Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert (read novels website txt) 📖

in her cot or Bovary snored more loudly, and Emma did not fall asleep till morning, when the dawn whitened the windows, and when little Justin was already in the square taking down the shutters of the chemist’s shop.

She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux, and had said to him⁠—

“I want a cloak⁠—a large lined cloak with a deep collar.”

“You are going on a journey?” he asked.

“No; but⁠—never mind. I may count on you, may I not, and quickly?”

He bowed.

“Besides, I shall want,” she went on, “a trunk⁠—not too heavy⁠—handy.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. About three feet by a foot and a half, as they are being made just now.”

“And a travelling bag.”

“Decidedly,” thought Lheureux, “there’s a row on here.”

“And,” said Madame Bovary, taking her watch from her belt, “take this; you can pay yourself out of it.”

But the tradesman cried out that she was wrong; they knew one another; did he doubt her? What childishness!

She insisted, however, on his taking at least the chain, and Lheureux had already put it in his pocket and was going, when she called him back.

“You will leave everything at your place. As to the cloak”⁠—she seemed to be reflecting⁠—“do not bring it either; you can give me the maker’s address, and tell him to have it ready for me.”

It was the next month that they were to run away. She was to leave Yonville as if she was going on some business to Rouen. Rodolphe would have booked the seats, procured the passports, and even have written to Paris in order to have the whole mail-coach reserved for them as far as Marseilles, where they would buy a carriage, and go on thence without stopping to Genoa. She would take care to send her luggage to Lheureux whence it would be taken direct to the Hirondelle, so that no one would have any suspicion. And in all this there never was any allusion to the child. Rodolphe avoided speaking of her; perhaps he no longer thought about it.

He wished to have two more weeks before him to arrange some affairs; then at the end of a week he wanted two more; then he said he was ill; next he went on a journey. The month of August passed, and, after all these delays, they decided that it was to be irrevocably fixed for the 4th September⁠—a Monday.

At length the Saturday before arrived.

Rodolphe came in the evening earlier than usual.

“Everything is ready?” she asked him.

“Yes.”

Then they walked round a garden-bed, and went to sit down near the terrace on the kerbstone of the wall.

“You are sad,” said Emma.

“No; why?”

And yet he looked at her strangely in a tender fashion.

“It is because you are going away?” she went on; “because you are leaving what is dear to you⁠—your life? Ah! I understand. I have nothing in the world! you are all to me; so shall I be to you. I will be your people, your country; I will tend, I will love you!”

“How sweet you are!” he said, seizing her in his arms.

“Really!” she said with a voluptuous laugh. “Do you love me? Swear it then!”

“Do I love you⁠—love you? I adore you, my love.”

The moon, full and purple-coloured, was rising right out of the earth at the end of the meadow. She rose quickly between the branches of the poplars, that hid her here and there like a black curtain pierced with holes. Then she appeared dazzling with whiteness in the empty heavens that she lit up, and now sailing more slowly along, let fall upon the river a great stain that broke up into an infinity of stars; and the silver sheen seemed to writhe through the very depths like a heedless serpent covered with luminous scales; it also resembled some monster candelabra all along which sparkled drops of diamonds running together. The soft night was about them; masses of shadow filled the branches. Emma, her eyes half closed, breathed in with deep sighs the fresh wind that was blowing. They did not speak, lost as they were in the rush of their reverie. The tenderness of the old days came back to their hearts, full and silent as the flowing river, with the softness of the perfume of the syringas, and threw across their memories shadows more immense and more sombre than those of the still willows that lengthened out over the grass. Often some night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting out on the hunt, disturbed the lovers, or sometimes they heard a ripe peach falling all alone from the espalier.

“Ah! what a lovely night!” said Rodolphe.

“We shall have others,” replied Emma; and, as if speaking to herself: “Yet, it will be good to travel. And yet, why should my heart be so heavy? Is it dread of the unknown? The effect of habits left? Or rather⁠—? No; it is the excess of happiness. How weak I am, am I not? Forgive me!”

“There is still time!” he cried. “Reflect! perhaps you may repent!”

“Never!” she cried impetuously. And coming closer to him: “What ill could come to me? There is no desert, no precipice, no ocean I would not traverse with you. The longer we live together the more it will be like an embrace, every day closer, more heart to heart. There will be nothing to trouble us, no cares, no obstacle. We shall be alone, all to ourselves eternally. Oh, speak! Answer me!”

At regular intervals he answered, “Yes⁠—Yes⁠—” She had passed her hands through his hair, and she repeated in a childlike voice, despite the big tears which were falling, “Rodolphe! Rodolphe! Ah! Rodolphe! dear little Rodolphe!”

Midnight struck.

“Midnight!” said she. “Come, it is tomorrow. One day more!”

He rose to go; and as if the movement he made had been the signal for their flight, Emma said, suddenly assuming a gay air⁠—

“You have the passports?”

“Yes.”

“You are forgetting nothing?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Certainly.”

“It is at the Hôtel de Provence, is it not, that you will wait for me at midday?”

He nodded.

“Till tomorrow then!” said Emma in a last