Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (best self help books to read txt) 📗

now.”

He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever made⁠—

“It is the fault of fatality!”

Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the remark very offhand from a man in his position, comic even, and a little mean.

The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat in the arbour. Rays of light were straying through the trellis, the vine leaves threw their shadows on the sand, the jasmines perfumed the air, the heavens were blue, Spanish flies buzzed round the lilies in bloom, and Charles was suffocating like a youth beneath the vague love influences that filled his aching heart.

At seven o’clock little Berthe, who had not seen him all the afternoon, went to fetch him to dinner.

His head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes closed, his mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress of black hair.

“Come along, papa,” she said.

And thinking he wanted to play; she pushed him gently. He fell to the ground. He was dead.

Thirty-six hours after, at the druggist’s request, Monsieur Canivet came thither. He made a postmortem and found nothing.

When everything had been sold, twelve francs seventy-five centimes remained, that served to pay for Mademoiselle Bovary’s going to her grandmother. The good woman died the same year; old Rouault was paralysed, and it was an aunt who took charge of her. She is poor, and sends her to a cotton-factory to earn a living.

Since Bovary’s death three doctors have followed one another at Yonville without any success, so severely did Homais attack them. He has an enormous practice; the authorities treat him with consideration, and public opinion protects him.

He has just received the cross of the Legion of Honour.

Endnotes

A quotation from the Aeneid signifying a threat. ↩

Latin: “I am ridiculous.” ↩

A devotion said at morning, noon, and evening, at the sound of a bell. Here, the evening prayer. ↩

In place of a parent. ↩

A mixture of coffee and spirits. ↩

Used the familiar form of address. ↩

With almond milk. ↩

The panonceaux that have to be hung over the doors of notaries. ↩

Black currant liqueur. ↩

On the straight and narrow path. ↩

Upon my word! ↩

A loving heart. ↩

Offhandedly. ↩

It corrects customs through laughter. ↩

Oh beautiful angel, my Lucie. ↩

The worker lives by working, do what he will. ↩

Manservant. ↩

In rum. ↩

People dressed as longshoremen. ↩

Psalm CXXX. ↩

Rest traveler. ↩

Tread upon a loving wife. ↩

Colophon

Madame Bovary
was published in 1857 by
Gustave Flaubert.
It was translated from French in 1886 by
Eleanor Marx-Aveling.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Alex Cabal,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2006 by
An Anonymous Volunteer, Noah Adams, and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
HathiTrust Digital Library.

The cover page is adapted from
Portrait of Lady Agnew of Lochnaw,
a painting completed in 1892 by
John Singer Sargent.
The cover and title pages feature the
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