Madame Bovary - Penn State University

FlaubertHow was it that she—she, who was so intelligent—could looked at the other in silence, almost amazed to see each other,have allowed herself to be deceived again? and through what so far sundered were they by their inner thoughts. Charlesdeplorable madness had she thus ruined her life by continual gazed at her with the dull look of a drunken man, while hesacrifices? She recalled all her instincts of luxury, all the privationsof her soul, the sordidness of marriage, of the houselowedeach other in long-drawn modulations, broken by sharplistened motionless to the last cries of the sufferer, that folhold,her dream sinking into the mire like wounded swallows;all that she had longed for, all that she had denied hertered.Emma bit her wan lips, and rolling between her fingersspasms like the far-off howling of some beast being slaughself,all that she might have had! And for what? for what? a piece of coral that she had broken, fixed on Charles theIn the midst of the silence that hung over the village a heartrendingcry rose on the air. Bovary turned white to fainting. dart forth. Everything in him irritated her now; his face, hisburning glance of her eyes like two arrows of fire about toShe knit her brows with a nervous gesture, then went on. And dress, what he did not say, his whole person, his existence, init was for him, for this creature, for this man, who understood fine. She repented of her past virtue as of a crime, and whatnothing, who felt nothing! For he was there quite quiet, not still remained of it rumbled away beneath the furious blowseven suspecting that the ridicule of his name would henceforth of her pride. She revelled in all the evil ironies of triumphantsully hers as well as his. She had made efforts to love him, and adultery. The memory of her lover came back to her withshe had repented with tears for having yielded to another! dazzling attractions; she threw her whole soul into it, borne“But it was perhaps a valgus!” suddenly exclaimed Bovary, away towards this image with a fresh enthusiasm; and Charleswho was meditating.seemed to her as much removed from her life, as absent forever,as impossible and annihilated, as if he had been about toAt the unexpected shock of this phrase falling on her thoughtlike a leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, shuddering, raised die and were passing under her eyes.her head in order to find out what he meant to say; and they There was a sound of steps on the pavement. Charles looked159