Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovary“Pshaw!” she thought, “he won’t think about it again.” “Oh,” she went on, “I love you! I love you so that I couldBesides the riding-whip with its silver-gilt handle, Rodolphe not live without you, do you see? There are times when Ihad received a seal with the motto Amor nel cor* furthermore, long to see you again, when I am torn by all the anger of love.a scarf for a muffler, and, finally, a cigar-case exactly like the I ask myself, Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to otherViscount’s, that Charles had formerly picked up in the road, women. They smile upon him; he approaches. Oh no; noand that Emma had kept. These presents, however, humiliatedhim; he refused several; she insisted, and he ended by love you best. I know how to love best. I am your servant,one else pleases you. There are some more beautiful, but Iobeying, thinking her tyrannical and overexacting.your concubine! You are my king, my idol! You are good, youThen she had strange ideas.are beautiful, you are clever, you are strong!”“When midnight strikes,” she said, “you must think of me.” He had so often heard these things said that they did notAnd if he confessed that he had not thought of her, there were strike him as original. Emma was like all his mistresses; andfloods of reproaches that always ended with the eternal question— the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment,“Do you love me?”laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the“Why, of course I love you,” he answered.same forms and the same language. He did not distinguish,“A great deal?”this man of so much experience, the difference of sentiment“Certainly!”beneath the sameness of expression. Because lips libertine and“You haven’t loved any others?”venal had murmured such words to him, he believed but little“Did you think you’d got a virgin?” he exclaimed laughing. in the candour of hers; exaggerated speeches hiding mediocreEmma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning his protestationswith puns.did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest metaphors, sinceaffections must be discounted; as if the fullness of the soulno one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his*A loving heart.164