“Oh, neither good nor bad.”

“Perhaps it would have been better never to have parted.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

“You think so?” she said, drawing nearer, and she sighed. “Oh, Rodolphe! if you but knew! I loved you so!”

It was then that she took his hand, and they remained some time, their fingers intertwined, like that first day at the Agricultural Fair. His pride made him struggle against this emotion. But sinking upon his breast she said to him —

“How did you think I could live without you? One cannot lose the habit of happiness. I was desolate. I thought I should die. I will tell you about it and you’ll see how it was for me. And you — you fled from me!”

For, all the three years, he had carefully avoided her in consequence of that natural cowardice that characterises the stronger sex. Emma went on, with dainty little nods, more coaxing than an amorous kitten —

“You loved other women, admit it! Oh, I understand them, I do! I excuse them. You probably seduced them as you seduced me. You’re a man; you’ve everything to make one love you. But we’ll begin again, won’t we? We’ll love one another? See! I’m laughing; I’m happy! Oh, please speak!”

And she was ravishing to look at, a tear trembling in her eye, like the rain after a storm in the blue cup of a flower.

He had drawn her onto his knees, and with the back of his hand was caressing her smooth hair, on which a last ray of the sun gleamed in the twilight, like a golden arrow. She bowed her head; at last he kissed her, grazing her eyelids quite gently with his lips.

“Why, you have been crying! What for?”

She burst into tears. Rodolphe thought this was an outburst of her love. As she did not speak, he took this silence for a last remnant of resistance, and then he cried out —

“Oh, forgive me! You’re the only one I care for. I was an imbecile and cruel. I love you. I’ll always love you. What is it? Tell me!” He was kneeling by her.

“Well, I am ruined, Rodolphe! You must lend me three thousand francs.”

“But — but — ” said he, getting up slowly, while his face assumed a grave expression.

“You know,” she went on quickly, “that my husband has placed his whole fortune at a notary’s. He ran away. So we borrowed; the patients don’t pay us. Moreover, the settling of the estate is not yet done; we shall have money later on. But to-day, for want of three thousand francs, we are to be sold up. It is to be at once, this very moment, and, counting upon your friendship, I’ve come to you.”

“Ah!” thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, “that was what she came for.” At last he said with a calm air —

“My dear Madame, I don’t have it.”

He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no doubt, have given them, although it is generally disagreeable to do such fine things: a demand for money being, of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive.

First she looked at him for some moments.

“You don’t have it!” she repeated several times. “You don’t have it! I should have spared myself this last shame. You never loved me. You’re no better than the others.”

She was betraying, ruining herself.

Rodolphe interrupted her, declaring he was “hard up” himself.

“Ah! I pity you,” said Emma. “Yes — very much.”

And fixing her eyes upon a damascened rifle, that shone in an array of arms, “But when one is so poor, one doesn’t have silver on the butt of one’s gun. One doesn’t buy a clock inlaid with tortoise shell,” she went on, pointing to a Boulle clock, “nor silver-gilt whistles for one’s whips,” and she touched them, “nor charms for one’s watch. Oh, he wants for nothing! There’s even a liqueur-stand in his room! For you love yourself; you live well. You have a château, farms, woods; you go hunting; you travel to Paris. Why, just these,” she cried, taking up two cuff links from the mantelpiece, “even the least of these trifles could be turned to money. Oh, but I don’t want them, keep them!”

And she hurled the cuff links from her, their gold chain snapping as they struck against the wall.

“But I! I would have given you everything. I would have sold all I had, worked for you with my hands, I would have begged on the highroads for a smile, for a glance, just to hear you say ‘Thank you!’ And you sit there quietly in your arm-chair, as if you had not made me suffer enough already! But for you, and you know it, I might have lived happily. What made you do it? Was it a bet, a wager? Yet you did love me — you said so. And just a moment ago even — Ah! it would have been better to have driven me away. My hands are hot with your kisses, and there's the spot on the carpet where you swore an eternity of love at my knees! You made me believe you; for two years you held me in the most magnificent, the sweetest dream! Ah yes! And our plans for going away, do you remember? Oh, your letter! your letter! it tore my heart to pieces! And now when I come back to him — to him, this rich, happy, free man — and implore him for help, help that even a stranger would give, come as a suppliant, bringing back to him all my tenderness, he rejects me because it would cost him three thousand francs!”

“I don’t have it,” replied Rodolphe, with that perfect calm with which resigned rage shields itself.

She went out. The walls were shaking, the ceiling was crushing her, and she walked back through the long alley, stumbling over heaps of dead leaves scattered by the wind. At last she reached the ha-ha hedge in front of the gate; she broke her nails against the latch so frantic was her haste to open it. Then a hundred steps farther on, breathless, almost falling, she stopped. And now turning round, she once more saw the impassive château, with its park, its gardens, its three courtyards, and all the many windows of its façade.

She stood there lost in stupor, having no more consciousness of herself than through the beating of her arteries which felt to her as though they were leaping out and filling all the fields with deafening music. The earth beneath her feet seemed to give way like the sea, and the furrows were like immense brown waves breaking into foam. Everything in her head, of memories, of ideas, was exploding at once, like thousands of fireworks. She saw her father, Lheureux’s closet, their room at home, another landscape. Madness was coming upon her; she grew afraid, and managed to recover herself, in a confused way, it is true, for she did not in the least remember the cause of the terrible condition she was in, that is to say, the question of money. She was suffering only from love, and felt her soul passing from her at the memory of it, as wounded men in their last agony feel life ebbing away through their bleeding wounds.

Night was falling, rooks were flying overhead.

Suddenly it seemed to her that flame-coloured spheres flashed in the air like bullets exploding on impact, whirling and whirling to melt at last on the snow between the branches of the trees. In the midst of each she seemed to see the face of Rodolphe. They multiplied; they drew closer, penetrating her. Then everything vanished and she recognised the lights of the houses shining through the fog.

Now her situation, like an abyss, rose up before her. She was panting as if her heart would burst. Then in an ecstasy of heroism, that made her almost joyous, she ran down the hill, crossed the cow-plank, the foot-path, the alley, the market, and reached the chemist’s shop. She was about to enter — but someone might come at the sound of the bell — so she slipped in by the gate, holding her breath, feeling her way along the walls, and finally coming as far as the door of the kitchen, where a candle stuck on the stove was burning. Justin in his shirt-sleeves was carrying out a dish.

“Ah! they’re at dinner; wait.”

He returned; she tapped at the window. He came outside.

“The key! the one for upstairs where he keeps the — ”

“What?”

And he looked at her, astonished at the pallor of her face, that stood out white against the black background of the night. She seemed to him extraordinarily beautiful and majestic as a phantom. Without understanding what she wanted, he had the presentiment of something terrible.

But she went on quickly, in a low voice, in a sweet, melting voice, “I want it; give it to me.”

As the partition wall was thin, they could hear the clatter of the forks on the plates in the dining-room.

She pretended that she needed to kill the rats that kept her from sleeping.

“I must tell master.”

“No, stay!” Then with a casual air, she added, “Oh, it’s not worth bothering him; I’ll tell him myself later. Come, light me upstairs.”

She entered the corridor onto which the laboratory door opened. Hanging against the wall was a key labelled Capharnaum.

“Justin!” called the druggist impatiently.

“Let us go up.”

And he followed her. The key turned in the lock, and she went straight to the third shelf, so well did her memory guide her, seized the blue jar, tore out the cork, plunged in her hand, and withdrawing it full of a white powder, she began eating it.

“Stop!” he cried, throwing himself at her.

“Hush! someone will come.”

He was in despair; he wanted to call out.

“Say nothing, or all the blame will fall on your master.”

Then she went home, suddenly at peace, and with something of the serenity of one that had performed a duty.

When Charles, distracted by the news of the seizure, returned home, Emma had just gone out. He cried aloud, wept, fainted, but she did not return. Where could she be? He sent Félicité to Homais, to Monsieur Tuvache, to Lheureux, to the Lion d’Or, everywhere, and in the intervals of his agony he saw his reputation destroyed, their fortune lost, Berthe’s future ruined. By what? — Not a word! He waited till six in the evening. At last, unable to bear it any longer, and fancying she had gone to Rouen, he set out along the highroad, walked a mile, met no one, again waited, and returned home. She had come back.

“What was the matter? Why? Explain to me.”

She sat down at her desk and wrote a letter, which she sealed slowly, adding the date and the hour. Then she said in a solemn voice:

“You are to read it to-morrow; till then, I pray you, do not ask me a single question. No, not one!”

“But — ”

“Oh, leave me!”

She lay down full length on her bed. An acrid taste in her mouth awakened her. She saw Charles, and again closed her eyes.

She was studying herself curiously, to see if she were not suffering. But no! nothing as yet. She heard the ticking of the clock, the crackling of the fire, and Charles breathing as he stood upright by her bed.

“Ah! it is but a little thing, death!” she thought. “I shall fall asleep and all will be over.”

She drank a mouthful of water and turned to the wall. The frightful taste of ink continued.

“I am thirsty; oh! so thirsty,” she sighed.

“What is it?” said Charles, who was handing her a glass.

“It is nothing! Open the window; I’m choking.”

She was seized with a sickness so sudden that she had hardly time to draw out her handkerchief from under the pillow.

“Take it away,” she said quickly; “throw it away.”

He spoke to her; she did not answer. She lay motionless, afraid that the slightest movement might make her vomit. But she felt an icy cold creeping from her feet to her heart.

“Ah! it is beginning,” she murmured.

“What did you say?”

She turned her head from side to side with a gentle movement full of agony, while constantly opening her mouth as if something very heavy were weighing upon her tongue. At eight o’clock the vomiting began again.

Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there was a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of the porcelain.

“This is extraordinary — very singular,” he repeated.

But she said in a firm voice, “No, you are mistaken.”

Then gently, and almost caressing her, he passed his hand over her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. He fell back terror-stricken.

Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoulders were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she grew paler than the sheets in which her clenched fingers were imbedded. Her unequal pulse was now almost imperceptible.

Beads of sweat oozed from her face, which was tinged blue and almost rigid as though frozen in the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her teeth chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about her, and to all questions she replied only with a shake of the head; she even smiled once or twice. Gradually, her moaning grew louder; a muffled shriek burst from her; she pretended she was better and that she would get up presently. But she was seized with convulsions and cried out —

“Ah! It’s awful! My God!”

He threw himself on his knees by her bed.

“Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven’s sake!”

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes such as she had never seen.

“Well, there — there!” she said in a faint voice. He flew to the writing-table, tore open the seal, and read aloud: “Accuse no one.” He stopped, passed his hands across his eyes, and read it over again.

“What! Help — Oh, help!”

He could only repeat the word: “Poisoned! poisoned!” Félicité ran to Homais, who proclaimed it in the market-place; Madame Lefrançois heard it at the Lion d’Or; some people even got out of bed to go and tell their neighbours about it, and all night the village was on the alert.

Distraught, stammering, reeling, Charles wandered about the room. He stumbled against the furniture, he tore at his hair; the chemist had never imagined he would ever witness so terrible a sight.

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to Doctor Larivière. He was flustered, he made more than fifteen rough drafts. Hippolyte went to Neufchâtel, and Justin spurred Bovary’s horse so hard that he had to abandon it up by the hill at Bois-Guillaume, foundered and three parts dead.

Charles tried to consult his medical dictionary, but could not read anything; the lines were dancing.

“Be calm,” said the druggist; “we have only to administer a powerful antidote. What is the poison?”

Charles showed him the letter. It was arsenic.

“Very well,” said Homais, “we must make an analysis.”

For he knew that in cases of poisoning an analysis must be made; and the other, who did not understand, answered —

“Oh, do anything! save her!”

Then going back to her, he sank upon the carpet, and lay there with his head leaning against the edge of her bed, sobbing.

“Don’t cry,” she said to him. “Soon I shall not trouble you any more.”

“Why was it? Who drove you to it?”

She replied. “It had to be, my dear!”

“Weren’t you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could!”

“Yes, that is true — you are good — you.”

And she passed her hand slowly over his hair. The sweetness of this sensation deepened his sadness; he felt his whole being dissolving in despair at the thought that he must lose her, just when she was confessing more love for him than ever before. And he could think of nothing; he knew nothing, he dared do nothing; the urgent need for some immediate decision itself overwhelmed his mind.

So she was done, she thought, with all the treachery, and the meanness, and the endless cravings that had tormented her. She hated no one now; a twilight dimness was settling upon her thoughts, and, of all earthly sounds, Emma heard only the intermittent lamentations of this poor heart, soft and indistinct like the echo of a symphony dying away.

“Bring me the child,” she said, raising herself on her elbow.

“You are not worse, are you?” asked Charles.

“No, no!”

The child, serious, still half-asleep, was carried in on the servant’s arm in her long white nightgown, from which her bare feet peeped out. She looked wonderingly at the disordered room, and half-closed her eyes, dazzled by the candles burning on the table. They reminded her, no doubt, of the morning of New Year’s day and Mid-Lent, when thus awakened early by candle-light she came to her mother’s bed to fetch her presents, for she began saying —

“But where is it, mamma?” And as everybody was silent, “But I can’t see my little stocking.”

Félicité held her over the bed while she still kept looking towards the mantelpiece.

“Has nurse taken it?” she asked.

And at this name, that carried her back to the memory of her adulteries and her calamities, Madame Bovary turned away her head, as at the loathing of another bitterer poison that rose to her mouth. But Berthe remained perched on the bed.

“Oh, how big your eyes are, mamma! How pale you are! how hot you are!”

Her mother looked at her. “I’m frightened!” cried the child, recoiling.

Emma took her hand to kiss it; the child struggled.

“That will do. Take her away,” cried Charles, who was sobbing in the alcove.

Then the symptoms ceased for a moment; she seemed less agitated; and at every insignificant word, at every respiration a little more easy, he regained hope. At last, when Canivet came in, he threw himself into his arms.

“Ah! it is you. Thanks! You are good! But she is better. See! look at her.”

His colleague was by no means of the same opinion, and “not beating about the bush,” as he put it, he prescribed an emetic to empty the stomach completely.

She soon began vomiting blood. Her lips became drawn. Her limbs convulsed, her whole body was covered with brown spots, and her pulse slipped beneath their fingers like a taut thread, like a harp-string about to snap.

After this she began to scream horribly. She cursed the poison, railed at it, and implored it to be quick, and thrust away with stiffened arms everything that Charles, in more agony than herself, tried to make her drink. He was standing, his handkerchief to his lips, his breath rasping in his throat, weeping, and choked by sobs that shook his whole body. Félicité kept running back and forth in the room. Homais, motionless, uttered great sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always retaining his self-command, nevertheless began to feel uneasy.

“The devil! But — she has been purged — and from the moment the cause is removed — ”

“The effect must cease,” said Homais, “that is evident.”

“Oh, save her!” cried Bovary.