Madame Bovary - Penn State University

FlaubertThen Homais represented to him how much jollier and he had a kind of box made by the carpenter, with the aid of thebrisker he would feel afterwards, and even gave him to understandthat he would be more likely to please the women; and wood, sheer-iron, leather, screws, and nuts had not been spared.locksmith, that weighed about eight pounds, and in which iron,the stable-boy began to smile heavily. Then he attacked him But to know which of Hippolyte’s tendons to cut, it wasthrough his vanity:necessary first of all to find out what kind of club-foot he had.“Aren’t you a man? Hang it! what would you have done if He had a foot forming almost a straight line with the leg,you had had to go into the army, to go and fight beneath the which, however, did not prevent it from being turned in, sostandard? Ah! Hippolyte!”that it was an equinus together with something of a varus, orAnd Homais retired, declaring that he could not understandthis obstinacy, this blindness in refusing the benefac-this equinus, wide in foot like a horse’s hoof, with rugoseelse a slight varus with a strong tendency to equinus. But withtions of science.skin, dry tendons, and large toes, on which the black nailsThe poor fellow gave way, for it was like a conspiracy. Binet,who never interfered with other people’s business, Ma-from morn till night. He was constantly to be seen on thelooked as if made of iron, the clubfoot ran about like a deerdame Lefrancois, Artemise, the neighbours, even the mayor, Place, jumping round the carts, thrusting his limping footMonsieur Tuvache—everyone persuaded him, lectured him, forwards. He seemed even stronger on that leg than the other.shamed him; but what finally decided him was that it would By dint of hard service it had acquired, as it were, moral qualitiesof patience and energy; and when he was given some heavycost him nothing. Bovary even undertook to provide themachine for the operation. This generosity was an idea of work, he stood on it in preference to its fellow.Emma’s, and Charles consented to it, thinking in his heart of Now, as it was an equinus, it was necessary to cut the tendonof Achilles, and, if need were, the anterior tibial musclehearts that his wife was an angel.So by the advice of the chemist, and after three fresh starts, could be seen to afterwards for getting rid of the varus; for151