Chapter Eight
At last it came, the famous agricultural show. On the morning of
the solemnity all the inhabitants at their doors were chatting
over the preparations. The pediment of the town hall had been
hung with garlands of ivy; a tent had been erected in a meadow
for the banquet; and in the middle of the Place, in front of the
church, a kind of bombarde was to announce the arrival of the
prefect and the names of the successful farmers who had obtained
prizes. The National Guard of Buchy (there was none at Yonville)
had come to join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet was captain.
On that day he wore a collar even higher than usual; and, tightly
buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff and motionless
that the whole vital portion of his person seemed to have
descended into his legs, which rose in a cadence of set steps
with a single movement. As there was some rivalry between the
tax-collector and the colonel, both, to show off their talents,
drilled their men separately. One saw the red epaulettes and the
black breastplates pass and re-pass alternately; there was no end
to it, and it constantly began again. There had never been such a
display of pomp. Several citizens had scoured their houses the
evening before; tri-coloured flags hung from half-open windows;
all the public-houses were full; and in the lovely weather the
starched caps, the golden crosses, and the coloured neckerchiefs
seemed whiter than snow, shone in the sun, and relieved with the
motley colours the sombre monotony of the frock-coats and blue
smocks. The neighbouring farmers' wives, when they got off their
horses, pulled out the long pins that fastened around them their
dresses, turned up for fear of mud; and the husbands, for their
part, in order to save their hats, kept their handkerchiefs
around them, holding one corner between their teeth.
The crowd came into the main street from both ends of the
village. People poured in from the lanes, the alleys, the houses;
and from time to time one heard knockers banging against doors
closing behind women with their gloves, who were going out to see
the fete. What was most admired were two long lamp-stands covered
with lanterns, that flanked a platform on which the authorities
were to sit. Besides this there were against the four columns of
the town hall four kinds of poles, each bearing a small standard
of greenish cloth, embellished with inscriptions in gold letters.
On one was written, "To Commerce"; on the other, "To
Agriculture"; on the third, "To Industry"; and on the fourth, "To
the Fine Arts."
But the jubilation that brightened all faces seemed to darken
that of Madame Lefrancois, the innkeeper. Standing on her
kitchen-steps she muttered to herself, "What rubbish! what
rubbish! With their canvas booth! Do they think the prefect will
be glad to dine down there under a tent like a gipsy? They call
all this fussing doing good to the place! Then it wasn't worth
while sending to Neufchatel for the keeper of a cookshop! And for
whom? For cowherds! tatterdemalions!"
The druggist was passing. He had on a frock-coat, nankeen
trousers, beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a hat with a low
crown.
"Your servant! Excuse me, I am in a hurry." And as the fat widow
asked where he was going--
"It seems odd to you, doesn't it, I who am always more cooped up
in my laboratory than the man's rat in his cheese."
"What cheese?" asked the landlady.
"Oh, nothing! nothing!" Homais continued. "I merely wished to
convey to you, Madame Lefrancois, that I usually live at home
like a recluse. To-day, however, considering the circumstances,
it is necessary--"
"Oh, you're going down there!" she said contemptuously.
"Yes, I am going," replied the druggist, astonished. "Am I not a
member of the consulting commission?"
Mere Lefrancois looked at him for a few moments, and ended by
saying with a smile--
"That's another pair of shoes! But what does agriculture matter
to you? Do you understand anything about it?"
"Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist--that is to
say, a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefrancois,
being the knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action of all
natural bodies, it follows that agriculture is comprised within
its domain. And, in fact, the composition of the manure, the
fermentation of liquids, the analyses of gases, and the influence
of miasmata, what, I ask you, is all this, if it isn't chemistry,
pure and simple?"
The landlady did not answer. Homais went on--
"Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to have
tilled the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary
rather to know the composition of the substances in question--the
geological strata, the atmospheric actions, the quality of the
soil, the minerals, the waters, the density of the different
bodies, their capillarity, and what not. And one must be master
of all the principles of hygiene in order to direct, criticize
the construction of buildings, the feeding of animals, the diet
of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefrancois, one must know
botany, be able to distinguish between plants, you understand,
which are the wholesome and those that are deleterious, which are
unproductive and which nutritive, if it is well to pull them up
here and re-sow them there, to propagate some, destroy others; in
brief, one must keep pace with science by means of pamphlets and
public papers, be always on the alert to find out improvements."
The landlady never took her eyes off the "Cafe Francois" and the
chemist went on--
"Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at least
they would pay more attention to the counsels of science. Thus
lately I myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of over
seventy-two pages, entitled, 'Cider, its Manufacture and its
Effects, together with some New Reflections on the Subject,' that
I sent to the Agricultural Society of Rouen, and which even
procured me the honour of being received among its
members--Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological.
Well, if my work had been given to the public--" But the druggist
stopped, Madame Lefrancois seemed so preoccupied.
"Just look at them!" she said. "It's past comprehension! Such a
cookshop as that!" And with a shrug of the shoulders that
stretched out over her breast the stitches of her knitted bodice,
she pointed with both hands at her rival's inn, whence songs were
heard issuing. "Well, it won't last long," she added. "It'll be
over before a week."
Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and
whispered in his ear--
"What! you didn't know it? There is to be an execution in next
week. It's Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him
with bills."
"What a terrible catastrophe!" cried the druggist, who always
found expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.
Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard
from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's servant, and although she
detested Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was "a wheedler, a
sneak."
"There!" she said. "Look at him! he is in the market; he is
bowing to Madame Bovary, who's got on a green bonnet. Why, she's
taking Monsieur Boulanger's arm."
"Madame Bovary!" exclaimed Homais. "I must go at once and pay her
my respects. Perhaps she'll be very glad to have a seat in the
enclosure under the peristyle." And, without heeding Madame
Lefrancois, who was calling him back to tell him more about it,
the druggist walked off rapidly with a smile on his lips, with
straight knees, bowing copiously to right and left, and taking up
much room with the large tails of his frock-coat that fluttered
behind him in the wind.
Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, but
Madame Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, and,
smiling at her, said in a rough tone--
"It's only to get away from that fat fellow, you know, the
druggist." She pressed his elbow.
"What's the meaning of that?" he asked himself. And he looked at
her out of the corner of his eyes.
Her profile was so calm that one could guess nothing from it. It
stood out in the light from the oval of her bonnet, with pale
ribbons on it like the leaves of weeds. Her eyes with their long
curved lashes looked straight before her, and though wide open,
they seemed slightly puckered by the cheek-bones, because of the
blood pulsing gently under the delicate skin. A pink line ran
along the partition between her nostrils. Her head was bent upon
her shoulder, and the pearl tips of her white teeth were seen
between her lips.
"Is she making fun of me?" thought Rodolphe.
Emma's gesture, however, had only been meant for a warning; for
Monsieur Lheureux was accompanying them, and spoke now and again
as if to enter into the conversation.
"What a superb day! Everybody is out! The wind is east!"
And neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe answered him, whilst at
the slightest movement made by them he drew near, saying, "I beg
your pardon!" and raised his hat.
When they reached the farrier's house, instead of following the
road up to the fence, Rodolphe suddenly turned down a path,
drawing with him Madame Bovary. He called out--
"Good evening, Monsieur Lheureux! See you again presently."
"How you got rid of him!" she said, laughing.
"Why," he went on, "allow oneself to be intruded upon by others?
And as to-day I have the happiness of being with you--"
Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. Then he talked of
the fine weather and of the pleasure of walking on the grass. A
few daisies had sprung up again.
"Here are some pretty Easter daisies," he said, "and enough of
them to furnish oracles to all the amorous maids in the place."
He added, "Shall I pick some? What do you think?"
"Are you in love?" she asked, coughing a little.
"H'm, h'm! who knows?" answered Rodolphe.
The meadow began to fill, and the housewives hustled you with
their great umbrellas, their baskets, and their babies. One had
often to get out of the way of a long file of country folk,
servant-maids with blue stockings, flat shoes, silver rings, and
who smelt of milk, when one passed close to them. They walked
along holding one another by the hand, and thus they spread over
the whole field from the row of open trees to the banquet tent.
But this was the examination time, and the farmers one after the
other entered a kind of enclosure formed by a long cord supported
on sticks.
The beasts were there, their noses towards the cord, and making a
confused line with their unequal rumps. Drowsy pigs were
burrowing in the earth with their snouts, calves were bleating,
lambs baaing; the cows, on knees folded in, were stretching their
bellies on the grass, slowly chewing the cud, and blinking their
heavy eyelids at the gnats that buzzed round them. Plough-men
with bare arms were holding by the halter prancing stallions that
neighed with dilated nostrils looking towards the mares. These
stood quietly, stretching out their heads and flowing manes,
while their foals rested in their shadow, or now and then came
and sucked them. And above the long undulation of these crowded
animals one saw some white mane rising in the wind like a wave,
or some sharp horns sticking out, and the heads of men running
about. Apart, outside the enclosure, a hundred paces off, was a
large black bull, muzzled, with an iron ring in its nostrils, and
who moved no more than if he had been in bronze. A child in rags
was holding him by a rope.
Between the two lines the committee-men were walking with heavy
steps, examining each animal, then consulting one another in a
low voice. One who seemed of more importance now and then took
notes in a book as he walked along. This was the president of the
jury, Monsieur Derozerays de la Panville. As soon as he
recognised Rodolphe he came forward quickly, and smiling amiably,
said--
"What! Monsieur Boulanger, you are deserting us?"
Rodolphe protested that he was just coming. But when the
president had disappeared--
"Ma foi!*" said he, "I shall not go. Your company is better than
his."
*Upon my word!
And while poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move about more easily,
showed the gendarme his blue card, and even stopped now and then in
front of some fine beast, which Madame Bovary did not at all admire.
He noticed this, and began jeering at the Yonville ladies and their
dresses; then he apologised for the negligence of his own. He had that
incongruity of common and elegant in which the habitually vulgar think
they see the revelation of an eccentric existence, of the
perturbations of sentiment, the tyrannies of art, and always a
certain contempt for social conventions, that seduces or
exasperates them. Thus his cambric shirt with plaited cuffs was
blown out by the wind in the opening of his waistcoat of grey
ticking, and his broad-striped trousers disclosed at the ankle
nankeen boots with patent leather gaiters.
These were so polished that they reflected the grass. He trampled
on horses's dung with them, one hand in the pocket of his jacket
and his straw hat on one side.
"Besides," added he, "when one lives in the country--"
"It's waste of time," said Emma.
"That is true," replied Rodolphe. "To think that not one of these
people is capable of understanding even the cut of a coat!"
Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives it
crushed, the illusions lost there.
"And I too," said Rodolphe, "am drifting into depression."
"You!" she said in astonishment; "I thought you very
light-hearted."
"Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the world I know how
to wear the mask of a scoffer upon my face; and yet, how many a
time at the sight of a cemetery by moonlight have I not asked
myself whether it were not better to join those sleeping there!"
"Oh! and your friends?" she said. "You do not think of them."
"My friends! What friends? Have I any? Who cares for me?" And he
accompanied the last words with a kind of whistling of the lips.
But they were obliged to separate from each other because of a
great pile of chairs that a man was carrying behind them. He was
so overladen with them that one could only see the tips of his
wooden shoes and the ends of his two outstretched arms. It was
Lestiboudois, the gravedigger, who was carrying the church chairs
about amongst the people. Alive to all that concerned his
interests, he had hit upon this means of turning the show to
account; and his idea was succeeding, for he no longer knew which
way to turn. In fact, the villagers, who were hot, quarreled for
these seats, whose straw smelt of incense, and they leant against
the thick backs, stained with the wax of candles, with a certain
veneration.
Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe's arm; he went on as if
speaking to himself--
"Yes, I have missed so many things. Always alone! Ah! if I had
some aim in life, if I had met some love, if I had found someone!
Oh, how I would have spent all the energy of which I am capable,
surmounted everything, overcome everything!"
"Yet it seems to me," said Emma, "that you are not to be pitied."
"Ah! you think so?" said Rodolphe.
"For, after all," she went on, "you are free--" she hesitated,
"rich--"
"Do not mock me," he replied.
And she protested that she was not mocking him, when the report
of a cannon resounded. Immediately all began hustling one another
pell-mell towards the village.
It was a false alarm. The prefect seemed not to be coming, and
the members of the jury felt much embarrassed, not knowing if
they ought to begin the meeting or still wait.
At last at the end of the Place a large hired landau appeared,
drawn by two thin horses, which a coachman in a white hat was
whipping lustily. Binet had only just time to shout, "Present
arms!" and the colonel to imitate him. All ran towards the
enclosure; everyone pushed forward. A few even forgot their
collars; but the equipage of the prefect seemed to anticipate the
crowd, and the two yoked jades, trapesing in their harness, came
up at a little trot in front of the peristyle of the town hall at
the very moment when the National Guard and firemen deployed,
beating drums and marking time.
"Present!" shouted Binet.
"Halt!" shouted the colonel. "Left about, march."
And after presenting arms, during which the clang of the band,
letting loose, rang out like a brass kettle rolling downstairs,
all the guns were lowered. Then was seen stepping down from the
carriage a gentleman in a short coat with silver braiding, with
bald brow, and wearing a tuft of hair at the back of his head, of
a sallow complexion and the most benign appearance. His eyes,
very large and covered by heavy lids, were half-closed to look at
the crowd, while at the same time he raised his sharp nose, and
forced a smile upon his sunken mouth. He recognised the mayor by
his scarf, and explained to him that the prefect was not able to
come. He himself was a councillor at the prefecture; then he
added a few apologies. Monsieur Tuvache answered them with
compliments; the other confessed himself nervous; and they
remained thus, face to face, their foreheads almost touching,
with the members of the jury all round, the municipal council,
the notable personages, the National Guard and the crowd. The
councillor pressing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated
his bows, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, also smiled, stammered,
tried to say something, protested his devotion to the monarchy
and the honour that was being done to Yonville.
Hippolyte, the groom from the inn, took the head of the horses
from the coachman, and, limping along with his club-foot, led
them to the door of the "Lion d'Or", where a number of peasants
collected to look at the carriage. The drum beat, the howitzer
thundered, and the gentlemen one by one mounted the platform,
where they sat down in red utrecht velvet arm-chairs that had
been lent by Madame Tuvache.
All these people looked alike. Their fair flabby faces, somewhat
tanned by the sun, were the colour of sweet cider, and their
puffy whiskers emerged from stiff collars, kept up by white
cravats with broad bows. All the waist-coats were of velvet,
double-breasted; all the watches had, at the end of a long
ribbon, an oval cornelian seal; everyone rested his two hands on
his thighs, carefully stretching the stride of their trousers,
whose unsponged glossy cloth shone more brilliantly than the
leather of their heavy boots.
The ladies of the company stood at the back under the vestibule
between the pillars while the common herd was opposite, standing
up or sitting on chairs. As a matter of fact, Lestiboudois had
brought thither all those that he had moved from the field, and
he even kept running back every minute to fetch others from the
church. He caused such confusion with this piece of business that
one had great difficulty in getting to the small steps of the
platform.
"I think," said Monsieur Lheureux to the chemist, who was passing
to his place, "that they ought to have put up two Venetian masts
with something rather severe and rich for ornaments; it would
have been a very pretty effect."
"To be sure," replied Homais; "but what can you expect? The mayor
took everything on his own shoulders. He hasn't much taste. Poor
Tuvache! and he is even completely destitute of what is called
the genius of art."
Rodolphe, meanwhile, with Madame Bovary, had gone up to the first
floor of the town hall, to the "council-room," and, as it was
empty, he declared that they could enjoy the sight there more
comfortably. He fetched three stools from the round table under
the bust of the monarch, and having carried them to one of the
windows, they sat down by each other.
There was commotion on the platform, long whisperings, much
parleying. At last the councillor got up. They knew now that his
name was Lieuvain, and in the crowd the name was passed from one
to the other. After he had collated a few pages, and bent over
them to see better, he began--
"Gentlemen! May I be permitted first of all (before addressing
you on the object of our meeting to-day, and this sentiment will,
I am sure, be shared by you all), may I be permitted, I say, to
pay a tribute to the higher administration, to the government to
the monarch, gentle men, our sovereign, to that beloved king, to
whom no branch of public or private prosperity is a matter of
indifference, and who directs with a hand at once so firm and
wise the chariot of the state amid the incessant perils of a
stormy sea, knowing, moreover, how to make peace respected as
well as war, industry, commerce, agriculture, and the fine arts?"
"I ought," said Rodolphe, "to get back a little further."
"Why?" said Emma.
But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose to an
extraordinary pitch. He declaimed--
"This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil discord
ensanguined our public places, when the landlord, the
business-man, the working-man himself, falling asleep at night,
lying down to peaceful sleep, trembled lest he should be awakened
suddenly by the noise of incendiary tocsins, when the most
subversive doctrines audaciously sapped foundations."
"Well, someone down there might see me," Rodolphe resumed, "then
I should have to invent excuses for a fortnight; and with my bad
reputation--"
"Oh, you are slandering yourself," said Emma.
"No! It is dreadful, I assure you."
"But, gentlemen," continued the councillor, "if, banishing from
my memory the remembrance of these sad pictures, I carry my eyes
back to the actual situation of our dear country, what do I see
there? Everywhere commerce and the arts are flourishing;
everywhere new means of communication, like so many new arteries
in the body of the state, establish within it new relations. Our
great industrial centres have recovered all their activity;
religion, more consolidated, smiles in all hearts; our ports are
full, confidence is born again, and France breathes once more!"
"Besides," added Rodolphe, "perhaps from the world's point of
view they are right."
"How so?" she asked.
"What!" said he. "Do you not know that there are souls constantly
tormented? They need by turns to dream and to act, the purest
passions and the most turbulent joys, and thus they fling
themselves into all sorts of fantasies, of follies."
Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who has
voyaged over strange lands, and went on--
"We have not even this distraction, we poor women!"
"A sad distraction, for happiness isn't found in it."
"But is it ever found?" she asked.
"Yes; one day it comes," he answered.
"And this is what you have understood," said the councillor.
"You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you pacific pioneers of a
work that belongs wholly to civilization! you, men of progress
and morality, you have understood, I say, that political storms
are even more redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances!"
"It comes one day," repeated Rodolphe, "one day suddenly, and
when one is despairing of it. Then the horizon expands; it is as
if a voice cried, 'It is here!' You feel the need of confiding
the whole of your life, of giving everything, sacrificing
everything to this being. There is no need for explanations; they
understand one another. They have seen each other in dreams!"
(And he looked at her.) "In fine, here it is, this treasure so
sought after, here before you. It glitters, it flashes; yet one
still doubts, one does not believe it; one remains dazzled, as if
one went out iron darkness into light."
And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the word. He passed
his hand over his face, like a man seized with giddiness. Then he
let it fall on Emma's. She took hers away.
"And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He only who is so
blind, so plunged (I do not fear to say it), so plunged in the
prejudices of another age as still to misunderstand the spirit of
agricultural populations. Where, indeed, is to be found more
patriotism than in the country, greater devotion to the public
welfare, more intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not
mean that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds,
but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that applies
itself above all else to useful objects, thus contributing to the
good of all, to the common amelioration and to the support of the
state, born of respect for law and the practice of duty--"
"Ah! again!" said Rodolphe. "Always 'duty.' I am sick of the
word. They are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of
old women with foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone
into our ears 'Duty, duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel
what is great, cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the
conventions of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon
us."
"Yet--yet--" objected Madame Bovary.
"No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are they not the one
beautiful thing on the earth, the source of heroism, of
enthusiasm, of poetry, music, the arts, of everything, in a
word?"
"But one must," said Emma, "to some extent bow to the opinion of
the world and accept its moral code."
"Ah! but there are two," he replied. "The small, the
conventional, that of men, that which constantly changes, that
brays out so loudly, that makes such a commotion here below, of
the earth earthly, like the mass of imbeciles you see down there.
But the other, the eternal, that is about us and above, like the
landscape that surrounds us, and the blue heavens that give us
light."
Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with a
pocket-handkerchief. He continued--
"And what should I do here gentlemen, pointing out to you the
uses of agriculture? Who supplies our wants? Who provides our
means of subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? The
agriculturist, gentlemen, who, sowing with laborious hand the
fertile furrows of the country, brings forth the corn, which,
being ground, is made into a powder by means of ingenious
machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour, and from
there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the
baker's, who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. Again,
is it not the agriculturist who fattens, for our clothes, his
abundant flocks in the pastures? For how should we clothe
ourselves, how nourish ourselves, without the agriculturist? And,
gentlemen, is it even necessary to go so far for examples? Who
has not frequently reflected on all the momentous things that we
get out of that modest animal, the ornament of poultry-yards,
that provides us at once with a soft pillow for our bed, with
succulent flesh for our tables, and eggs? But I should never end
if I were to enumerate one after the other all the different
products which the earth, well cultivated, like a generous
mother, lavishes upon her children. Here it is the vine,
elsewhere the apple tree for cider, there colza, farther on
cheeses and flax. Gentlemen, let us not forget flax, which has
made such great strides of late years, and to which I will more
particularly call your attention."
He had no need to call it, for all the mouths of the multitude
were wide open, as if to drink in his words. Tuvache by his side
listened to him with staring eyes. Monsieur Derozerays from time
to time softly closed his eyelids, and farther on the chemist,
with his son Napoleon between his knees, put his hand behind his
ear in order not to lose a syllable. The chins of the other
members of the jury went slowly up and down in their waistcoats
in sign of approval. The firemen at the foot of the platform
rested on their bayonets; and Binet, motionless, stood with
out-turned elbows, the point of his sabre in the air. Perhaps he
could hear, but certainly he could see nothing, because of the
visor of his helmet, that fell down on his nose. His lieutenant,
the youngest son of Monsieur Tuvache, had a bigger one, for his
was enormous, and shook on his head, and from it an end of his
cotton scarf peeped out. He smiled beneath it with a perfectly
infantine sweetness, and his pale little face, whence drops were
running, wore an expression of enjoyment and sleepiness.
The square as far as the houses was crowded with people. One saw
folk leaning on their elbows at all the windows, others standing
at doors, and Justin, in front of the chemist's shop, seemed
quite transfixed by the sight of what he was looking at. In spite
of the silence Monsieur Lieuvain's voice was lost in the air. It
reached you in fragments of phrases, and interrupted here and
there by the creaking of chairs in the crowd; then you suddenly
heard the long bellowing of an ox, or else the bleating of the
lambs, who answered one another at street corners. In fact, the
cowherds and shepherds had driven their beasts thus far, and
these lowed from time to time, while with their tongues they tore
down some scrap of foliage that hung above their mouths.
Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to her in a low
voice, speaking rapidly--
"Does not this conspiracy of the world revolt you? Is there a
single sentiment it does not condemn? The noblest instincts, the
purest sympathies are persecuted, slandered; and if at length two
poor souls do meet, all is so organised that they cannot blend
together. Yet they will make the attempt; they will flutter their
wings; they will call upon each other. Oh! no matter. Sooner or
later, in six months, ten years, they will come together, will
love; for fate has decreed it, and they are born one for the
other."
His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting his face
towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly at her. She noticed
in his eyes small golden lines radiating from black pupils; she
even smelt the perfume of the pomade that made his hair glossy.
Then a faintness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had
waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled like this
air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechanically she
half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. But in making
this movement, as she leant back in her chair, she saw in the
distance, right on the line of the horizon, the old diligence,
the "Hirondelle," that was slowly descending the hill of Leux,
dragging after it a long trail of dust. It was in this yellow
carriage that Leon had so often come back to her, and by this
route down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she saw
him opposite at his windows; then all grew confused; clouds
gathered; it seemed to her that she was again turning in the
waltz under the light of the lustres on the arm of the Viscount,
and that Leon was not far away, that he was coming; and yet all
the time she was conscious of the scent of Rodolphe's head by her
side. This sweetness of sensation pierced through her old
desires, and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind,
eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume which
suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils several times to
drink in the freshness of the ivy round the capitals. She took
off her gloves, she wiped her hands, then fanned her face with
her handkerchief, while athwart the throbbing of her temples she
heard the murmur of the crowd and the voice of the councillor
intoning his phrases. He said--"Continue, persevere; listen
neither to the suggestions of routine, nor to the over-hasty
councils of a rash empiricism.
"Apply yourselves, above all, to the amelioration of the soil, to
good manures, to the development of the equine, bovine, ovine,
and porcine races. Let these shows be to you pacific arenas,
where the victor in leaving it will hold forth a hand to the
vanquished, and will fraternise with him in the hope of better
success. And you, aged servants, humble domestics, whose hard
labour no Government up to this day has taken into consideration,
come hither to receive the reward of your silent virtues, and be
assured that the state henceforward has its eye upon you; that it
encourages you, protects you; that it will accede to your just
demands, and alleviate as much as in it lies the burden of your
painful sacrifices."
Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got up,
beginning another speech. His was not perhaps so florid as that
of the councillor, but it recommended itself by a more direct
style, that is to say, by more special knowledge and more
elevated considerations. Thus the praise of the Government took
up less space in it; religion and agriculture more. He showed in
it the relations of these two, and how they had always
contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame Bovary was
talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going back to the
cradle of society, the orator painted those fierce times when men
lived on acorns in the heart of woods. Then they had left off the
skins of beasts, had put on cloth, tilled the soil, planted the
vine. Was this a good, and in this discovery was there not more
of injury than of gain? Monsieur Derozerays set himself this
problem. From magnetism little by little Rodolphe had come to
affinities, and while the president was citing Cincinnatus and
his plough, Diocletian, planting his cabbages, and the Emperors
of China inaugurating the year by the sowing of seed, the young
man was explaining to the young woman that these irresistible
attractions find their cause in some previous state of existence.
"Thus we," he said, "why did we come to know one another? What
chance willed it? It was because across the infinite, like two
streams that flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had
driven us towards each other."
And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it.
"For good farming generally!" cried the president.
"Just now, for example, when I went to your house."
"To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix."
"Did I know I should accompany you?"
"Seventy francs."
"A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you--I remained."
"Manures!"
"And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my
life!"
"To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!"
"For I have never in the society of any other person found so
complete a charm."
"To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin."
"And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you."
"For a merino ram!"
"But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow."
"To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame."
"Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life,
shall I not?"
"Porcine race; prizes--equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and
Cullembourg, sixty francs!"
Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm and
quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly away; but,
whether she was trying to take it away or whether she was
answering his pressure; she made a movement with her fingers. He
exclaimed--
"Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me! You are good! You
understand that I am yours! Let me look at you; let me
contemplate you!"
A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled the cloth on
the table, and in the square below all the great caps of the
peasant women were uplifted by it like the wings of white
butterflies fluttering.
"Use of oil-cakes," continued the president. He was hurrying on:
"Flemish manure-flax-growing-drainage-long leases-domestic
service."
Rodolphe was no longer speaking. They looked at one another. A
supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and wearily, without
an effort, their fingers intertwined.
"Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot-la-Guerriere,
for fifty-four years of service at the same farm, a silver
medal--value, twenty-five francs!"
"Where is Catherine Leroux?" repeated the councillor.
She did not present herself, and one could hear voices
whispering--
"Go up!"
"Don't be afraid!"
"Oh, how stupid she is!"
"Well, is she there?" cried Tuvache.
"Yes; here she is."
"Then let her come up!"
Then there came forward on the platform a little old woman with
timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within her poor clothes. On
her feet she wore heavy wooden clogs, and from her hips hung a
large blue apron. Her pale face framed in a borderless cap was
more wrinkled than a withered russet apple. And from the sleeves
of her red jacket looked out two large hands with knotty joints,
the dust of barns, the potash of washing the grease of wools had
so encrusted, roughened, hardened these that they seemed dirty,
although they had been rinsed in clear water; and by dint of long
service they remained half open, as if to bear humble witness for
themselves of so much suffering endured. Something of monastic
rigidity dignified her face. Nothing of sadness or of emotion
weakened that pale look. In her constant living with animals she
had caught their dumbness and their calm. It was the first time
that she found herself in the midst of so large a company, and
inwardly scared by the flags, the drums, the gentlemen in
frock-coats, and the order of the councillor, she stood
motionless, not knowing whether to advance or run away, nor why
the crowd was pushing her and the jury were smiling at her.
Thus stood before these radiant bourgeois this half-century of
servitude.
"Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux!" said
the councillor, who had taken the list of prize-winners from the
president; and, looking at the piece of paper and the old woman
by turns, he repeated in a fatherly tone--"Approach! approach!"
"Are you deaf?" said Tuvache, fidgeting in his armchair; and he
began shouting in her ear, "Fifty-four years of service. A silver
medal! Twenty-five francs! For you!"
Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and a smile of
beatitude spread over her face; and as she walked away they could
hear her muttering "I'll give it to our cure up home, to say some
masses for me!"
"What fanaticism!" exclaimed the chemist, leaning across to the
notary.
The meeting was over, the crowd dispersed, and now that the
speeches had been read, each one fell back into his place again,
and everything into the old grooves; the masters bullied the
servants, and these struck the animals, indolent victors, going
back to the stalls, a green-crown on their horns.
The National Guards, however, had gone up to the first floor of
the town hall with buns spitted on their bayonets, and the
drummer of the battalion carried a basket with bottles. Madame
Bovary took Rodolphe's arm; he saw her home; they separated at
her door; then he walked about alone in the meadow while he
waited for the time of the banquet.
The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were so crowded
that they could hardly move their elbows; and the narrow planks
used for forms almost broke down under their weight. They ate
hugely. Each one stuffed himself on his own account. Sweat stood
on every brow, and a whitish steam, like the vapour of a stream
on an autumn morning, floated above the table between the hanging
lamps. Rodolphe, leaning against the calico of the tent was
thinking so earnestly of Emma that he heard nothing. Behind him
on the grass the servants were piling up the dirty plates, his
neighbours were talking; he did not answer them; they filled his
glass, and there was silence in his thoughts in spite of the
growing noise. He was dreaming of what she had said, of the line
of her lips; her face, as in a magic mirror, shone on the plates
of the shakos, the folds of her gown fell along the walls, and
days of love unrolled to all infinity before him in the vistas of
the future.
He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, but she was
with her husband, Madame Homais, and the druggist, who was
worrying about the danger of stray rockets, and every moment he
left the company to go and give some advice to Binet.
The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had, through an
excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, and so the damp
powder would not light, and the principal set piece, that was to
represent a dragon biting his tail, failed completely. Now and
then a meagre Roman-candle went off; then the gaping crowd sent
up a shout that mingled with the cry of the women, whose waists
were being squeezed in the darkness. Emma silently nestled
against Charles's shoulder; then, raising her chin, she watched
the luminous rays of the rockets against the dark sky. Rodolphe
gazed at her in the light of the burning lanterns.
They went out one by one. The stars shone out. A few crops of
rain began to fall. She knotted her fichu round her bare head.
At this moment the councillor's carriage came out from the inn.
His coachman, who was drunk, suddenly dozed off, and one could
see from the distance, above the hood, between the two lanterns,
the mass of his body, that swayed from right to left with the
giving of the traces.
"Truly," said the druggist, "one ought to proceed most rigorously
against drunkenness! I should like to see written up weekly at
the door of the town hall on a board ad hoc* the names of all
those who during the week got intoxicated on alcohol. Besides,
with regard to statistics, one would thus have, as it were,
public records that one could refer to in case of need. But
excuse me!"
*Specifically for that.
And he once more ran off to the captain. The latter was going
back to see his lathe again.
"Perhaps you would not do ill," Homais said to him, "to send one
of your men, or to go yourself--"
"Leave me alone!" answered the tax-collector. "It's all right!"
"Do not be uneasy," said the druggist, when he returned to his
friends. "Monsieur Binet has assured me that all precautions have
been taken. No sparks have fallen; the pumps are full. Let us go
to rest."
"Ma foi! I want it," said Madame Homais, yawning at large. "But
never mind; we've had a beautiful day for our fete."
Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender look, "Oh,
yes! very beautiful!"
And having bowed to one another, they separated.
Two days later, in the "Final de Rouen," there was a long article
on the show. Homais had composed it with verve the very next
morning.
"Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? Whither
hurries this crowd like the waves of a furious sea under the
torrents of a tropical sun pouring its heat upon our heads?"
Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Certainly the
Government was doing much, but not enough. "Courage!" he cried to
it; "a thousand reforms are indispensable; let us accomplish
them!" Then touching on the entry of the councillor, he did not
forget "the martial air of our militia;" nor "our most merry
village maidens;" nor the "bald-headed old men like patriarchs
who were there, and of whom some, the remnants of our phalanxes,
still felt their hearts beat at the manly sound of the drums." He
cited himself among the first of the members of the jury, and he
even called attention in a note to the fact that Monsieur Homais,
chemist, had sent a memoir on cider to the agricultural society.
When he came to the distribution of the prizes, he painted the
joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes. "The father
embraced the son, the brother the brother, the husband his
consort. More than one showed his humble medal with pride; and no
doubt when he got home to his good housewife, he hung it up
weeping on the modest walls of his cot.
"About six o'clock a banquet prepared in the meadow of Monsieur
Leigeard brought together the principal personages of the fete.
The greatest cordiality reigned here. Divers toasts were
proposed: Monsieur Lieuvain, the King; Monsieur Tuvache, the
Prefect; Monsieur Derozerays, Agriculture; Monsieur Homais,
Industry and the Fine Arts, those twin sisters; Monsieur
Leplichey, Progress. In the evening some brilliant fireworks on a
sudden illumined the air. One would have called it a veritable
kaleidoscope, a real operatic scene; and for a moment our little
locality might have thought itself transported into the midst of
a dream of the 'Thousand and One Nights.' "Let us state that no
untoward event disturbed this family meeting." And he added "Only
the absence of the clergy was remarked. No doubt the priests
understand progress in another fashion. Just as you please,
messieurs the followers of Loyola!"
