Madame Bovary
Page 256The 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
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
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
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.