Madame Bovary: A Tale of Provincial Life, Vol. 1 (of 2)

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Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary: A Tale of Provincial Life, Vol. 1 (of 2)

CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL PREFACE

MADAME BOVARY

PART I

I. The New Boy

II. A Good Patient

III. A Lonely Widower

IV. Consolation

V. The New Ménage

VI. A Maiden's Yearnings

VII. Disillusion

VIII. Glimpses of the World

IX. Idle Dreams

PART II

I. A New Field

II. New Friends

IV. Added Cares

IV. Silent Homage

V. Smothered Flames

VI. Spiritual Counsel

VII. A Woman's Whims

VIII. A Village Festival

IX. A Woodland Idyll

X. Lovers' Vows

XI. An Experiment and a Failure

XII. Preparations for Flight

XIII. Deserted

XIV. Religious Fervor

XV. A New Delight

Отрывок из книги

Gustave Flaubert was born at Rouen, December 12, 1821. His father was a physician, who later became chief surgeon in the Hôtel Dieu of that city, and his mother, Anne-Justine-Carline Fleuriot, was of Norman extraction.

Fourth of a family of six children, as a child Flaubert exhibited marked fondness for stories, and, with his favourite sister, Caroline, would invent them for pastime. As a youth, he was exceedingly handsome, tall, broad-shouldered and athletic, of independent turn of mind, fond of study, and caring little for the luxuries of life. He attended the college of Rouen, but showed no marked characteristic save a pronounced taste for history. After graduating, he went to Paris to read law, at the École de Droit. At this time disease, the nature of which he always endeavored to conceal from the world, attacked him and compelled a return to Rouen. The complaint, as revealed after his death by Maxime Ducamp, was epilepsy, and the constant fear of suffering an attack in public led Flaubert to live the life of a recluse.

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During the first period of Charles's visits to the Bertaux, Madame Bovary, junior, never failed to inquire after the invalid, and she had even chosen in the book that she kept on a system of double entry a clean blank page for Monsieur Rouault. But when she heard he had a daughter, she began to make inquiries, and she learnt that Mademoiselle Rouault, brought up at the Ursuline Convent, had received what is called "a good education;" and so knew dancing, geography, drawing, how to embroider and play the piano. That was the last straw.

"So it is for this," she said to herself, "that his face beams when he goes to see her, and that he puts on his new waistcoat at the risk of spoiling it with the rain. Ah! that woman! that woman!"

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