At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of Vaubyessard she had heard

the Marchioness call a young lady Berthe; from that moment this name was

chosen; and as old Rouault could not come, Monsieur Homais was requested

to stand godfather. His gifts were all products from his establishment,

to wit: six boxes of jujubes, a whole jar of racahout, three cakes of

marshmallow paste, and six sticks of sugar-candy into the bargain that

he had come across in a cupboard. On the evening of the ceremony there

was a grand dinner; the cure was present; there was much excitement.

Monsieur Homais towards liqueur-time began singing "Le Dieu des bonnes

gens." Monsieur Leon sang a barcarolle, and Madame Bovary, senior, who

was godmother, a romance of the time of the Empire; finally, M. Bovary,

senior, insisted on having the child brought down, and began baptizing

it with a glass of champagne that he poured over its head. This mockery

of the first of the sacraments made the Abbe Bournisien angry; old

Bovary replied by a quotation from "La Guerre des Dieux"; the cure

wanted to leave; the ladies implored, Homais interfered; and they

succeeded in making the priest sit down again, and he quietly went on

with the half-finished coffee in his saucer.

Monsieur Bovary, senior, stayed at Yonville a month, dazzling the

natives by a superb policeman's cap with silver tassels that he wore

in the morning when he smoked his pipe in the square. Being also in the

habit of drinking a good deal of brandy, he often sent the servant

to the Lion d'Or to buy him a bottle, which was put down to his

son's account, and to perfume his handkerchiefs he used up his

daughter-in-law's whole supply of eau-de-cologne.

The latter did not at all dislike his company. He had knocked about the

world, he talked about Berlin, Vienna, and Strasbourg, of his soldier

times, of the mistresses he had had, the grand luncheons of which he had

partaken; then he was amiable, and sometimes even, either on the stairs,

or in the garden, would seize hold of her waist, crying, "Charles, look

out for yourself."

Then Madame Bovary, senior, became alarmed for her son's happiness, and

fearing that her husband might in the long-run have an immoral influence

upon the ideas of the young woman, took care to hurry their departure.

Perhaps she had more serious reasons for uneasiness. Monsieur Bovary was

not the man to respect anything.

One day Emma was suddenly seized with the desire to see her little

girl, who had been put to nurse with the carpenter's wife, and, without

looking at the calendar to see whether the six weeks of the Virgin were

yet passed, she set out for the Rollets' house, situated at the extreme

end of the village, between the highroad and the fields.




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