At last Leon swore he would not see Emma again, and he reproached himself with not having kept his word, considering all the worry and lectures this woman might still draw down upon him, without reckoning the jokes made by his companions as they sat round the stove in the morning. Besides, he was soon to be head clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, has believed himself capable of immense passions, of lofty enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the debris of a poet.
He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob on his breast, and his heart, like the people who can only stand a certain amount of music, dozed to the sound of a love whose delicacies he no longer noted.
They knew one another too well for any of those surprises of possession that increase its joys a hundredfold. She was as sick of him as he was weary of her. Emma found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage.
But how to get rid of him? Then, though she might feel humiliated at the baseness of such enjoyment, she clung to it from habit or from corruption, and each day she hungered after them the more, exhausting all felicity in wishing for too much of it. She accused Leon of her baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even longed for some catastrophe that would bring about their separation, since she had not the courage to make up her mind to it herself.
She none the less went on writing him love letters, in virtue of the notion that a woman must write to her lover.
But whilst she wrote it was another man she saw, a phantom fashioned out of her most ardent memories, of her finest reading, her strongest lusts, and at last he became so real, so tangible, that she palpitated wondering, without, however, the power to imagine him clearly, so lost was he, like a god, beneath the abundance of his attributes. He dwelt in that azure land where silk ladders hang from balconies under the breath of flowers, in the light of the moon. She felt him near her; he was coming, and would carry her right away in a kiss.
Then she fell back exhausted, for these transports of vague love wearied her more than great debauchery.
She now felt constant ache all over her. Often she even received summonses, stamped paper that she barely looked at. She would have liked not to be alive, or to be always asleep.
On MidLent she did not return to Yonville, but in the evening went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches, red stockings, a club wig, and three-cornered hat cocked on one side. She danced all night to the wild tones of the trombones; people gathered round her, and in the morning she found herself on the steps of the theatre together with five or six masks, debardeuses* and sailors, Leon’s comrades, who were talking about having supper.
* People dressed as longshoremen.
The neighbouring cafes were full. They caught sight of one on the harbour, a very indifferent restaurant, whose proprietor showed them to a little room on the fourth floor.
The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt consorting about expenses. There were a clerk, two medical students, and a shopman — what company for her! As to the women, Emma soon perceived from the tone of their voices that they must almost belong to the lowest class. Then she was frightened, pushed back her chair, and cast down her eyes.
The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head was on fire, her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. In her head she seemed to feel the floor of the ballroom rebounding again beneath the rhythmical pulsation of the thousands of dancing feet. And now the smell of the punch, the smoke of the cigars, made her giddy. She fainted, and they carried her to the window.
Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour broadened out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine hills. The livid river was shivering in the wind; there was no one on the bridges; the street lamps were going out.
She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep yonder in the servant’s room. Then a cart filled with long strips of iron passed by, and made a deafening metallic vibration against the walls of the houses.
She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, told Leon she must get back, and at last was alone at the Hotel de Boulogne. Everything, even herself, was now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking wing like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions of purity, and there grow young again.
She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cauchoise, and the Faubourg, as far as an open street that overlooked some gardens. She walked rapidly; the fresh air calming her; and, little by little, the faces of the crowd, the masks, the quadrilles, the lights, the supper, those women, all disappeared like mists fading away. Then, reaching the “Croix-Rouge,” she threw herself on the bed in her little room on the second floor, where there were pictures of the “Tour de Nesle.” At four o’clock Hivert awoke her.
When she got home, Felicite showed her behind the clock a grey paper. She read —
“In virtue of the seizure in execution of a judgment.”
What judgment? As a matter of fact, the evening before another paper had been brought that she had not yet seen, and she was stunned by these words —
“By order of the king, law, and justice, to Madame Bovary.” Then, skipping several lines, she read, “Within twenty-four hours, without fail — ” But what? “To pay the sum of eight thousand francs.” And there was even at the bottom, “She will be constrained thereto by every form of law, and notably by a writ of distraint on her furniture and effects.”
What was to be done? In twenty-four hours — tomorrow. Lheureux, she thought, wanted to frighten her again; for she saw through all his devices, the object of his kindnesses. What reassured her was the very magnitude of the sum.
However, by dint of buying and not paying, of borrowing, signing bills, and renewing these bills that grew at each new falling-in, she had ended by preparing a capital for Monsieur Lheureux which he was impatiently awaiting for his speculations.
She presented herself at his place with an offhand air.
“You know what has happened to me? No doubt it’s a joke!”
“How so?”
He turned away slowly, and, folding his arms, said to her —
“My good lady, did you think I should go on to all eternity being your purveyor and banker, for the love of God? Now be just. I must get back what I’ve laid out. Now be just.”
She cried out against the debt.
“Ah! so much the worse. The court has admitted it. There’s a judgment. It’s been notified to you. Besides, it isn’t my fault. It’s Vincart’s.”
“Could you not — ?”
“Oh, nothing whatever.”
“But still, now talk it over.”
And she began beating about the bush; she had known nothing about it; it was a surprise.
“Whose fault is that?” said Lheureux, bowing ironically. “While I’m slaving like a nigger, you go gallivanting about.”
“Ah! no lecturing.”
“It never does any harm,” he replied.
She turned coward; she implored him; she even pressed her pretty white and slender hand against the shopkeeper’s knee.
“There, that’ll do! Anyone’d think you wanted to seduce me!”
“You are a wretch!” she cried.
“Oh, oh! go it! go it!”
“I will show you up. I