The story takes place during the 1840s in a French provincial town. Charles Bovary, a dull man and a mediocre doctor, marries Emma, a gorgeous young woman. Emma was brought up on a farm and educated in a convent. She looks forward, through marriage, to exciting changes from her humdrum reality. Soon after she asks herself an alarming question:
Oh, why, dear God, did I marry him?1Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary: Provincial Lives, trans. Geoffery Wall (London and New York: Penguin, 1992), 41.
Quickly, she despises everything he stands for and starts feeling utterly bored. Charles tries to appease her by moving into a bigger town, Yonville. In preparation for their move, we see a harbinger of what is to come:
[A]s she was tidying a drawer in readiness to leave, she pricked her finger on something. It was the wire in her wedding-bouquet. The orange-blossom was yellow with dust, and the silver-fringed satin ribbons were fraying at the edges. She threw it on to the fire. It burst into flame quicker than dry straw. Then it was like a red bush on the cinders, being gradually eaten away. She watched it burning.2Ibid., 63.
She gives birth to a little girl but her life continues to be boring. She meets a young sophisticated man, Léon, who lives with the family of the local pharmacist, Monsieur Homais. They cultivate a friendship which turns into something deeper:
She found him charming; she couldn’t shake him off; she remembered his other gestures from other days, phrases he had used, the sound of his voice, everything about him; and she repeated, pouting her lips as for a kiss:
— Yes, charming! Charming!… And in love? She asked herself. In love with?…With me!
The evidence was instantly obvious to her, her heart leaped. The flame in the hearth cast on the ceiling a trembling joyful glow. She turned on to her back and spread wide her arms.
Then began the eternal lamentation:
— Oh! If only heaven had willed it! And why not? What prevented it… 3Ibid., 95.
Emma is feeling overwhelmed by her desire for Léon, and her dissatisfication with domestic life with her husband. She decides to seek help at the church. However, the priest, Father Bournisien, turns out to be useless to her. Her despair is so severe that she is physically and visibly ill. The priest however never gives her an opportunity to talk about what ailed her. His advice to her before he walked away:
“It’s indigestion, I expect? You ought to be at home, Madame Bovary, with a nice cup of tea; it’ll pick you up, or a glass of cold water with some brown sugar.” 4Ibid., 105.
Léon loves Emma too but he’s growing tired with her obsession with him. He’s young and he looks forward to other relationships he could have in Paris where he’s moving to study law. After he departs, Emma can’t stop thinking about him and regrets having not sexually surrendered to him:
He was gone, the only light of her life, her only hope of happiness! Why had she not seized that joy when it came to her? Why had she not held it fast, knelt to it, when it tried to escape? And she cursed herself for not having loved Léon; she thirsted for his lips. She felt an impulse to run after him, to throw herself into his arms, to say: ‘Here I am, I’m yours!’ 5Ibid., 114-115.
The love flame for Léon eventually dies and Emma is back to being constantly depressed. She’s losing patience and acting unpredictably with her own family. Her young daughter becomes a forgotten-about character in the story. Charles feels helpless and discusses the matter with his mother. According to his mom, the blame lies squarely on absence of religion in his wife’s life, along with the “bad” fictional books she reads. These are the things straying her away from being a good wife:
Busy reading novels, wicked books, things written against religion where priests are made a mockery with speeches taken from Voltaire. It all leads to no good, my poor boy, and anyone with no religion always comes to a bad end. 6Ibid., 117.
Charles is too cowardly to discuss the matter with his wife, so his mother decides to get involved and put an end to what might have been Emma’s only safe escape from reality:
Therefore, it was decided to prevent Emma from reading novels. This was by no means an easy matter. The old lady took it upon herself: on her way through Rouen she was to call in person at the lending library and notify them that Emma was cancelling her subscription. Would they not have the right to tell the police, if the librarian still persisted in his poisonous trade? 7Ibid.
Soon she meets a 34-year old rich womanizer, Rodolphe Boulanger. Unlike the romantic Léon, he is a wealthy seducer. He could sense that she is a good target:
She is rather nice! he was saying to himself; she is very nice, that doctor’s wife. Lovely teeth, dark eyes, a dainty little foot, and the style of a Parisienne. Where the devil did she come from? Where did [her husband] find her, that great oaf?
…
Three words of gallantry and she’d adore you, I’m sure of it. She would be tender, charming… Yes, but how do we get rid of her afterwards? 8Ibid., 120.
During the town’s annual agricultural fair, she sees Rodolphe again. As the crowded fair goes on, they have an argument about conventional moral standards versus individual whims, he shoots his arrows:
— Why castigate the passions? Are they not the only beautiful thing there is on earth, the source of heroism, enthusiasm, poetry, music, art and of everything?
— But we must sometimes, said Emma, heed the opinions of other people and accept their morality.
— Oh, the thing is there are two moralities, he replied. The little conventional one that men have made up, one that’s endlessly changing and that brays so fiercely, makes such a fuss down here in the world, like that mob of imbeciles you see there. But the other morality, the eternal one, is all about and above, like the fields around us and the blue sky that gives light. 9Ibid., 134.
How smooth he is! Next, he takes her away from the crowds and makes his move:
Look at us for instance, he said, why did we meet? By what decree of Fate? It must be because, across the void, like two rivers irresistibly converging, our unique inclinations have been pushing us towards one another.
And now he took her hand; she didn’t take it back again.
…
Rodolphe gripped her hand, and he felt it warm and trembling like a captive turtle dove that strives to take wing again; but, whether she was trying to disentangle it or whether she was responding to his pressure, her fingers moved; he exclaimed:
— Oh, thank you! You are not repulsing me! You are so sweet. You realize that I am yours. Permit me to see you, to gaze upon you!
…
They were looking at one another. A supreme desire set their parched lips trembling; and soothingly, easily their fingers entwined.10Ibid., 137-139.
To kindle her desire for him, he avoids her for six weeks. Then he visits her in her house. She receives him with frigidity out of anger for being away. He explains himself:
— Yes, I think continually of you!… Memories of you break my heart!… Oh, no! forgive me!… I shall leave… Farewell!… I shall go far away… so far that you will never hear tell of me again!… And yet… today… some peculiar force drove me to you! Oh, why struggle against Fate… Why resist the angels smiling! Why not yield to what is beautiful and charming and adorable!
…
But, he continued, though I haven’t visited you, though I could not see you, oh! I have at least communed deeply with things around you. In the night, every single night, I would leave my bed, make my way here, and gaze upon your house, the roof shining in the moonlight, the trees in the garden swaying under your window, and a little lamp, a light, shining through the windows, in the shadow. You never knew that out there, so near and so far, there was a poor wretch…
She turned to him with a sob.
— How good you are! she said
— No, I love you, it’s very simple. 11Ibid., 144.
She must have felt dizzy listening to those words for the first time in her life. That’s the talk she always found in sentimental novels and always thirsted for. Her husband walks in. Rodolphe asks his permission to take Emma horse riding. (Nice touch from the author!) Emma tried to object but her dumb husband intervenes (from this point onward her husband is not only unaware, but also facilitating):
Why don’t you accept Monsieur Boulanger’s proposition? It is most gracious.12Ibid., 145.
On a forest glade, they stop and he sweet-talks her again, but this time things take a different turn:
In my soul you are like a madonna on a pedestal, in a high place, secure and immaculate. But I need you to stay alive. I need your eyes, your voice, your thoughts. Be my friend, my sister, my angel!
And he reached out his arm and put it around her waist. Gently she tried to free herself. He held her like this, as they walked.
But they heard the two horses cropping the leaves.
— Oh! Not yet, said Rodolphe. We’re not going yet! Stay!
He guided her further along, around a little pool, where the duckweed lay green on the surface. Rotting water lilies floated, stuck among the reeds. At the sound of their steps in the grass, frogs sprang away into hiding.
— I mustn’t. I mustn’t, she kept saying. I’m mad to listen to you.
— Why?… Emma! Emma!
— Oh! Rodolphe!… Slowly the woman spoke his name, leaning on his shoulder.
The woollen stuff of her dress caught on the velvet of his jacket, she stretched back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and, swooning, blind with tears, with a deep shudder as she hid her face, she yielded. 13Ibid., 149.
That was the first scene of infidelity in the book. Ironically the first salacious part in the book follows Rodolphe’s comparison of her to the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
She goes home. The full-fledged affair brings excitement to her soul. It shows on her face. Her clueless husband compliments her on how she looks healthier.
But, when she looked in the mirror, she was startled by her own face. Never had she had eyes so large, so black, so mysterious. Something subtle, transfiguring, was surging through her.
She kept saying to herself: ‘I have a lover! A lover!’, savouring this idea just as if a second puberty had come upon her. At last, she was to know the pleasures of love, that fever of happiness which she had despaired of. She was entering something marvelous where everything would be passion, ecstasy, delirium. 14Ibid., 150.
She summoned the heroines from the books she had read, and the lyric host of these unchaste women began their chorus in her memory, sister-voices, enticing her. She merged into her own imaginings, playing a real part, realizing the long dream of her youth, seeing herself as one of the great lovers she had so long envied. Indeed, Emma felt the satisfaction of revenge. Had she not suffered enough? This was her moment of triumph, and love, so long sealed in, poured out in a copious fizzing rush. She savoured it without remorse, without anxiety, without worry.
The next day passed in strange sweet doings. Solemn promises were made. She told him the story of her sorrows; Rodolphe stopped her with his kisses; and, watching him with eyes half shut, she insisted that he speak her name again, that he repeat the words of love. It was in the forest, as on the day before, in a clog-makers’ hut. The walls were made of thatch, and the roof came so low that hey had to stoop. They were sitting close to each other on a bed of dry leaves. 15Ibid., 151.
Emma is now seeing Rodolphe regularly. As soon as Charles leaves, she rushes down the stairs to go see her lover. She’s no longer acting cautiously to cover up the affair.
Rodophe is growing tired of her romantic fantasies. He is using her for sexual pleasure while she is falling too seriously in love with him.
[S]he was becoming rather sentimental. They have had to exchange miniatures; great handfuls of hair had been cut off; and now she was insisting on a ring, an actual wedding-ring, as a symbol of eternal alliance. 16Ibid., 157.
He admonishes her for being careless about their affair. In a way, he’s hoping to get rid of her. Over time, their relationship turns cold then they become indifferent to each other. For a brief time, she attempts instead to pay attention to her own home and family.
It was not long before she realizes that she still finds her husband disgusting, then she renews her affair with Rodolphe. She wrote him a note which prompted him to see her. The note had said:
[S]he was feeling bored, that her husband was odious and life was awful!
— And what can I do about that? he exclaimed one day, impatiently.
— Ah! If you wanted!…
She was sitting on the floor, between his knees, her hair unfastened, blankness in her eyes.
— What is it? said Rodolphe.
She gave a sigh.
— We could go away and live somewhere…together…17Ibid., 173.
He thought it was a wild idea, then he changed the subject. The affair carried on…
This tenderness was, indeed, steadily nourished by the disgust she felt for her husband. The more she gave herself to the one, the more she loathed the other; never did Charles seem to her so unpleasant, to have such stubby fingers, such a dull mind, such common habits, as when they sat together after her meetings with Rodolphe. Even as she was playing the wife and the woman of virtue, she was kindled by the image of that head with its black curls hanging over the sunburned brow, that body so robust and still so elegant in form, that man endowed with such experience in reason, with such fierceness in desire. It was for him she shaped her nails with all the care of an engraver; for him there was never enough lotion upon her skin, never enough patchouli on her handkerchiefs. She bedecked herself with bracelets, rings, necklaces. When he was coming, she replenished the roses in her two great vases made of blue glass, and arranged her room and her person just like a courtesan awaiting a prince. 18Ibid.
She reaffirms her love for him:
I love you! she went on, love you so much I can’t live without you, did you realize? Sometimes I’m longing to see you again and the furies of love pull me apart. I say to myself, ‘Where is he? Talking to other women, perhaps? They’re smiling at him, he comes closer…’ No! it’s not like that, is it? I am the only one, aren’t I? Some are more beautiful; but me, I’m a better love! I’m your slave and your concubine! You’re my king, my idol! You are good! Beautiful! Intelligent! Strong! 19Ibid., 177.
She is so careless now about hiding her infidelity that the whole town knew about it:
There was insolence in her eyes, her speech was freer, she even had the audacity to parade with Monsieur Rodolphe, cigarette in mouth, just to vex people; in the end, those who still had doubts could doubt no longer when she was seen, one day, stepping down from the Hirondelle, squeezed into a tight waistcoat, looking like a man; and the elder Madame Bovary, who had come to take refuge with her son, after a frightful scene with her husband, was not the least scandalized among the respectable wives. Various other things displeased her: firstly Charles had not listened to her advice about the prohibition of novels; and the tone of the house upset her. 20Ibid., 178.
One day, she requests that Rodolphe sees her urgently:
Her eyes, full of tears, sparkled like flames beneath the waves; her breast heaved fast; never had he felt such love for her; that was when he lost his head and he said to her:
— What’s to be done? What do you want?
— Take me away! she cried. Carry me off! Oh! I beg you!
And she took his lips, as if to pluck there the unforeseen consent that was exhaled in his kiss.
— But… Rodolphe began.
— What is it?
— Your little girl?
She reflected a few moments, and replied:
— We’ll take her with us, there’s no alternative! 21Ibid., 179.
He does’t respond in the affirmative or otherwise. But he knows he has to walk away from that affair. He writes her a melodramatic farewell letter, complete with romantic phrases and fake smudges of tears from a glass of water. She collapsed emotionally upon reading it. She was in such a shock that she wanted to jump out of a window:
She had leaned herself up against the window-frame and was reading the letter again, sneering with rage. […] Who was to stop her? She was free. And she edged forwards, she looked down at the pavement, saying to herself:
— Do it! Do it! 22Ibid., 190.
Then the voice of her husband calling on her shook her out of that sudden suicidal despair and she backed away.
Emma’s health is deteriorating. Homais, the pharmacist, suggests that Charles takes her to the theatre in Rouen. Father Bournisien objects and argues with the pharmacist about its morality:
(We’ll see those two characters argue later about religion. In the novel, both are portrayed negatively and as counterpoints. Homais is a pompous pharmacist who hypocritically claims to be religious but never stops denouncing religion. Bournisien is a good-natured, simple priest who’s also dogmatic, unintelligent and has no idea how to use faith to actually help people. He represents clergy of Flaubert’s time and, to some extent, our time too.)
— Certainly! continued Homais, there is bad literature just as there is bad pharmacy; but to condemn wholesale the most important of the fine arts strikes me as asinine, a barbarous idea, worthy of the infamous century that put Galileo in prison.
— I know very well, objected the priest, that there is good writing, good authors; even so, if only for the fact of persons of a different sex gathered in elegant surroundings, gilded with worldly pomp, and those heathen disguises, the grease-paint, the torch-light, the effeminate voices, in the end it begets a certain libertine mood and inspires unclean thoughts, impure longings. That at least is the opinion of all the Fathers. […] if the church has condemned theatrical shows, it’s because she knows best; we must bow down to her decrees.
[…]
— The Bible is just the same; there are… you know… some rather juicy… details, things… really… tasty.
And, seeing Monsieur Bournisien’s gesture of irritation:
You would agree that it isn’t a book to put into the hands of any young person, and I should be vexed if Athalie [his own daughter]…
— But it’s the Protestants, and not us, shouted the other impatiently, who recommend the Bible! [Until the 20th century the Bible which was in Latin was not meant to be read by common Catholics.] — No matter! said Homais, I’m surprised, in this day and age, in this enlightened century, that anyone still persists in denouncing an intellectual relaxation which is inoffensive, morally sound and sometimes even hygienic, not so, doctor?23Ibid., 202-203.
As usual, Charles is afraid to offend anyone, so he doesn’t join the argument but he decides to take her to the opera.
There, she’s having a great time. She is only annoyed at the lack of sophistication of her husband. To her surprise, she sees Léon who had been away in Paris. Now he’s back as a charming, mature man. The desire in both hearts has just been rekindled. Charles, glad to see her enjoying herself, suggests that she stays in Rouen by herself for a few more days to enjoy the opera. Léon, of course, likes the idea.
Léon visits her the next morning in her hotel room and tells her of his feelings. Having been stung by the previous affair, she is struggling between giving in and declining his advances. They decide to meet the next day. She writes him a letter explaining that she refuses to have an affair, which she plans on giving him in person. They meet in front of the famous Rouen cathedral. The guide of the cathedral offers to give them a tour but Léon manages to get rid of him. He sends a young boy to get them a carriage. It all happens so quickly, eventually Emma finds herself in Léon’s arms inside an aimlessly moving carriage. What comes next is a famous sex scene culminating in her tearing up of the “I won’t be your mistress” letter:
— Where to, monsieur? asked the coachman.
— Wherever you like! said Léon, pushing Emma into the carriage.
And the big machine began to move.
[It kept riding on for some time then it pulled up in front of a statue.]
— Keep going! said a voice from the inside.
[…]
[The cab driver] could not see what passion for locomotion drove this pair into never wanting to stop. He tried now and then, and immediately heard exclamations of wrath coming from behind him.
[…]
Just once, around midday, on the open road […] an unclad hand was pushed out from behind the little yellow linen curtains and threw away some scraps of paper, which scattered in the wind and settled a little way off, like white butterflies, on a field of red clover in flower.Then, about six o’clock, the carriage stopped in a little back street in the Beauvoisine district, and a woman got out and walked away, her face veiled, without a backward glance. 24Ibid., 227-229.
Emma continues to spend money recklessly on things like house redecoration pushing her husband further into financial trouble. Naively, Charles agrees to give his wife power of attorney over their finances believing she will fix them. He also agrees to send her to Rouen to have the legal documents finalized. There she spends 3 days in a “honeymoon” with Léon complete with a covered boat trip to a nearby island:
Three whole days of exquisite splendour, a veritable honeymoon.
They were in the Hôtel de Boulogne, down by the harbour. And there they lived, shutters closed, doors locked, with flowers spread over the carpet and iced drinks, brought up for them through the day. 25Ibid., 238.
Later on, she even convinces her husband that she needs to go away for piano lessons which he agrees to despite the cost:
— If you like…, he said, now and then, just one lesson, that wouldn’t be completely ruinous, would it?
— But lessons, she replied, are no use unless you keep them up.
And that was how she contrived to get her husband’s permission to go into town, once a week, to see her lover. 26Ibid., 243.
Later on, the affair goes on but now she has to go to the seediest neighborhoods of town for regular trysts as if she’s one of the whores who had set up business there:
For fear of being seen, she did not ordinarily go by the quickest way. She scurried along dismal alley-ways, and she emerged in a sweat towards the far end of the Rue Nationale, near the fountain that stands there. This is the place for theatres, taverns and whores.
[…]
She turned a corner; she recognized him by the curly hair pushing out from under his hat.
Léon would keep walking along the pavement. She would follow him all the way to the hotel; he went, he opened the door, he went in… What embracings! 27Ibid., 245.
Soon enough her feelings change towards Léon and acts obsessively. Even in the bedroom she becomes unsatisfiable and domineering:
Emma came back to him more inflamed, more voracious. Her undressing was brutal, tearing at the delicate laces on her corset, which rustled down over her hips like a slithering snake. She tiptoed over on bare feet to check once again that the door was locked, and in one motion she shed all her clothes;— pale and silent and serious, she fell upon him, shivering. 28Ibid., 263.
After some time, Emma has an argument with Léon and the relationship starts losing steam. While she’s spending money decadently on her affair, the family is drawn further into debt. Officers visit to warn her that they will seize their belongings. She never tells her husband but is determined to rectify the situation. She asks the town lawyer for her help, but he makes it clear that he will help only if she sexually submits to him. She flees him in disgust.
Suddenly she clapped her hand to her forehead and gave a shout, for the memory of Rodolphe, like a great flash of lightning on a dark night, had entered her mind. He was so good, so sensitive, so generous! And anyway, if he hesitated to do her this service, she could soon bring him to it, by her merest glance recalling their old love. So she set off towards La Huchette, quite unaware that she was now about to rush into what had so recently infuriated her, oblivious from first to last of her prostitution. 29Ibid., 288.
Rodolphe figures out she’s there only for money. He rejects her. Regardless, he does not have the amount she’s requesting. Emma can not not see either a way out of the financial disaster which she caused or a peaceful exit from her marital life with Charles. She goes to the pharmacy of Homais. She buys an arsenic, a rat poison, to end her life. Charles finds out about the impending auction of their belongings. He doesn’t understand where all that debt came from. He searches for his wife to pose the questions but he finds her in bed. She had just committed suicide. Instead of quietly dying, a three-day long torturous process kicks in the following morning. Charles is overwhelmed by all the tragic events. After she dies, Charles is overwhelmed by grief.
The priest took him by the arm and walked him round the garden. He discoursed upon the vanity of the things of this world. God was very great, very good; we must submit to his decrees without a murmur, nay, we must thank Him.
Charles exploded into blasphemy.
— I hate that God of yours!
— The spirit of revolt is still upon you, sighed the priest.
Bovary made off. He was striding along by the wall, near the espalier, and he was grinding his teeth, sending curses to heaven from his eyes; but not a single leaf did stir. 30Ibid., 307.
Even during a vigil, next to the corpse of Emma clad in her wedding dress, the two irritating characters of Father Bournisien and Homais won’t stop arguing about religion.
[T]he priest replied that there was now nothing but to pray for her.
— All the same, Homais went on, it must be one thing or the other; either she died in a state of grace (as the Church puts it), in which case she has no need of our prayers; or else she perished impenitent (that is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expression), and therefore…
Bournisien interrupted, asserting brusquely that it was none the less necessary to pray.
— But, argued the pharmacist, since God knows our needs, what can be the use of prayer?
— What! cried the priest. Prayer! I take it that you are not a Christian?
— Excuse me! said Homais. I admire Christianity. First because it abolished slavery, and introduced a morality…
— That is hardly the point! All the texts…
— Ahah! The texts! You read some history; we all know they were falsified by the Jesuits. 31Ibid., 308.
Charles lives as a broken man with the memory of his wife. As always, he continues to miss all posthumous signs of his wife’s affairs:
One day when he was wandering aimlessly around the house, he was up in the attic and his slippered foot trod on a crumpled-up piece of paper. He unfolded it and he read: ‘Be brave, Emma! Be brave! I do not want to blight your life!’ It was Rodolphe’s letter, fallen down in between the boxes, and hidden there, until just now when the draught from the window had blown it towards the door. […] He remembered Rodolphe’s little attentions, his sudden disappearance and the awkwardness in his manner when they had met since then, two or three times. But the respectful tone of the letter misled him.
— Perhaps they loved one another platonically, he said to himself. 32Ibid., 320.
Finally…
One day, at last, he sat down, turned the key and pushed the spring. All the letters from Léon were in there. No doubt about it, this time! He devoured them right down to the last line, rummaged about in every corner, in every piece of furniture, in every drawer, along the walls, sobbing and roaring, out of his mind. He discovered a box, smashed it open with a kick. Staring him straight in the face was the portrait of Rodolphe, in among a toppling pile of love-letters.
People wondered at this state of dejection. He never went out, had no visitors, even refused to go and see his patients. It was said he’d shut himself away with the bottle. 33Ibid., 325.
Charles loses all to creditors. At the market, he runs into Rodolphe. They two have a drink. Charles tell him he knows the truth. Rodolphe feels guilty for causing ruin to his family.
— I don’t hold it against you, he said.
Rodolphe sat there in silence. And Charles, his head in his hands, went on in a blank voice with the resigned intonations of infinite sorrow:
— No, I don’t hold it against you any more!
He even added a grand phrase, the only one he had ever uttered:
— Fate is to blame! 34Ibid., 326.
The next day Charles dies. Berthe, their young daughter, is sent to live with Charles’ mother, and is then forced to work in a cotton mill. In an ironic twist about justice in life, the pompous, mediocre pharmacist thrives and receives the Legion of Honor award. But Charles who was a kind husband and an hard-working doctor, though incompetent, faced a miserable ending.
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Endnotes
