Madame Bovary | Page 5

his moustache, his fingers always garnished with rings and
dressed in loud colours, he had the dash of a military man with the easy go of a

commercial traveller.
Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife's fortune, dining well, rising
late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming in at night till after the theatre, and
haunting cafes. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, "went in
for the business," lost some money in it, then retired to the country, where he thought he
would make money.
But, as he knew no more about farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of
sending them to plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest
poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not
long in finding out that he would do better to give up all speculation.
For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the border of the provinces of Caux
and Picardy, in a kind of place half farm, half private house; and here, soured, eaten up
with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of everyone, he shut himself up at the age of
forty-five, sick of men, he said, and determined to live at peace.
His wife had adored him once on a time; she had bored him with a thousand servilities
that had only estranged him the more. Lively once, expansive and affectionate, in
growing older she had become (after the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to
vinegar) ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so much without complaint
at first, until she had seem him going after all the village drabs, and until a score of bad
houses sent him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted.
After that she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till
her death. She was constantly going about looking after business matters. She called on
the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills fell due, got them renewed, and at
home ironed, sewed, washed, looked after the workmen, paid the accounts, while he,
troubling himself about nothing, eternally besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only
roused himself to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by the fire and spitting into
the cinders.
When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. When he came home, the lad was
spoilt as if he were a prince. His mother stuffed him with jam; his father let him run about
barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, even said he might as well go about quite naked
like the young of animals. As opposed to the maternal ideas, he had a certain virile idea
of childhood on which he sought to mould his son, wishing him to be brought up hardily,
like a Spartan, to give him a strong constitution. He sent him to bed without any fire,
taught him to drink off large draughts of rum and to jeer at religious processions. But,
peaceable by nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His mother always kept
him near her; she cut out cardboard for him, told him tales, entertained him with endless
monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming nonsense. In her life's isolation she
centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high
station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, settled as an engineer or in the law.
She taught him to read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him two or three little
songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary, caring little for letters, said, "It was not worth
while. Would they ever have the means to send him to a public school, to buy him a

practice, or start him in business? Besides, with cheek a man always gets on in the
world." Madame Bovary bit her lips, and the child knocked about the village.
He went after the labourers, drove away with clods of earth the ravens that were flying
about. He ate blackberries along the hedges, minded the geese with a long switch, went
haymaking during harvest, ran about in the woods, played hop-scotch under the church
porch on rainy days, and at great fetes begged the beadle to let him toll the bells, that he
might hang all his weight on the long rope and feel himself borne upward by it in its
swing. Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was strong on hand, fresh of colour.
When he was twelve years old his mother had her own way; he began lessons. The cure
took him in hand; but the lessons were so short