Madame Bovary

wearing the school uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those w

sit down. Then, turning to the class-

he'll be in the second. If his work and conduct are satisfactory

ge chorister's; he looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green cloth with black buttons must have been tight about the arm-holes, and showe

ermon, not daring even to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two o'clock

so as to have our hands more free; we used from the door to toss them under the f

llycock hat, sealskin cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of expression, like an imbecile's face. Oval, stiffened with whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came in succession lozenges of velvet and

said the

augh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbor knocked it

t," said the master, w

ut of countenance that he did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave i

the master, "and

in a stammering voice

ga

ables was heard, drowned by

ied the mast

an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at the top of h

i! Charbovari"), then died away into single notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now and again sudd

catching the name of "Charles Bovary," having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, at once ordered the poor

ooking for?" as

the "new fellow," casting

outburst. "Silence!" continued the master indignantly, wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he

ome, you'll find your cap a

m the Aeneid sig

ridic

mplary attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came

word in the dictionary, and taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his rules passably, h

of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs that offered in the person of a hosier's daughter who had fallen in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his spurs r

not coming in at night till after the theatre, and haunting cafes. The father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant

his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting

of place half farm, half private house; and here, soured, eaten up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous of

until she had seem him going after all the village drabs, and until a score of bad houses sent him back to her at night, weary, stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted. After that she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb stoicism that she maintained till her death. She was constantly going about looking after business matters. She called on the law

sent him to bed without any fire, taught him to drink off large draughts of rum and to jeer at religious processions. But, peaceable by nature, the lad answered only poorly to his notions. His mother always kept him near her; she cut out cardboard for him, told him tales, entertained him with endless monologues full of melancholy gaiety and charming nonsense. In her life's isolation she centered on the child's head all her shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high station; she alr

nt haymaking during harvest, ran about in the woods, played hop-scotch under the church porch on rainy days, and at great fetes begged the beadle to let him toll the bells,

ngelus*. They went up to his room and settled down; the flies and moths fluttered round the candle. It was close, the child fell asleep, and the good man, beginning to doze with his hands on his stomach, was soon snoring with his mouth wide open. On other occasions, when Monsieur le Cure, on his way back after administering the viaticum to some sick person in

morning, noon, and e

ere, the eve

d, or rather tired out, Monsieur Bovary gave in without a struggle, and th

lly sent to school at Rouen, where his father took him towa

a wholesale ironmonger in the Rue Ganterie, who took him out once a month on Sundays after his shop was shut, sent him for a walk on the quay to look at the boats, and then brought him back to college at seven o'clock before supper. Every Thursday evening he wrote

ce of a

icate in natural history. But at the end of his third year his parents withdrew him from the

made arrangements for his board, got him furniture, table and two chairs, sent home for an old cherry-tree b

fter a thousand injunctions to be good no

ctures on pharmacy, lectures on botany and clinical medicine, and therapeutics, without counting hygiene and materia medica-all n

d bound note-books, he attended all the courses, never missed a single lecture. He did his little daily t

at kicking his feet against the wall. After this he had to run off to lectures, to the operation-room, to the hospital, and return to his home at the other end of the town

ce, flowed beneath him, between the bridges and the railings, yellow, violet, or blue. Working men, kneeling on the banks, washed their bare arms in the water. On poles projecting from the attics, skeins of cotton were drying in the air.

into the habit of going to the public-house, and had a passion for dominoes. To shut himself up every evening in the dirty public room, to push about on marble tables the small sheep bones with black dots, seemed to him a fine proof of his freedom, which raised him in his own esteem. It was beginning to see life, the

beginning of the village, sent for his mother, and told her all. She excused him, threw the blame of his failure on the injustice of the examiners, encouraged him a little, and took upon herself t

selessly learning all the old questions by heart. He passed prett

ong time Madame Bovary had been on the look-out for his death, and the old fellow had b

a bailiff at Dieppe-who was forty-five and had an income of twelve hundred francs. Though she was ugly, as dry as a bone, her face with as many pimples as the spring has buds, Madame Dub

e was master; he had to say this and not say that in company, to fast every Friday, dress as she liked, harass at her bidding those patients who di

her; if they came back, it was doubtless to see her die. When Charles returned in the evening, she stretched forth two long thin arms from beneath the sheets, put them round his neck, and having made him sit down on