BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY GASTON BATY
Madame Bovary
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2010, 2012 by Frank J. Morlock
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For Doctor Inger Rosner,
for saving my kidney,
and probably my life—
with sincere gratitude
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Homais
Madame Lefrançois
Hippolyte
Binet
Abbé Bournisien
Léon
Serving Girl
Lheureux
Charles Bovary
Félicité
Emma Bovary
Madame Homais
Justin
The Beauties
Madame Caron
Rodolphe
Gérard
ACT I, SCENE 1
The Inn of the Golden Lion at Yonville L’Abbaye. An evening in March 1840.
The owner, Madame Lefrançois, comes and goes, bustling about. Mr. Homais warms his back standing before the large fireplace. Homais is all dressed in black, with green slippers and a velour bonnet with a gold tassel.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Polyte! Polyte! Bring the twigs. Stop what you are doing, and bring up the brandy. Hurry up!
HIPPOLYTE
(from a distance) It’s coming.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
If I only knew what dessert to offer the company you are expecting.
(Voices of two men singing in the adjoining room)
VOICES
So long as one can do it, toodaloo.
We will dance, falala.
So long as one can do it
We will drink,
Sing,
And love
Young wenches
So long as we can do it, toodaloooo.
We will dance, falalaaa.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Good Heavens! There they are starting their racket all over.
HOMAIS
You entertain guests who do not breed melancholy. I heard them from my laboratory.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
The wagon drivers who brought the belongings of your physician. Imagine, Mr. Homais, that since then they’ve drunk eight pots of cider and had fifteen games of billiards.
VOICE
Double or nothing.
ANOTHER VOICE
Four-ball—corner pocket!
(Noise of billiard balls hitting each other. Applause.)
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Why, they’re going to tear up my billiard table.
HOMAIS
Maybe that will get you to buy a new billiard table.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
A new billiard table!
HOMAIS
You must keep up with the times, Madame Lefrançois. Amateurs want straight pockets on the billiard table. And they have the idea, for example, of setting up a patriotic tournament for Poland, or the victims of the flood in Lyon.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
But it’s so useful for me to arrange my wash! And in the hunting season I put up as many as six travelers!
HIPPOLYTE (enters with faggots on his shoulders; he limps)
Here’s the brushwood.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Put it on the kitchen fire.
VOICE
Seven!
ANOTHER VOICE
How many did you say?
FIRST VOICE
Seven. Let’s see. Double strike and two balls.
SECOND VOICE
Seven.
HIPPOLYTE
I’m going to pull the wire.
HOMAIS
It’s idle for you to say, Madame Lefrançois, that the infirmity with which this poor lad is afflicted doesn’t trouble him in the exercise of his profession.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
It doesn’t prevent him from running after girls.
HOMAIS
Not to mention his hideous limp, accompanied by a disgraceful balance in the lumbar region, is a thing that may keep travelers who are particularly squeamish from the Golden Lion.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Do you truly think that, Mr. Homais? (six o’clock strikes on the large clock)
Six o’clock and the Swallow hasn’t arrived yet. So long as Hivert hasn’t broken a wheel, the way he did last month on the side of Bois-Guillame!
HOMAIS
Are you delaying your gentlemen’s dinner by waiting for him?
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
And what would Mr. Binet say! He has no equal for punctuality! And with that he’s squeamish over nothing and difficult with cider. He sometimes comes at 7:30 and barely looks at what he eats.
HOMAIS
There’s lots of difference between a notary clerk who received some education and an old rifleman become a tutor
(The clock chimes six times again. Binet enters: Prussian Blue coat falling straight around his body, grey pants, a leather cap on the top of his head held in place by cords.)
BINET
Servant.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Good evening, Mr. Binet. Would you like me to set your place here?
BINET
No—as usual.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
There are some salesmen installed in the billiard room.
BINET
That’s your business. Make them decamp.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Fine. I’ll go see.
BINET
Hold on! Cook that trout for me.
MADAME LEFRANÇOIS
Where’d you catch it?
BINET
In the Rieule. Near the mills.
(Madame