It would grieve me too much.
Only you’ll kiss her many times for me.
Good-bye! you’re a good fellow!
And then I shall never forget that,” he said, slapping his thigh. “Never fear, you shall always have your turkey.”
But when he reached the top of the hill he turned back, as he had turned once before on the road of Saint-Victor when he had parted from her.
The windows of the village were all on fire beneath the slanting rays of the sun sinking behind the field.
He put his hand over his eyes, and saw in the horizon an enclosure of walls, where trees here and there formed black clusters between white stones; then he went on his way at a gentle trot, for his nag had gone lame.
Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed very long that evening talking together.
They spoke of the days of the past and of the future.
She would come to live at Yonville; she would keep house for him; they would never part again.
She was ingenious and caressing, rejoicing in her heart at gaining once more an affection that had wandered from her for so many years.
Midnight struck.
The village as usual was silent, and Charles, awake, thought always of her.
Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling about the wood all day, was sleeping quietly in his chateau, and Leon, down yonder, always slept.
There was another who at that hour was not asleep.
On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his knees weeping, and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating in the shadow beneath the load of an immense regret, sweeter than the moon and fathomless as the night.
The gate suddenly grated.
It was Lestiboudois; he came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten.
He recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last knew who was the culprit who stole his potatoes.
Chapter Eleven
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.