Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Flaubertance (it was in the month of August and very hot) to the “No, I don’t blame you now.”length of inviting him to have a bottle of beer at the publichouse.“It is the fault of fatality!”He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever made—Leaning on the table opposite him, he chewed his cigar as Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the remarkvery offhand from a man in his position, comic even,he talked, and Charles was lost in reverie at this face that shehad loved. He seemed to see again something of her in it. It and a little mean.was a marvel to him. He would have liked to have been this The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat in theman.arbour. Rays of light were straying through the trellis, theThe other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, fillingout with banal phrases all the gaps where an allusion might fumed the air, the heavens were blue, Spanish flies buzzedvine leaves threw their shadows on the sand, the jasmines per-slip in. Charles was not listening to him; Rodolphe noticed round the lilies in bloom, and Charles was suffocating like ait, and he followed the succession of memories that crossed youth beneath the vague love influences that filled his achinghis face. This gradually grew redder; the nostrils throbbed heart.fast, the lips quivered. There was at last a moment when At seven o’clock little Berthe, who had not seen him all theCharles, full of a sombre fury, fixed his eyes on Rodolphe, afternoon, went to fetch him to dinner.who, in something of fear, stopped talking. But soon the same His head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes closed,look of weary lassitude came back to his face.his mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress of black“I don’t blame you,” he said.hair.Rodolphe was dumb. And Charles, his head in his hands, “Come along, papa,” she said.went on in a broken voice, and with the resigned accent of And thinking he wanted to play; she pushed him gently.infinite sorrow—He fell to the ground. He was dead.297