Madame Bovary

[attachment=17790]
CHAPTER ONE
We were in class when the head-master came in, followed
by a ‘new fellow,’ not wearing the school
uniform, and a school servant carrying a large desk. Those
who had been asleep woke up, and every one rose as if just
surprised at his work.
The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. Then,
turning to the class-master, he said to him in a low voice—
‘Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend to
your care; he’ll be in the second. If his work and conduct
are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper classes, as
becomes his age.’


CHAPTER TWO
One night towards eleven o’clock they were awakened by
the noise of a horse pulling up outside their door. The
servant opened the garret-window and parleyed for some
time with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor,
had a letter for him. Natasie came downstairs shivering
and undid the bars and bolts one after the other. The man
left his horse, and, following the servant, suddenly came in
behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap with grey topknots
a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly
to Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it.
Natasie, standing near the bed, held the light. Madame in
modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back.
This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged
Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the
Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux
was a good eighteen miles across country by way of
Longueville and Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame
Bovary junior was afraid of accidents for her husband. So
it was decided the stable-boy should go on first; Charles
would start three hours later when the moon rose. A boy
was to be sent to meet him, and show him the way to the
farm, and open the gates for him.


CHAPTER THREE
One morning old Rouault brought Charles the money
for setting his leg—seventy-five francs in forty-sou
pieces, and a turkey. He had heard of his loss, and consoled
him as well as he could.
‘I know what it is,’ said he, clapping him on the shoulder;
‘I’ve been through it. When I lost my dear departed,
I went into the fields to be quite alone. I fell at the foot of
a tree; I cried; I called on God; I talked nonsense to Him.
I wanted to be like the moles that I saw on the branches,
their insides swarming with worms, dead, and an end of
it. And when I thought that there were others at that very
moment with their nice little wives holding them in their
embrace, I struck great blows on the earth with my stick.


CHAPTER FOUR
The guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse chaises,
two-wheeled cars, old open gigs, waggonettes with
leather hoods, and the young people from the nearer villages
in carts, in which they stood up in rows, holding on
to the sides so as not to fall, going at a trot and well shaken
up. Some came from a distance of thirty miles, from Goderville,
from Normanville, and from Cany.
All the relatives of both families had been invited, quarrels
between friends arranged, acquaintances long since lost
sight of written to.