The next day Charles had the child brought back. She asked for her

mamma. They told her she was away; that she would bring her back some

playthings. Berthe spoke of her again several times, then at last

thought no more of her. The child's gaiety broke Bovary's heart, and he

had to bear besides the intolerable consolations of the chemist.

Money troubles soon began again, Monsieur Lheureux urging on anew his

friend Vincart, and Charles pledged himself for exorbitant sums; for he

would never consent to let the smallest of the things that had belonged

to HER be sold. His mother was exasperated with him; he grew even more

angry than she did. He had altogether changed. She left the house.

Then everyone began "taking advantage" of him. Mademoiselle Lempereur

presented a bill for six months' teaching, although Emma had never taken

a lesson (despite the receipted bill she had shown Bovary); it was an

arrangement between the two women. The man at the circulating library

demanded three years' subscriptions; Mere Rollet claimed the postage due

for some twenty letters, and when Charles asked for an explanation, she

had the delicacy to reply-"Oh, I don't know. It was for her business affairs."

With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come to the end of them.

But others followed ceaselessly. He sent in accounts for professional

attendance. He was shown the letters his wife had written. Then he had

to apologise.

Felicite now wore Madame Bovary's gowns; not all, for he had kept some

of them, and he went to look at them in her dressing-room, locking

himself up there; she was about her height, and often Charles, seeing

her from behind, was seized with an illusion, and cried out-"Oh, stay, stay!"

But at Whitsuntide she ran away from Yonville, carried off by Theodore,

stealing all that was left of the wardrobe.

It was about this time that the widow Dupuis had the honour to inform

him of the "marriage of Monsieur Leon Dupuis her son, notary at Yvetot,

to Mademoiselle Leocadie Leboeuf of Bondeville." Charles, among the

other congratulations he sent him, wrote this sentence-"How glad my poor wife would have been!"

One day when, wandering aimlessly about the house, he had gone up to the

attic, he felt a pellet of fine paper under his slipper. He opened it

and read: "Courage, Emma, courage. I would not bring misery into your

life." It was Rodolphe's letter, fallen to the ground between the boxes,

where it had remained, and that the wind from the dormer window had just

blown towards the door. And Charles stood, motionless and staring, in

the very same place where, long ago, Emma, in despair, and paler even

than he, had thought of dying. At last he discovered a small R at the

bottom of the second page. What did this mean? He remembered Rodolphe's

attentions, his sudden, disappearance, his constrained air when they

had met two or three times since. But the respectful tone of the letter

deceived him.




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