Chapter Four
Leon soon put on an air of superiority before his comrades,
avoided their company, and completely neglected his work.
He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote to her. He
called her to mind with all the strength of his desires and of
his memories. Instead of lessening with absence, this longing to
see her again grew, so that at last on Saturday morning he
escaped from his office.
When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the valley below the
church-spire with its tin flag swinging in the wind, he felt that
delight mingled with triumphant vanity and egoistic tenderness
that millionaires must experience when they come back to their
native village.
He went rambling round her house. A light was burning in the
kitchen. He watched for her shadow behind the curtains, but
nothing appeared.
Mere Lefrancois, when she saw him, uttered many exclamations. She
thought he "had grown and was thinner," while Artemise, on the
contrary, thought him stouter and darker.
He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, without the
tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting for the "Hirondelle,"
had definitely put forward his meal one hour, and now he dined
punctually at five, and yet he declared usually the rickety old
concern "was late."
Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the doctor's
door. Madame was in her room, and did not come down for a quarter
of an hour. The doctor seemed delighted to see him, but he never
stirred out that evening, nor all the next day.
He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind the garden in
the lane; in the lane, as she had the other one! It was a stormy
night, and they talked under an umbrella by lightning flashes.
Their separation was becoming intolerable. "I would rather die!"
said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, weeping. "Adieu! adieu!
When shall I see you again?"
They came back again to embrace once more, and it was then that
she promised him to find soon, by no matter what means, a regular
opportunity for seeing one another in freedom at least once a
week. Emma never doubted she should be able to do this. Besides,
she was full of hope. Some money was coming to her.
On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow curtains with
large stripes for her room, whose cheapness Monsieur Lheureux had
commended; she dreamed of getting a carpet, and Lheureux,
declaring that it wasn't "drinking the sea," politely undertook
to supply her with one. She could no longer do without his
services. Twenty times a day she sent for him, and he at once put
by his business without a murmur. People could not understand
either why Mere Rollet breakfasted with her every day, and even
paid her private visits.
It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning of winter,
that she seemed seized with great musical fervour.
One evening when Charles was listening to her, she began the same
piece four times over, each time with much vexation, while he,
not noticing any difference, cried--
"Bravo! very goodl You are wrong to stop. Go on!"
"Oh, no; it is execrable! My fingers are quite rusty."
The next day he begged her to play him something again.
"Very well; to please you!"
And Charles confessed she had gone off a little. She played wrong
notes and blundered; then, stopping short--
"Ah! it is no use. I ought to take some lessons; but--" She bit
her lips and added, "Twenty francs a lesson, that's too dear!"
"Yes, so it is--rather," said Charles, giggling stupidly. "But it
seems to me that one might be able to do it for less; for there
are artists of no reputation, and who are often better than the
celebrities."
"Find them!" said Emma.
The next day when he came home he looked at her shyly, and at
last could no longer keep back the words.
"How obstinate you are sometimes! I went to Barfucheres to-day.
Well, Madame Liegard assured me that her three young ladies who
are at La Misericorde have lessons at fifty sous apiece, and that
from an excellent mistress!"
She shrugged her shoulders and did not open her piano again. But
when she passed by it (if Bovary were there), she sighed--
"Ah! my poor piano!"
And when anyone came to see her, she did not fail to inform them
she had given up music, and could not begin again now for
important reasons. Then people commiserated her--
"What a pity! she had so much talent!"
They even spoke to Bovary about it. They put him to shame, and
especially the chemist.
"You are wrong. One should never let any of the faculties of
nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my good friend, that by
inducing madame to study; you are economising on the subsequent
musical education of your child. For my own part, I think that
mothers ought themselves to instruct their children. That is an
idea of Rousseau's, still rather new perhaps, but that will end
by triumphing, I am certain of it, like mothers nursing their own
children and vaccination."
So Charles returned once more to this question of the piano. Emma
replied bitterly that it would be better to sell it. This poor
piano, that had given her vanity so much satisfaction--to see it
go was to Bovary like the indefinable suicide of a part of
herself.
"If you liked," he said, "a lesson from time to time, that
wouldn't after all be very ruinous."
"But lessons," she replied, "are only of use when followed up."
And thus it was she set about obtaining her husband's permission
to go to town once a week to see her lover. At the end of a month
she was even considered to have made considerable progress.
