one of our masters, the illustrious Cadet de Gassicourt!”

Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those unsteady contrivances heated with spirits of alcohol; for Homais insisted on making his coffee at the table, having, moreover, torrefied it himself, triturated it himself, and compounded it himself.

“
Saccharum
, Doctor,” he said, offering some sugar.

Then he sent for all his children to come downstairs, curious to hear the surgeon’s opinion of their constitutions.

At last, as Monsieur Larivière was about to leave, Madame Homais asked him for a consultation concerning her husband. His blood was thickening because he fell asleep every evening after dinner.

“Oh! It isn’t his
blood
that’s thick.”

And smiling a little at this joke, which went unnoticed, the doctor opened the door. But the pharmacy was teeming with people; and he had great difficulty managing to free himself of Sieur Tuvache, who was afraid his wife would get an inflammation of the lungs because of her habit of spitting in the ashes; then Monsieur Binet, who sometimes experienced keen hunger pangs, and Madame Caron, who had tingling sensations; Lheureux, who had dizzy spells; Lestiboudois, who had rheumatism; Madame Lefrançois, who had acidity of the stomach. At last the three horses dashed away, and it was generally felt that he had not been at all obliging.

The attention of the public was distracted by the appearance of Monsieur Bournisien, who was crossing the market with the holy oil.

Homais, in deference to his principles, likened priests to crows attracted by the smell of the dead; the sight of a clergyman was personally unpleasant to him, for a soutane made him think of a shroud, and he detested the one partly out of a horror of the other.

Nevertheless, not shrinking from what he called
his mission
, he returned to Bovary’s house in company with Canivet, whom Monsieur Larivière, before leaving, had strongly urged to stay, and had it not been for his wife’s remonstrances, he would even have taken his two sons along with him, in order to accustom them to grave situations, so that they would have a lesson, an example, a solemn tableau that would later remain in their minds.

The bedroom, when they entered, was full of a melancholy solemnity. On the sewing table, now covered with a white napkin, there were five or six little balls of cotton in a silver dish, near a large crucifix between two lighted candlesticks. Emma’s chin was sunk against her chest, her eyes inordinately wide open; and her poor hands wandered over the sheets with that hideous gentle motion of the dying, who seem already to be trying to cover themselves with their shrouds. Pale as a statue, his eyes red as coals, Charles, no longer weeping, stood facing her at the foot of the bed, while the priest, resting on one knee, was mumbling some words in a low voice.

She slowly turned her face and seemed overcome with joy at the sudden sight of the violet stole, no doubt reexperiencing, in the midst of this extraordinary feeling of peace, the lost ecstasy of her first mystical yearnings, alongside the first visions of eternal beatitude.

The priest rose to take up the crucifix; at that, she strained her neck forward like someone who is thirsty, and, pressing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she laid upon it with all her expiring strength the most passionate kiss of love she had ever given. Then he recited the
Misereatur
and the
Indulgentiam
, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began the unctions: first on the eyes, which had so coveted all earthly splendors; then on the nostrils, so greedy for mild breezes and the smells of love; then on the mouth, which had opened to utter lies, which had moaned with pride and cried out in lust; then on the hands, which had so delighted in the touch of smooth material; and lastly on the soles of the feet, which had once been so quick when she hastened to satiate her desires and which now would never walk again.

The curé wiped his fingers, threw the oil-soaked bits of cotton into the fire, and returned to sit down beside the dying woman to tell her that she should now join her sufferings with those of Jesus Christ and give herself up to divine mercy.

Finishing his exhortations, he tried to put a blessed taper into her hand, symbol of the heavenly glories by which she would soon be surrounded. Emma was too weak and could not close her fingers; had it not been for Monsieur Bournisien, the taper would have fallen to the floor.

Yet she was no longer as pale, and her face bore an expression of serenity, as if the sacrament had cured her.

The priest did not fail to point this out; he even explained to Bovary that the Lord would sometimes prolong people’s lives when He judged it advisable for their salvation; and Charles remembered another day when, as now, she had been close to dying and had received Communion.

“Perhaps one shouldn’t give up hope,” he thought.

Indeed, she looked all around her, slowly, like someone waking from a dream; then, in a distinct voice, she asked for her mirror, and she remained bent over it for some time, until large tears ran down from her eyes. Then she tipped her head back with a sigh and sank down onto the pillow.

At once her chest began rising and falling rapidly. Her tongue protruded at full length from her mouth; her rolling eyes grew paler, like the globes of two lamps about to go out, so that one would have thought she was already dead, except for the frightening, accelerating motion of her ribs, which were shaken by her furious breathing, as if her soul were leaping up to break free. Félicité knelt in front of the crucifix, and even the pharmacist bent a little at the knees, while Monsieur Canivet looked vaguely out at the square. Bournisien had resumed praying, his face leaning against the edge of the bed, his long black soutane trailing out behind him into the room. Charles was on the other side, on his knees, his arms reaching out to Emma. He had taken her hands and he was squeezing them, shuddering at each beat of her heart as at the tremors of a collapsing ruin. As the death rattle grew louder, the clergyman hastened his prayers; they mingled with
Bovary’s muffled sobs; and at times everything seemed drowned out by the muted murmur of the Latin syllables, which tolled like a passing bell.

Suddenly they heard the noise of heavy wooden shoes on the sidewalk below and the scraping of a stick; and a voice rose, a harsh voice, singing:

Emma sat up like a corpse galvanized, her hair loose, her eyes fixed and wide open.

“The Blind Man!” she cried out.

And Emma began to laugh a horrible, frantic, despairing laugh, thinking she saw the hideous face of the wretched man looming like terror itself in the darkness of eternity.

A convulsion flung her down on the mattress. They all drew near. She had ceased to exist.

After a person dies, a sort of stupefaction settles in, always, so difficult is it to comprehend this sudden advent of nothingness and to resign oneself to believing in it. But when he saw how still she was, Charles threw himself on her crying:

“Goodbye! Goodbye!”

Homais and Canivet took him out of the room.

“Control yourself!”

“All right,” he said, struggling, “I’ll be reasonable, I won’t do any harm. But leave me alone! I want to see her! She’s my wife!”

And he wept.

“Weep,” said the pharmacist. “Let nature take its course. It will bring you relief!”

Now weaker than a child, Charles allowed himself be led downstairs, into the parlor, and soon Monsieur Homais returned home.

On the Square, he was accosted by the Blind Man, who had dragged
himself all the way to Yonville in hope of the antiphlogistic salve and was asking each person who passed where the apothecary lived.

“Come, now! As if I didn’t have other dogs to whip! It’s just too bad—come back another time!”

And he hurried into the pharmacy.

He had to write two letters, prepare a calmative potion for Bovary, think of a lie that could hide the poisoning, and compose an article about it for
Le Fanal
, not to mention the people who were waiting for news from him; and when the Yonvillians had all heard his story, of how she had mistaken arsenic for sugar while making a vanilla custard, Homais returned once more to Bovary’s house.

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had just left), sitting in the armchair by the window and staring with an idiotic gaze at the stone floor of the room.

“What you’ve got to do now,” said the pharmacist, “is decide on a time for the ceremony.”

“Why? What ceremony?”

Then, in a frightened stammer:

“Oh, no! Really—no! I want to keep her.”

Homais, to cover his embarrassment, took a carafe from the étagère and began watering the geraniums.

“Oh, thank you!” said Charles. “You’re so kind!”

And he broke off, suffocating under the abundance of memories that the pharmacist’s gesture recalled.

Then, to distract him, Homais thought it appropriate to talk a little horticulture; plants needed humidity. Charles bowed his head in agreement.

“Anyway, the warm weather will be returning now.”

“Ah!” said Bovary.

The apothecary, out of ideas, quietly parted the little curtains at the window.

“Why, there’s Monsieur Tuvache going by.”

Charles repeated mechanically:

“Monsieur Tuvache going by.”

Homais did not dare talk to him again about the funeral arrangements; it was the clergyman who managed to resign him to it.

He shut himself in his office, took up a pen, and, after having sobbed for some time, he wrote:

I want her to be buried in her wedding dress, with white shoes on, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread over her shoulders; three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, one of lead. No one is to say anything to me, I will be strong enough. Cover her entirely with a large piece of green velvet. This is what I want. Do it.

The gentlemen were very surprised by Bovary’s romantic ideas, and the pharmacist immediately went to him and said:

“The velvet seems to me supererogatory. Not to mention the expense …”

“Is it any concern of yours?” exclaimed Charles. “Leave me alone! You didn’t love her! Get out!”

The clergyman took him by the arm and led him out for a walk around the garden. He discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. God was great, God was good; one should submit without a murmur to his decrees, one should even thank him.

Charles burst out in blasphemies.

“I loathe him—your God!”

“The spirit of rebellion is still in you,” said the clergyman with a sigh.

Bovary was far away. He was striding along the wall next to the espalier, and he was grinding his teeth, looking up at heaven with curses in his eyes; but not even a leaf moved.

A light rain was falling. Charles, whose chest was bare, finally began to shiver; he went back inside and sat down in the kitchen.

At six o’clock, a rattling sound could be heard in the Square: it was the
Hirondelle
arriving; and he remained there with his forehead against the windowpanes, watching all the passengers get out one after the other. Félicité put a mattress down for him in the parlor; he threw himself on it and slept.

Though a rationalist, Monsieur Homais respected the dead. And so, without harboring any resentment toward poor Charles, he returned that
evening to watch beside the body, bringing three books with him, and a portfolio, in order to take notes.

Monsieur Bournisien was already there, and two tall tapers were burning by the side of the bed, which had been pulled out of the alcove.

The apothecary, who found the silence oppressive, soon offered a few laments concerning the “unfortunate young woman”; and the priest answered that all one could do now was pray for her.

“Still,” said Homais, “it’s one of two things: either she died in a state of grace (as it is expressed by the church) and therefore has no need of our prayers; or she died impenitent (that is, I think, the ecclesiastical expression), in which case …”

Bournisien interrupted him, replying in a surly tone that one had to pray all the same.

“But,” objected the pharmacist, “since God is aware of all our needs, what can be the use of prayer?”

“What!” exclaimed the clergyman. “Prayer! So you’re not a Christian?”

“Forgive me!” said Homais. “I admire Christianity. In the first place, it freed the slaves, it introduced a moral code into the world …”

“It’s not about that! All the texts …”

“Oh! Oh! The texts! Just open your history book; everyone knows they were falsified by the Jesuits.”

Charles came in and, walking to the bed, he slowly pulled back the curtains.

Emma’s head was leaning on her right shoulder. The corner of her mouth, which was open, made a sort of black hole in the lower part of her face; her thumbs were bent in toward the palms of her hands; a kind of white dust was sprinkled over her lashes; and her eyes were beginning to disappear in a viscous pallor that resembled a thin cloth, as if spiders had been spinning cobwebs over them. The sheet sagged from her breasts to her knees, rising again at the tips of her toes; and it seemed to Charles that an infinite mass, an enormous weight, was pressing down on her.