Madame Bovary Page #2

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Emma Roualt, motherless,

had attended a convent|in the provincial city of Rouen.

Emma at first detested the convent.

The scales, the eternal scales, when|she might have been learning love songs.

The discipline, the dreadful conformity.

The eternal uniform,|when a girl's young body is budding.

Perhaps it was the discipline itself|and Emma's discontent

that drove her to dreams, and taught|a lonely girl to live within herself.

For these became the happy years,|these convent years,

when a young girl's mind could wander.

And then, as if to feed her dreams,

there was the old Swiss seamstress who|sang the love songs of the last century

and told stories about|love in a Swiss chalet

and love in a villa in Italy,

and to make|the geography lesson complete,

slipped them on the sly|novels forbidden by the sisters,

so they could read about|love in a cottage in Scotland

and love in a castle in Spain.

Novels, novels.

She lived in a world of love,|lovers, sweethearts,

persecuted ladies fainting|in lonely pavilions,

horses ridden to death on every page,

gentlemen, brave as lions,|gentle as lambs,

always well-dressed|and weeping like fountains.

Oh, love in Italy! Oh, love in Spain!

It seemed to Emma that certain places|on Earth must bring happiness,

as a plant peculiar to the soil|that cannot thrive elsewhere.

She would find it someday.

Happiness.

Fashion.

High romance.

One kind of dream and another kind of life.

The convent years ended|and Emma returned to the farm.

Had she been a normal girl,|her dreams might likewise have ended,

but in Emma|there was a terrifying capacity

for pursuing the impossible.

The dream did not end.

She had learned to be a woman for whom|experience would always be a prison,

and freedom would lie always|beyond the horizon.

Here, in these books, in these pictures,|we had taught her

that the strange was beautiful|and the familiar contemptible.

We had taught her to find glamour,|excitement, in the faraway

and only boredom in the here and now.

We had taught her what?

To believe in Cinderella,

and now, here, this morning,|Charles Bovary.

Emma Roualt, you cannot know.|He is not Prince Charming.

He is only a man.

It was very wise of you|to consult me, Doctor.

In all matters of wills, deeds, notes,|assignments, etcetera, etcetera,

I am at your service.|My mind is a storehouse of details.

You will need a house.

Monsieur Guillaumin,|I haven't decided yet.

You will. Leon!

Leon, please make a note.

A house for Dr. Bovary.

A proper house with a stable,

and a rear entrance through which the|doctor may come and go out on his calls.

You see, I think of every detail.

Monsieur, the detail|that I want to know is,

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