Madame Bovary

Upon arriving at the inn, Emma warms herself by the fire. Léon Dupuis, one of Madame Lefrancois’s regulars, sits by the fire and watches Emma. Everyone sits down for dinner. Léon and Emma talk about the town; he tells her of his favorite walking paths. Léon rents a room with Monsieur Homais. He and Emma discuss literature; they both love to read for the escapism and emotion. After dinner, Emma and Charles go to their new house, a large house that the former doctor left behind. Emma “did not believe that things could turn out to be the same in different places, and since that part of her life that she had already lived had been bad, surely what still lay ahead would be better” (77).

Léon is disappointed to find that Emma is not at dinner at the inn. He is generally shy, but with Emma, he discovers a connection where he can fully express himself and be understood. Like Emma, Léon has many interests, including art and literature. His conversation with Emma during her first night in Yonville-l’Abbaye is deeply stimulating and memorable. 

Monsieur Homais is exuberant in his helpfulness to the new couple in town. He helps the Bovarys get situated at home and in town. Monsieur Homais has recently been held legally accountable for practicing medicine in his pharmacy without being a doctor; he hopes that he can ingratiate himself with Charles Bovary, the new doctor in town, so that Charles won’t speak against him. Charles undergoes a difficult transition in Yonville-l’Abbaye, partly because he has no patients there. He has spent a lot of money on the move and on Emma’s whims, and now the Bovary family must be more frugal. However, he is thrilled about Emma’s pregnancy. 

Emma, on the other hand, isn’t sure how to feel about being pregnant. She wants to know what it’s like to be a mother in theory but has a difficult time in practice: The couple’s new budget prevents her from buying all the nursery items she wants. Emma wants the baby to be a boy so that he can be free to make his own decisions in life, receive an education, and travel. Instead, Emma gives birth to a girl, whom she names Berthe.

Charles’s parents come to visit and meet the baby. Emma gets along well with Charles’s father because he regales her with fantastic and shocking stories about his past misdeeds. Charles’s mother is worried that her husband will be a bad influence on Emma, so they leave. 

Berthe stays with another woman for nursing. When Emma goes to visit Berthe and her nurse, she runs into Léon, who joins her for the walk. They are seen, and rumors spread about Emma compromising her reputation. Emma and Léon walk and talk, developing a natural rapport and deep connection. Léon is bored of both his life in Yonville-l’Abbaye and his work as a clerk. His connection with Emma is impressive to him because “against the humdrum background of all these human faces, Emma’s stood out, isolated from the others and also much more distant; for he sensed that some undefinable abyss existed between himself and her” (86).

From her window, Emma watches Léon walk to work. 

Léon and Emma spend more time together at social gatherings organized by Monsieur Homais. Often, Monsieur Homais and Charles fall asleep at the gathering, leaving Emma and Léon alone to whisper quietly with one another. Charles is not jealous and does not mind Emma’s friendship with Léon. Léon likes that other people have noticed his close relationship with Emma. Others tease him for being her sweetheart, and he doesn’t correct them. Léon is in love with Emma and isn’t sure how to tell her, though he knows he wants to. Emma doesn’t realize that she’s also falling in love with Léon.

On an outing with her husband, Monsieur Homais, and Léon, Emma studies Charles and Léon. She draws explicit comparisons between the two of them, finding Charles “peasant-like” and Léon very refined. Later, she thinks deeply about her observations and realizes that Léon is in love with her. Though this pleases Emma, she starts acting like the perfect, doting wife to Charles. This confuses Léon and makes him feel that he has misread Emma, but he is still in love with her and cherishes his feelings for her even if he can’t act on them. 

Emma is acting as a doting wife to disguise her passionate feelings for Léon, which she now recognizes as love. Emma is tormented by her love for Léon and her life with Charles. Her housekeeper notes her unhappiness and compares it to a woman she once knew who had chronic depression.

Emma recalls her time in the convent and decides to seek help from the parish priest, but the priest is busy teaching children and doesn’t have time to talk through Emma’s crisis. The priest has met people who don’t have food or firewood, so Emma’s problems pale in comparison. 

Emma becomes frustrated and feels isolated and unsupported. Berthe toddles over to her, and Emma pushes her so hard that she cuts her cheek. 

Léon, frustrated by his impossible love for Emma and the boredom of Yonville-l’Abbaye, decides to move to Paris to work in another law firm and take his law exams. On the day of his departure, he visits Madame Bovary to say goodbye. Emma’s husband isn’t at home, so they are alone. They shake hands goodbye, both dreading Léon’s departure. He runs away from her house, hoping that she’s looking at him through the window. Léon leaves Yonville-l’Abbaye. 

Monsieur Homais tells the Bovarys that a large Agricultural Fair will likely be held in Yonville-l’Abbaye.

 With Léon gone, Emma falls into despair. She wonders “[w]hy had she not grasped that happiness when it lay within her reach?” (110). Over time, she gets over her passionate longing for Léon, but her depression doesn’t go away. She takes up new hobbies to occupy herself. She tries to learn Italian and read philosophy, but she never follows through. Emma grows unhappy and ill to the point of coughing up blood. She refuses all of Charles’s overtures to help her, which makes him cry in private. Charles writes to his mother for help. She arrives and determines that Emma is too spoiled by lack of labor and novels. She cancels Emma’s subscription to the lending library to keep her away from books.

Emma watches the town’s market from her window. She sees a well-dressed man approach the house and introduce himself as Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger de la Huchette. Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger is a wealthy bachelor who has recently moved to nearby Huchette—a large swatch of land with a castle. He calls on Charles because he has a servant who requires medical attention. Emma helps Charles bleed the servant out. Rodolphe is taken by her beauty. He can’t believe that a woman as beautiful and captivating as Emma could be happy with Charles, who he sees as basic and boring. He contemplates having an affair with her. He decides to try to get closer to her, and the perfect opportunity will likely come when they both attend the upcoming Agricultural Fair.

The day of the Agricultural Affair arrives, and Yonville-l’Abbaye is well-decorated. Rodolphe keeps Emma at his side throughout the fair. They stroll together, and he ensures that no one else interrupts them. He tells Emma that he is lonely as a bachelor, but Emma points out that as a single and wealthy man, he is free, so she can’t pity him. Emma and Rodolphe sit together to watch the speech at the opening ceremony. The speech is a vociferous polemic in favor of farmers, the backbone of France. Throughout the speech, Rodolphe comments to Emma that morality should never get in the way of happiness. Emma concedes that happiness is important, but she also believes that one should follow the rules of their society. Rodolphe speaks seductively to Emma about pursuing passion over the changing and conservative rules of society. Rodolphe’s physical closeness reminds Emma of Léon, whom she longs for as she considers Rodolphe’s philosophies about passion and morality. The politicians end their speeches and pass out prizes; the country farmers and agricultural workers are overwhelmed by this bourgeoise celebration of their decades of hard work. Meanwhile, Rodolphe continues his seduction of Emma. He confesses his attraction to her and tells her that he believes that life, in all its random splendor, led them toward one another. Emma accepts his hand and they gaze longingly into one another’s eyes. 

Emma rejoins her husband for the night festivities while Rodolphe watches her carefully.

Rodolphe purposely waits six weeks before visiting Emma again, thus manipulating her into missing him. Indeed, when he returns to Emma, he declares his love for her, and she is successfully ensnared. However, their reunion is interrupted by Charles, who suspects nothing. Charles tells Rodolphe that Emma’s health has been bad, so Rodolphe offers her the use of one of his horses. Charles wants Emma to accept his offer to go riding, but Emma thinks it will look bad. Charles insists, writing to accept Rodolphe’s offer.

Rodolphe takes Emma horseback riding alone. He takes her deep into the countryside, where he attempts to kiss and touch her. Emma, frightened at his attempts, rejects his physical advances. When Emma returns home, Charles tells her he’s bought her a horse. Despite Emma’s reaction to Rodolphe’s physical advances, she is thrilled that she has become his mistress (in name, not yet in deed). She feels herself “actually becoming a living part of her own fantasies, she was fulfilling the long dream of her youth by seeing herself as one of those passionate lovers she had so deeply envied” (145). Emma believes she has suffered and deserves happiness and excitement. 

Emma and Rodolphe meet often in sequestered places, where they kiss. They sneak love letters to one another. One day, Charles leaves early for work, and Emma sneaks away to Rodolphe’s house, surprising him while he’s asleep. This starts a trend in which Emma sneaks off to his house whenever Charles has an early appointment. One day, Rodolphe becomes annoyed with these surprise visits and tells her she’s risking their reputation because they might get caught if she’s so brazen with their affair.

Emma also feels increasing paranoia that someone will discover her affair and considers ending it. She becomes more sentimental with Rodolphe, which turns him off. However, he enjoys that he can get such a rise of emotion out of Emma. He starts treating her coldly, acting as if their affair is unserious.

Emma receives a letter from her father, who has still not met his granddaughter. He’s been sick, and the farm hasn’t been doing well, which saddens Emma. She recalls her life in the countryside with her father fondly. Emma took her former life for granted and hadn’t realized how happy she had been. She tries to comfort herself by showing her daughter more attention.

Rodolphe misses their three next meetings. He is already thinking about the end of the affair. Emma wishes she could love Charles.

Monsieur Homais reads an article about a new method for curing “club foot.” He suggests to Emma that Charles learn the treatment, which will surely bring him renown. Emma is excited to encourage Charles’s career because “[a]ll she wanted was to have something more solid than love to depend on” (155). Charles studies the new method while Homais convinces the stable hand, Hippolyte, who has a foot disability, to let Charles operate on him. The others in town try to dissuade Hippolyte from this new, possibly dangerous operation, but he agrees.

Charles, who is not an expert on feet, is nervous about the operation, which requires cutting the tendons in Hippolyte’s foot and heel. The surgery goes well, and Homais writes a glowing review of Charles’s surgery to send to the newspapers. Emma is proud of Charles and speaks with him about their mutual hopes and dreams. However, soon after the surgery, Hippolyte has seizures and experiences profound pain. The cast Charles helped make for Hippolyte’s leg has caused an infection, and gangrene spreads up Hippolyte’s leg. A more-experienced doctor is called in. Doctor Canivet arrives and contemptuously mocks the local doctor for believing that he could cure Hippolyte’s foot disability. Doctor Canivet’s diagnosis is that Hippolyte will only live with a leg amputation.

Charles is ashamed of his failure and worried about his career. Emma is also ashamed of him, and embarrassed in herself for believing in him. They listen to Hippolyte’s screams from the inn during his amputation. When Charles turns to Emma for comfort, she screams at him and storms out. Emma sneaks away with Rodolphe in her gardens.

Emma and Rodolphe revive their affair. Emma wants Rodolphe to whisk her away, but Rodolphe isn’t as serious about the affair and finds the idea ridiculous. Emma dives deeper into her affair because of her shame in Charles. Hippolyte is fitted with a wooden leg, and Charles avoids him. Emma buys Rodolphe a riding whip from a local dealer, Monsieur Lheureux. The riding whip costs 270 francs, which Emma can’t pay. Charles is waiting for a Monsieur Derozerays to settle his bill, and Emma and Charles already owe a lot of money. Emma sees the stack of 300 francs from Monsieur Derozerays before Charles does; she uses the money to pay back Monsieur Lheureux, who threatens to ask Charles for the riding whip he can’t afford (which, of course, he doesn’t have because Rodolphe has it). Emma becomes more indiscreet. She behaves rudely in public, and Charles’s mother is horrified. Emma begs Rodolphe to run away with her and Berthe. Rodolphe likes when Emma is desperate for him, so he agrees without making any concrete plan.

Emma is buoyed by the prospect of running away with Rodolphe, so she becomes more subservient and polite again. Meanwhile, Charles, still unsuspecting of his wife’s affair, admires how Berthe is growing. He worries about how he will provide for his daughter given his financial problems and plateaued career.

Emma makes plans to run away with Rodolphe. He promises to arrange a carriage and passports to bring them to Genoa. Emma swaps an expensive watch for new luggage, hiding her purchases from Charles. Rodolphe delays their departure, but finally settles on a day. The night before they are to leave, Emma meets with Rodolphe in the gardens. She is overjoyed that they will run away and live together. When Rodolphe leaves her for the night, he reminisces on her beauty and their affair, but he is certain that he can’t leave his country and his life for Emma and her daughter.

Rodolphe writes Emma a letter ending their romance. When Emma receives it, she’s so devastated that she considers throwing herself out of the top-story window. She’s called to lunch with Charles, who tells her that he heard out in town that Rodolphe is going away on a trip. Emma sees Rodolphe’s carriage ride past her window, and she faints. Though Homais helps revive her, Emma falls ill and is bedridden for 43 days. When she finally starts to feel better, Charles takes her on a slow walk in the gardens, but seeing the setting of her former romantic trysts makes her fall back into her illness. Charles is stressed about Emma and worried about money.

Charles owes money to many vendors and to his cook. Emma’s illness is long and debilitating. She grows so weary that she calls for a priest. Emma is inspired by the priest and the romance of sainthood to recommit herself to God, which is a love she can rely on. She remodels the garden, erasing memories of her romance with Rodolphe. She devotes herself to Berthe’s upbringing. The priest recommends that Emma go to the theater to see a show, which sparks a debate between Homais and the priest. Homais finds it hypocritical that the priest would advocate for theater when the Church routinely bans literature. Charles buys tickets and brings Emma to see a show at a theater in Rouen, a larger city nearby.

Emma is inspired by the show because the story, props, and scenery remind her of the novels she used to read. In the story, she sees a version of her own affair with Rodolphe. Emma “recognized that same rapture, that same anguish that had brought her close to death” (198). During the intermission, Emma stays in her seat, deeply moved by the show. Charles runs into Léon, who comes over to say hello. The three of them leave the show early to go to a café and talk. Charles proposes that Emma stay in Rouen for a couple of days to have a change of scenery and return to theater.