Madame Bovary - Penn State University

FlaubertThe village was silent as usual. At the corner of the streets from indolence, from laziness, went and took, hanging on itswere small pink heaps that smoked in the air, for this was the nail in my laboratory, the key of the Capharnaum.”time for jam-making, and everyone at Yonville prepared his It was thus the druggist called a small room under the leads,supply on the same day. But in front of the chemist’s shop full of the utensils and the goods of his trade. He often spentone might admire a far larger heap, and that surpassed the long hours there alone, labelling, decanting, and doing upothers with the superiority that a laboratory must have over again; and he looked upon it not as a simple store, but as aordinary stores, a general need over individual fancy. veritable sanctuary, whence there afterwards issued, elaboratedShe went in. The large arm-chair was upset, and even the by his hands, all sorts of pills, boluses, infusions, lotions, and“Fanal de Rouen” lay on the ground, outspread between two potions, that would bear far and wide his celebrity. No one inpestles. She pushed open the lobby door, and in the middle the world set foot there, and he respected it so, that he sweptof the kitchen, amid brown jars full of picked currants, of it himself. Finally, if the pharmacy, open to all comers, waspowdered sugar and lump sugar, of the scales on the table, the spot where he displayed his pride, the Capharnaum wasand of the pans on the fire, she saw all the Homais, small and the refuge where, egoistically concentrating himself, Homaislarge, with aprons reaching to their chins, and with forks in delighted in the exercise of his predilections, so that Justin’stheir hands. Justin was standing up with bowed head, and the thoughtlessness seemed to him a monstrous piece of irreverence,and, redder than the currants, he repeated—chemist was screaming—“Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaum.” “Yes, from the Capharnaum! The key that locks up the acids“What is it? What is the matter?”and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare pan! a pan with a lid!“What is it?” replied the druggist. “We are making preserves; and that I shall perhaps never use! Everything is of importancethey are simmering; but they were about to boil over, because in the delicate operations of our art! But, devil take it! onethere is too much juice, and I ordered another pan. Then he, must make distinctions, and not employ for almost domestic211