Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovaryhand. At last, bored and weary, Rodolphe took back the box on. As if one could make women like that listen to reason!”to the cupboard, saying to himself, “What a lot of rubbish!” He reflected, then went on—Which summed up his opinion; for pleasures, like schoolboysin a school courtyard, had so trampled upon his heart profound devotion for you; but some day, sooner or later, this“I shall not forget you, oh believe it; and I shall ever have athat no green thing grew there, and that which passed through ardour (such is the fate of human things) would have grown less,it, more heedless than children, did not even, like them, leave no doubt. Lassitude would have come to us, and who knows ifa name carved upon the wall.I should not even have had the atrocious pain of witnessing your“Come,” said he, “let’s begin.”remorse, of sharing it myself, since I should have been its cause?He wrote—The mere idea of the grief that would come to you tortures me,“Courage, Emma! courage! I would not bring misery into Emma. Forget me! Why did I ever know you? Why were you soyour life.”beautiful? Is it my fault? O my God! No, no! Accuse only fate.”“After all, that’s true,” thought Rodolphe. “I am acting in “That’s a word that always tells,” he said to himself.her interest; I am honest.”“Ah, if you had been one of those frivolous women that“Have you carefully weighed your resolution? Do you know one sees, certainly I might, through egotism, have tried anto what an abyss I was dragging you, poor angel? No, you do experiment, in that case without danger for you. But thatnot, do you? You were coming confident and fearless, believingin happiness in the future. Ah! unhappy that we are— has prevented you from understanding, adorable woman thatdelicious exaltation, at once your charm and your torment,insensate!”you are, the falseness of our future position. Nor had I reflectedupon this at first, and I rested in the shade of that idealRodolphe stopped here to think of some good excuse.“If I told her all my fortune is lost? No! Besides, that would happiness as beneath that of the manchineel tree, withoutstop nothing. It would all have to be begun over again later foreseeing the consequences.”174