So Bovary ordered a bandage and a basin, and asked Justin to hold it. Then addressing the peasant, who was already pale – ‘Don’t be afraid, my lad.’
‘No, no, sir,’ said the other; ‘just go on.’
And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. At the prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splashing against the looking-glass.
‘Hold the basin nearer,’ exclaimed Charles.
‘Lor’!’ said the peasant, ‘one would swear it was a little fountain flowing. Fine red blood I’ve got! That’s a good sign, isn’t it?’
‘Sometimes,’ answered the doctor, ‘one feels nothing at first, and then syncope sets in, and especially with people of strong constitution like this man.’
At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was twisting between his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders made the chair-back creak. His hat fell off.
‘I thought as much,’ said Bovary, pressing his finger on the vein.
The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin’s hands; his knees shook, he turned pale.
‘Emma! Emma!’ called Charles.
With one bound she came down the staircase.
‘Some vinegar,’ he cried. ‘O dear! two at once!’
And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress.
‘It is nothing,’ said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, taking Justin in his arms. He seated him on the table with his back resting against the wall.
Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The strings of his shirt had got into a knot, and she was for some minutes moving her light fingers about the young fellow’s neck. Then she poured some vinegar on her cambric handkerchief; she moistened his temples with little dabs, and then blew upon them softly. The ploughman revived, but Justin’s syncope still lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in their pale sclerotics like blue flowers in milk.
‘We must hide this from him,’ said Charles.
Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table. With the movement she made in bending down, her dress (it was a summer dress with four flounces, yellow, long in the waist and wide in the skirt) spread out around her on the flags of the room; and as Emma, stooping, staggered a little as she stretched out her arms, the stuff here and there gave with the curves of her bust. Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and she was melting some pieces of sugar when the chemist arrived. The servant had been to fetch him in the tumult. Seeing his pupil’s eyes staring he drew a long breath; then going around him he looked him up and down.
‘Fool!’ he said, ‘a real little fool! F–O–O–L! A phlebotomy’s a big job, isn’t it! And a fellow who isn’t afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, just like you see them climbing giddy heights to shake down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk to me, boast about yourself! Here’s a fine fitness for practising pharmacy later on; for in serious circumstances you may find yourself before the courts in order to enlighten the minds of the magistrates, and you would have to keep your head then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else pass for an imbecile.’
Justin did not answer. The chemist went on – ‘Who asked you to come? You are always pestering the doctor and madame. On Wednesday, moreover, your presence is indispensable to me. There are now twenty people in the shop. I left everything because of the interest I take in you. Come, get along! Sharp! Wait for me, and keep an eye on the jars.’
When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, they talked for a little while about fainting-fits. Madame Bovary had never fainted.
‘That is extraordinary for a lady,’ said Monsieur Boulanger; ‘but some people are very susceptible. Thus in a duel, I have seen a second lose consciousness at the mere sound of the loading of pistols.’
‘For my part,’ said the chemist, ‘the sight of other people’s blood doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere thought of my own flowing would make me faint if I reflected upon it too much.’
Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, advising him to calm himself, since his fancy was over.
‘It procured me the advantage of making your acquaintance,’ he added, and he looked at Emma as he said this. Then he put three francs on the corner of the table, bowed negligently, and went out.
He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the meadow, walking under the poplars, slackening his pace now and then as one who reflects.
‘She is very pretty,’ he said to himself; ‘she is very pretty, this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, a dainty foot, a figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the devil does she come from? Wherever did this fat fellow pick her up?’
Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he was of brutal temperament and intelligent perspicacity, moreover, he had had much to do with women, and knew them well. This one had struck him as pretty; so he was thinking about her and her husband.
‘I should say he was extremely stupid. She is tired of him, no doubt. He has dirty nails, and hasn’t shaved for three days. While he is trotting after his patients, she sits there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. Poor little woman! She is gasping for love like a carp for water on a kitchen-table. With three words of gallantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be tender, charming. Yes; but how get rid of her afterwards?’
Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the distance made him by contrast think of his mistress. She was an actress at Rouen, whom he kept; and when he had pondered over this image, with which, even in remembrance, he was satiated – ‘Ah! Madame Bovary,’ he thought, ‘is much prettier, especially fresher. Virginie is decidedly beginning to grow too stout. She is so finicky with her pleasures; and, besides, she has a mania for prawns.’
The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only heard the regular beating of the grass striking against his boots, with a cry of the grasshopper hidden at a distance among the oats. He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her and he undressed her.
‘Oh, I will have her,’ he cried, striking a blow with his stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the political part of the enterprise. He asked himself – ‘Where shall we meet? And how? We shall always be having the brat on our hands, and the servant, the neighbours, the husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! it would all waste too much time.’
Then he resumed, ‘Really, she has eyes that pierce your heart like a gimlet. And that pallor! I adore pale women!’
When he reached the top of the Argueil hills he had made up his mind. ‘It’s only finding the opportunities. Well, I will call in now and then. I’ll send them venison, poultry; I’ll have myself bled, if need be. We shall become friends; I’ll invite them to my place. By Jove!’ he added, ‘there’s the agricultural show coming on. She’ll be there. I’ll see her. We’ll begin, and boldly too; that’s the surest way.’
8
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 mortar was to be fired to mark the prefect’s arrival and give notice that the names of the farmers who obtained prizes would be announced. 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, they both drilled their men separately, to show off their talents. One saw the red epaulettes and the black breastplates passing and repassing alternately; it was never-ending, and always starting again. Never had there been such a display of pomp. Several citizens had scoured their houses the evening before; tricoloured flags hung from the 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 their 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 entered the main street from each end 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, wearing their gloves, who were going out to see the fête. 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 Lefrançois, 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 gypsy? They call all this fussing doing good to the place! Then it wasn’t worth while sending to Neufchâtel 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.
