Extract From Madame Bovary, By Gustave Flaubert

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Extract From Madame Bovary, By Gustave Flaubert

by Mandy Sutter

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talks

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Meditation

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If you've ever been curious about Flaubert's masterpiece, Madame Bovary, here is a relaxing way to get a taste of the novel that is one of the landmarks of European literature. Or you can simply enjoy the lilting descriptions of French life in a small town, and let them lull you to sleep. We join Emma Bovary (who Flaubert uses to skewer the empty pretensions of bourgeois life) as she becomes bored with her marriage to Charles, an unambitious country doctor, and begins to long for excitement and society. If you enjoy listening to novel extracts, please look up 'Mrs Transome, from Felix Holt: The Radical'; 'One of Ours' by Willa Cather, and 'The Post Office Girl,' all available narrated by me on Premium Tracks.

Literature Relaxation Romance Disillusionment Provincial Life Emotional Turmoil Domestic Life Social Aspiration Marital Challenges Story Reading European Literature Character Disillusionment Romantic Discontent Urban Fantasy Routine Creation

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Transcript

Hello, It's Mandy here. Thanks so much for joining me tonight. And tonight I'm going to be reading an extract from the novel Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary is really considered Flaubert's masterpiece. Initially, It was thought very scandalous, But today it's now a landmark in European literature. He took for his subject French bourgeois life in all its banality. His heroine is Emma, A bored provincial housewife who abandons her husband, Charles Bovary, To pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a desperate love affair. The extract I'm going to read to you is from the end of part one, Where Emma has started to get disillusioned with her marriage. But before I go ahead, Please feel free to make yourself really comfortable. Settle down into your chair or into your bed. Relax your hands. Soften your shoulders. And release any tension in your jaw. That's great. So if you're ready, Then I shall begin. Part one, Chapter nine. Often while Charles was away, She used to go to the cupboard and take out from between the folded linen where she had left it the green silk cigar case. She would look at it, Open it and then breathe in the scent of its lining. A mixture of tobacco and verbena. Whose could it be? The Viscount's. Perhaps it was a present from his mistress. It had been embroidered on a rosewood frame. A delicate thing kept hidden from all eyes. The labour of many hours. Over it had hung the flowing curls of the pensive embroiderer. A sigh of love had passed into the fabric of the work. Every touch of the needle had stitched fast a vision or a memory. And each one of those entwining threads of silk was the elaboration of the same speechless passion. And the Viscount one morning had taken it with him. What had they spoken of as it lay upon the broad mantelpiece between the vases of flowers and the pompadour clocks? She was entossed and he, He was in Paris now. What was it like in Paris? What an immense name. She said it softly to herself again for the pleasure of the sound. It rang in her ears like a great cathedral bell. It flamed before her eyes, Even on the labels of her pots of ointment. At night, When the carriers in their carts went by under her windows singing La Marjolaine, She would wake up and as she listened to the sound of their iron hooped wheels, Soon muffled by the soft earth when they left the village, She would say to herself, Tomorrow they'll be there. And she followed them in her mind up and down the hills, Through the villages, Rolling along the main road by the light of the stars. But after a certain distance, She always came to a blur and her dream gave out. She bought herself a street map of Paris and with the tip of her finger, She went shopping in the capital. She walked up the boulevards, Stopping at every turning between the lines of the streets, Passing the white squares that stood for houses. Eventually, She would close her tired eyes and in the darkness, She would see the gas jets writhing in the wind, The folding carriage steps that were let down with a great clatter outside the main door of the theatre. She took out a subscription to La Corbeille, A paper for women, And to Le Sylphe des Salons. She devoured every single word of all the reviews of first nights, Race meetings and dinner parties, Took an interest in the debut of a singer, The opening of a shop. She knew the latest fashions, The addresses of the best tailors, The days for the Bois or the opera. She studied in Eugène Seux descriptions of furniture. She read Bolzac and Georges Sand, Seeking to gratify in fantasy her secret cravings. Even at the table, She had her book with her and she would be turning the pages while Charles was eating and talking to her. The memory of the Viscount haunted her reading. Between him and the fictional characters, She would forge connections. But gradually, The circle of which he was the centre widened around him and the halo that he wore as it floated free of him spread its radiance ever further, Illuminating other dreams. It was Paris, Rippling like an ocean, Gleaming in Emma's mind under a warm golden haze. The swarming, Tumultuous life of the place was divided into several parts, Classified into distinct tableaux. Emma grasped only two or three of these and they hid all the rest from her, Apparently representing the whole of humanity. The diplomats walked on polished floors in drawing rooms panelled with mirrors around oval tables covered in velvet cloths with gold fringes. This was the world of trailing gowns, Of high mystery, Of anguish cloaked under a smile. Next came the realm of the duchesses. They were pale. They got up at four o'clock, The world was dark and gloomy. The women, Poor angels, Wore petticoats trimmed with English lace and the men, Superfluously talented, Beneath the mask of frivolity, Would ride their horses half to death in an afternoon, Spend the summer season in Bardon and when they eventually reached 40, Marry heiresses. From the back rooms of restaurants where people eat after midnight, By candlelight, There came the laughter of the motley crowd of writers and actresses. Extravagant as kings they were, Full of idealistic ambitions and wild enthusiasms. They lived on a higher plane between heaven and earth, Among storm clouds so sublimely. As for the rest of the world, It was nothing, It was nowhere. It scarcely seemed to exist. Indeed, The nearer things were, The more her thoughts turned away from them. Everything in her immediate surroundings, The boring countryside, The imbecile petit bourgeois, The general mediocrity of life, Seemed to be a kind of anomaly, A unique accent that had befallen her alone. While beyond, As far as the eye could see, There unfurled the immense kingdom of pleasure and passion. She confused in her desire sensual luxury with true joy, Elegance of manners with delicacy of sentiment. Like some tropical plant, Did love not require the correct soil and a special temperature? The sighing in the moonlight, The long embracing, The tears flowing down onto the hands of the one forsaken, All the fevers of the flesh and the tender anguish of loving. None of these could be had without a balcony in some great tranquil chateau, Without a silk curtained, Deep carpeted boudoir with lavish vases of flowers and a bed on a little platform without the sparkle of precious stones and the glitter of gold braided livery. The lad from the post house who came every morning to groom the mare went along the passage in his great big clogs. His smock was full of holes. He wore no stockings inside his shabby slippers. That was the groom in knee breeches that she had to make do with. Once he had done his job, He didn't come back again until next day. For Charles, When he got in, Would put his own horse in the stable, Unsaddle and tether her while the maid brought a bundle of hay and tossed it as best she could onto the rack. Emma took on a girl of 14, An orphan with a sweet face. She forbade her to wear cotton caps, Taught her that she had to address them using the third person, To bring glasses of water on a plate, To knock before entering a room, Taught her how to iron, How to starch, How to dress her mistress, Tried to make a lady's maid of her. The new girl obeyed without a murmur so as to keep her job. And because Madame usually left the key in the sideboard, Felicité would take a little supply of sugar up to bed every night and eat it there in secret after she had said her prayers. Sometimes in the afternoon, She would go across the road for a chat with the Postilians. Madame would be upstairs in her room. She would be wearing her dressing gown unbuttoned, Revealing between the copious folds of her corsage a pleated chemisette with gold buttons. Round her waist, She had a cord with big tassels and her little wine red slippers had large knots of ribbon spreading down over the instep. She had bought herself a blotting pad, A writing case, A pen holder and envelopes, Although she had nobody to write to. She would dust her ornaments, Look at herself in the mirror, Pick up a book, Then, Dreaming between the lines, Let it fall into her lap. She yearned to travel or to go back to living in the convent. She wanted equally to die and to live in Paris. Charles, In rain and snow, Rode along the country lanes. He had omelettes at farmhouse tables, Thrust his hand down into damp beds, Had his face splashed with warm, Spurting blood, Listened to many a death rattle, Examined the contents of chamber pots, Unbuttoned plenty of grubby underlinen. But he found his way every evening to a blazing fire, A meal, A comfortable chair and an elegant woman, Delectable and fragrant, With a quite mysterious perfume from her skin, Perhaps, Scenting her skirts. She had him enthralled with their various refinements. One moment, It was a new way of making paper sconces for the candles or a flounce that she altered on her gown or an impressive name for some rather ordinary dish, One that the cook had spoiled, But that Charles devoured to the very last morsel. In Rouen, She saw ladies wearing bunches of trinkets on their watch chains. She bought some trinkets. For her mantelpiece, She wanted a pair of large blue glass vases and a little later, An ivory work box with a silver gilt thimble. The less Charles understood of these niceties, The more they beguiled him. They added to the number of his pleasures and the comforts of his fireside. It was like a sprinkling of gold dust along the narrow track of his life. He was in fine shape. He looked on top form. His reputation was firmly established. The country people were very fond of him because he was not conceited. He treasured their children, Never went inside a tavern. And what was more, He inspired confidence by his integrity. He was particularly successful with catars and chest complaints. Very wary of killing his patients, Charles indeed seldom prescribed anything but sedatives, A pneumatic now and then, A foot bath or leeches. Not that he was afraid of surgery. He would bleed people quite prolifically, As if they were horses. And for pulling teeth, He had a devil of a grip. Eventually, To stay in the swim, He took out a subscription to La Rouche Médical, A new journal that had sent him its prospectus. He would read a little bit of it after dinner. But the warmth of the room, Added to the labours of digestion, Used to send him to sleep after five minutes. And there he stayed with his chin on his hands and his hair like a dishevelled mane hanging down to the foot of the lamp. Emma looked at him with a shrug of her shoulders. Oh, Why, At least, Didn't she have for a husband one of those ardent, Taciturn men who work at their books all night and finally, At 60, When the rheumatism comes on, Wear a string of medals on their dress coats. She would have liked this name of Bovary, The name that was hers, To be famous, To see it displayed in the bookshops, Quoted in the newspapers, Known all over France. But Charles hadn't an ounce of ambition. A doctor from Yves Thau, With whom he had recently happened to confer, Had humiliated him somewhat, Right at the patient's bedside in front of the assembled relatives. When Charles told her that evening about the incident, Emma raged loud and long against his colleague. Charles was touched at this. He kissed her forehead with a tear in his eye. But she was boiling with shame. She wanted to hit him. She went out to the passage to open the window and breathe the fresh air to calm herself. What a pathetic man, She said in a whisper, Biting her lip. She was indeed, Finding him increasingly irritating. As he got older, He seemed to be getting coarser in his ways. During dessert, He used to cut bits off the corks from the empty bottles. After meals, He used to suck his teeth. Eating his soup, He made a gurgling noise with every mouthful. And as he put on weight, His eyes, Already tiny, Seemed to be pushed up towards his forehead by the swelling of his cheeks. Emma sometimes would tuck the red border of his jumper under his waistcoat or arrange his cravat or throw away the shabby pair of gloves he intended to put on. And it was not, As he imagined, For his sake. It was for hers, In a burst of egotism, Of nervous vexation. And sometimes she told him about what she had been reading, A passage from a novel, A new play, Or some little tale about the upper crust she had come across in her paper. For after all, Charles was somebody to talk to, An ever-open ear, An ever-ready approbation. She confided a great deal in her greyhound, Too. She would have confided in the logs in the fireplace and the pendulum on the clock. Down in her soul, The while, She was waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked sailor, She perused her solitary world with hopeless eyes, Searching for some white sail far away, Where the horizon turns to mist. She didn't know what her luck might bring, What wind would blow it her way, What shore it would take her to, Whether it was a sloop or a three-masted schooner, Laden with anguish or crammed to the portals with happiness. But every morning when she awoke, She hoped it would happen that day. And she listened to every sound, Jumping to her feet, Surprised when nothing came. Then, As day came to its end, With an ever-greater sadness, She was longing for the morrow. Spring came round again. She felt quite breathless in the first of the warm weather, When the pear trees were in blossom. From the beginning of July, She was counting on her fingers how many weeks were left until the beginning of October, Thinking that the Marquis d'Andervilliers, Perhaps, Would be giving another ball at La Vauboissard. But September went by with neither letter nor visit. After the annoyance of this disappointment, A blankness once more filled her heart, And now the days began their same old procession again. One after another, Along they came, Always the same, Never ending, Bringing nothing. Other people's lives, However drab they might be, Were at least subject to chance. A single incident could bring about endless twists of fate, And the scene would shift. But in her life, Nothing was going to happen. Such was the will of God. The future was a dark corridor, And at the far end, The door was bolted. She gave up the piano. What was the point? Who would be listening? Since she never could play at a concert in a short-sleeved velvet gown on an Erard piano, Running her fingers over the ivory keys and feel, Like a breeze, Murmurs of ecstasy circling around her, It was not worth the boredom of practising. She left her sketchbooks and her embroidery in the cupboard, Completely pointless. Sewing annoyed her. I've read everything, She said to herself, And she sat there playing with the fire irons or watching the rain falling. How sad she felt on Sunday when they rang the bell for Vespers. She listened, Blankly engrossed, To the clang, Clang, Clang of the cracked church bell. A cat up on the roof, Stepping out slowly, Arched his back in the faint sunlight. Along the main road, The wind was puffing little clouds of dust. Far away, Now and again, A dog was howling, And the bell, In a steady rhythm, Kept on tolling out the monotonous notes that drifted away across the fields. Now they were coming out of church. The women in polished clogs, The peasants in new smocks. In front of them, The little children, Skipping along bareheaded. They were on their way home. And until dark, Five or six men, Always the same few, Stayed playing bouchon just outside the main door of the inn. It was a hard winter. Every morning, The window panes were thick with frost, Blurring the light like clouded glass to a dim whiteness that often scarcely varied in the course of the day. By four in the afternoon, It was time to light the lamp. On fine days, She went down into the garden. The dew had left a silvery lace over the cabbages and hung long, Shining threads between them. There were no birds singing. Everything seemed to be asleep. The straw covered espalier and the vine like a great diseased serpent under the coping of the wall, Where you could see close up the woodlice crawling on their tiny legs. Under the spruce trees near the hedge, The breviary reading curet in the three cornered hat had lost his right foot. And even the plaster crumbling away in the frost had left mangy white patches on his face. Then she went upstairs again, Locked her door, Put coal on the fire and swooning from the heat, Felt the boredom pressing down heavier upon her. She would have gone downstairs to talk to the maid, But decorum would not allow. Every day at the same time, The schoolmaster in his black silk cap would open his shutters. The village policeman would go past wearing his sabre over his tunic. Morning and evening, The post horses, Three by three, Crossed the street to drink from the pond. Now and again, The bell on a tavern door would clink. And when it was windy, You could hear the creaking of the set of little copper basins hanging from their rods, Which did duty as the sign of the wig maker's shop. By way of decoration, It had an ancient fashion plate stuck on one of the window panes and a wax bust of a woman which had yellow hair. The wig maker, Like her, Grieved for his blighted vocation, For his hopeless prospects and dreaming of a shop in some great city in Rouen, For instance, On the quayside near the theatre. He would spend the whole day walking up and down between the town hall and the church, Gloomily waiting for customers. Whenever Madame Bovary looked up, She would see him still there like a man on sentry duty with his cap down over one ear and his shoddy jacket. Sometimes in the afternoon, A man's face would appear at the parlour window, A swarthy face with black whiskers and a slow, Broad, Gentle smile that showed his white teeth. Immediately, A waltz started up and on top of the organ in a little salon, Dancers the size of your finger, Women in pink turbans, Tyrolean peasants in their jackets, Monkeys in frock coats, Gentlemen in knee breeches went round and round in among the armchairs, The sofas, The console tables mirrored in bits of glass held together at the edges by a strip of gold paper. The man turned the handle, Gazing right and left and up toward the windows. Every so often, Squirting a long jet of green saliva down at the kerbstone, He would lift the instrument with his knee to ease the hard strap from his shoulder. And so, Whining and lingering or brisk and cheerful, The music would flow, Whirring from the box through a pink taffeta curtain set behind an arabesque copper grill. They were the tunes being played far away in the theatres, Sung in the salons, Danced to in the evenings by the light of chandeliers, Echoes from another world that carried as far as Emma. A never-ending Sarabande was unwinding in her head and like an Indian dancing girl on a flower-patterned carpet, Her thoughts were leaping to the music, Swinging from dream to dream, From sorrow to sorrow. Once the man had got a few coins in his cap, He would pull down an old blue woolen cover, Hitch his organ onto his back and trudge off down the road. She used to watch him going. But it was particularly at mealtimes that she couldn't stand it anymore. In that little room on the ground floor, With its smoking stove, Its creaking door, Its sweating walls, Its damp flagstones, It seemed as though all the bitterness of life was being served up onto her plate. And with the steam off the stew, There came swirling up from the depths of her soul, A kind of rancid staleness. Charles was a slow eater. She nibbled a few nuts or else, Leaning on one elbow, Spent the time sketching lines on the oilcloth with the tip of her knife. Now she let everything go in the house and the elder Madam Bovary, When she came to spend a few days in Tost over Lent, Was much surprised by the change. She, Who had always been so fastidious and so elegant, Now spent entire days without getting dressed, Wore grey cotton stockings and used cheap tallow candles. She kept saying that since they were not rich, They had to economise, Adding that she was very contented, Very happy, Like Tost very much indeed, Along with other novel declarations that left the mother-in-law quite lost for words. Anyway, Emma no longer seemed inclined to follow her advice. On one occasion, When Madam Bovary took it upon herself to announce that masters ought to keep watch over their servants' religion, She had given her such an angry look and such a cold smile that the good woman never touched on the subject again. Emma was becoming difficult, Capricious. She would order different food for herself and leave it untouched, One day drink only fresh milk and next day cups of tea by the dozen. Often she refused to go out of the house, Then she felt stifled, Opened the windows, Put on a flimsy dress. When she had thoroughly scolded her maid, She would give her presents or send her off to see the neighbours, Just as she would sometimes throw all the silver in her purse to a beggar, Though she was not in the least kind-hearted, Nor readily aware of the feelings of others, Typical of the offspring of most country people, Whose souls, Like the calloused hands of their fathers, Have grown a hard skin. Towards the end of February, Père Rouault, To commemorate his cure, Came over in person with a splendid turkey for his son-in-law, And he spent three days in Tost. Since Charles was with his patients, Emma kept him company. He smoked in the bedroom, Spat into the grate, Talked farming, Calves and cows, Poultry and parish council, Such that, When she finally shut the door behind him, She felt a kind of pleasure that surprised her. Besides, She no longer hid her scorn for anything or anyone, And sometimes she would come out with peculiar opinions, Condemning whatever was generally accepted, And praising perversion and immorality, Which left her husband open-mouthed. Would this misery last forever? Would she never escape? She was every bit as good as all the women who lived happy lives. At La Vauboissard, She had seen duchesses with thicker waists and inferior manners, And she cursed God for his injustice. She used to lean her head against the wall and weep. She envied the riotous life, The nights of dancing, The insolence of pleasure and the wildness she had never known, Things that were surely to be had. She grew pale and had palpitations. Charles administered valerian and camphor baths. Everything that they tried seemed to exacerbate her condition. On certain days, She chattered away in a febrile torrent. These moods of exaltation were followed by states of torpor in which she lay there without speech or motion. What would revive her was sprinkling a bottle of eau de cologne on her arms. Since she complained perpetually about Tost, Charles supposed that her illness must be caused by something in the locality, And fixing on this idea, He seriously considered setting up somewhere else. Now she began drinking vinegar to make herself thinner, Contracted a little dry cough and lost her appetite completely. It was a blow for Charles to leave Tost after four years there, And just when he was beginning to get on. Still, If it had to be, He took her to Rouen to see his old professor. It was a nervous ailment. She needed a change of air. After fishing about here and there, Charles heard of a place in the Neufchâtel area, A sizable market town called Yenvis-la-Bay, Where the doctor, A Polish refugee, Had decamped the week before. He wrote next to the local pharmacist to find out the size of the population, The distance from the nearest doctor, How much his predecessor had earned in a year and so on. And once he was satisfied with the answers, He decided to move sometime in the spring if Emma's health had not improved. One day, As she was tidying a drawer in readiness to leave, She pricked her finger on something. It was a wire in her wedding bouquet. The orange blossom was yellow with dust and the silver fringed satin ribbons were fraying at the edges. She threw it on the fire. It burst into flame quicker than dry straw. Then it was like a red bush on the cinders being gradually eaten away. She watched it burning. The little imitation berries crackled, The wires twisted, The braid melted and the paper petals withering away, Hovering in the fireplace like black butterflies, Finally vanished up the chimney. When they set out from Tost, One day in March, Madame Bovary was pregnant.