Madame Bovary | Page 8

and parleyed for some time
with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie came
downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after the other. The man left his
horse, and, following the servant, suddenly came in behind her. He pulled out from his
wool cap with grey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly to
Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it. Natasie, standing near the bed,
held the light. Madame in modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back.
This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged Monsieur Bovary to come
immediately to the farm of the Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the
Bertaux was a good eighteen miles across country by way of Longueville and
Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior was afraid of accidents for her
husband. So it was decided the stable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three
hours later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet him, and show him the way
to the farm, and open the gates for him.
Towards four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up in his cloak, set out for
the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the warmth of his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet
trot of his horse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of those holes surrounded
with thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows, Charles awoke with a start, suddenly
remembered the broken leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. The rain
had stopped, day was breaking, and on the branches of the leafless trees birds roosted
motionless, their little feathers bristling in the cold morning wind. The flat country
stretched as far as eye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at long intervals
seemed like dark violet stains on the cast grey surface, that on the horizon faded into the
gloom of the sky.
Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary, and, sleep coming upon
him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, his recent sensations blending with memories, he
became conscious of a double self, at once student and married man, lying in his bed as
but now, and crossing the operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of poultices
mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the
curtain-rods of the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he came
upon a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch.
"Are you the doctor?" asked the child.

And on Charles's answer he took his wooden shoes in his hands and ran on in front of
him.
The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from his guide's talk that Monsieur
Rouault must be one of the well-to-do farmers.
He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from a Twelfth-night feast at
a neighbour's. His wife had been dead for two years. There was with him only his
daughter, who helped him to keep house.
The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.
The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge, disappeared; then he came back to the
end of a courtyard to open the gate. The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to
stoop to pass under the branches. The watchdogs in their kennels barked, dragging at
their chains. As he entered the Bertaux, the horse took fright and stumbled.
It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the top of the open doors, one could
see great cart-horses quietly feeding from new racks. Right along the outbuildings
extended a large dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, while amidst fowls and
turkeys, five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois farmyards, were foraging on the top
of it. The sheepfold was long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand. Under the
cart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with their whips, shafts and harnesses
complete, whose fleeces of blue wool were getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from
the granaries. The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with trees set out symmetrically,
and the chattering noise of a flock of geese was heard near the pond.
A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces came to the threshold of the
door to receive Monsieur Bovary, whom she led to the kitchen, where a large fire was
blazing. The servant's breakfast was boiling beside it in small pots