Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Madame Bovaryfountain or the warbling of birds. Lucie attacked her cavatina From the first scene he evoked enthusiasm. He pressed Lucyin G major bravely. She plained of love; she longed for wings. in his arms, he left her, he came back, he seemed desperate; heEmma, too, fleeing from life, would have liked to fly away in had outbursts of rage, then elegiac gurglings of infinite sweetness,and the notes escaped from his bare neck full of sobsan embrace. Suddenly Edgar-Lagardy appeared.He had that splendid pallor that gives something of the and kisses. Emma leant forward to see him, clutching themajesty of marble to the ardent races of the South. His vigorousform was tightly clad in a brown-coloured doublet; a these melodious lamentations that were drawn out to the ac-velvet of the box with her nails. She was filling her heart withsmall chiselled poniard hung against his left thigh, and he cast companiment of the double-basses, like the cries of the drowningin the tumult of a tempest. She recognised all the intoxi-round laughing looks showing his white teeth. They said thata Polish princess having heard him sing one night on the beach cation and the anguish that had almost killed her. The voiceat Biarritz, where he mended boats, had fallen in love with of a prima donna seemed to her to be but echoes of her conscience,and this illusion that charmed her as some very thinghim. She had ruined herself for him. He had deserted her forother women, and this sentimental celebrity did not fail to of her own life. But no one on earth had loved her with suchenhance his artistic reputation. The diplomatic mummer took love. He had not wept like Edgar that last moonlit night whencare always to slip into his advertisements some poetic phrase they said, “To-morrow! to-morrow!” The theatre rang withon the fascination of his person and the susceptibility of his cheers; they recommenced the entire movement; the loverssoul. A fine organ, imperturbable coolness, more temperamentthan intelligence, more power of emphasis than of real and when they uttered the final adieu, Emma gave a sharp cryspoke of the flowers on their tomb, of vows, exile, fate, hopes;singing, made up the charm of this admirable charlatan nature,in which there was something of the hairdresser and the “But why,” asked Bovary, “does that gentleman persecutethat mingled with the vibrations of the last chords.toreador.her?”192