an
object of disgust; but there is a man there who is sublime--the husband
standing beside the grave. There is a man who is grand, sublime, whose
death is admirable--the husband, who, finding himself broken-hearted by
the death of his wife, sees afterwards all the illusions of the heart
that remained to him embraced in the thought of his wife in the tomb.
Keep that, I beg you, in your remembrance. The author has gone beyond
what was necessary--as Lamartine has said--in rendering the death of the
woman hideous and her punishment most terrible. The author has
concentrated all the interest upon the man who did not deviate from the
line of duty, who preserved his mediocre character, to be sure (for the
author could not change his character) but who preserved also all his
generosity of heart, while upon the wife who deceived him, ruined him,
gave him into the hands of usurers, put into circulation forged notes
and finally arrived at suicide, was heaped all the accumulated
horrors. We shall see that it is natural--the death of this woman who,
if she had not come to her end by poison, would have been broken by the
excess of misfortune with which she was surrounded. The author has seen
this. His book would not be read if he had done otherwise, if, in order
to show where an education as perilous as that of Madame Bovary can
lead, he had not been prodigal with the fascinating images and the
powerful tableaux for which he is reproached.

M. Flaubert constantly sets forth the superiority of the husband over
the wife, and what superiority, if you please? that of simple duty
fulfilled, while the wife was straying from hers. Here she is, fixed by
the bent of this bad education; here she is, gone out after the scene of
the ball, with the young boy, Leon, as inexperienced as herself. She
coquets with him but does not dare to go further; nothing happens. Then
comes Rodolphe who takes the woman to himself. After looking at her for
a moment, he said: This woman is all right. She will be easy prey,
because she is light-minded and inexperienced. As to the fall, will you
re-read pages 42, 43 and 44. I have only a word to say about this scene
and that is: there are no details, no descriptions, no image that can
trouble the senses; a single word indicates the fall: "She abandoned
herself." I pray you to have the goodness to read again the details of
the fall of Clarissa Harlowe, which I have not heard decried as a bad
book. M. Flaubert has sub