Madame Bovary - Penn State University

Flaubert“At any rate, you have some walks in the neighbourhood?” longer marvel at that celebrated musician who, the better tocontinued Madame Bovary, speaking to the young man. inspire his imagination, was in the habit of playing the piano“Oh, very few,” he answered. “There is a place they call La before some imposing site.”Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the forest. Sometimes,on Sundays, I go and stay there with a book, watching “No, but I am very fond of music,” he replied.“You play?” she asked.the sunset.”“Ah! don’t you listen to him, Madame Bovary,” interrupted“I think there is nothing so admirable as sunsets,” she resumed;“but especially by the side of the sea.”my dear fellow, the other day in your room you were singingHomais, bending over his plate. “That’s sheer modesty. Why,“Oh, I adore the sea!” said Monsieur Leon.‘L’Ange Gardien’ ravishingly. I heard you from the laboratory.You gave it like an actor.”“And then, does it not seem to you,” continued MadameBovary, “that the mind travels more freely on this limitless Leon, in fact, lodged at the chemist’s where he had a smallexpanse, the contemplation of which elevates the soul, gives room on the second floor, overlooking the Place. He blushedideas of the infinite, the ideal?”at the compliment of his landlord, who had already turned to“It is the same with mountainous landscapes,” continued the doctor, and was enumerating to him, one after the other,Leon. “A cousin of mine who travelled in Switzerland last all the principal inhabitants of Yonville. He was telling anecdotes,giving information; the fortune of the notary was notyear told me that one could not picture to oneself the poetryof the lakes, the charm of the waterfalls, the gigantic effect of known exactly, and “there was the Tuvache household,” whothe glaciers. One sees pines of incredible size across torrents, made a good deal of show.cottages suspended over precipices, and, a thousand feet belowone, whole valleys when the clouds open. Such spectacles “Oh, German music; that which makes you dream.”Emma continued, “And what music do you prefer?”must stir to enthusiasm, incline to prayer, to ecstasy; and I no “Have you been to the opera?”71