emory; there is no need of going far; there immediately
comes to his mind the daughter of a neighboring farmer, Mile. Emma
Rouault, who had strangely aroused Madame Bovary's suspicions. Farmer
Rouault had but one daughter, and she had been brought up by the
Ursuline sisters at Rouen. She was little interested in matters of the
farm; her father was anxious for her to marry. The health officer
presented himself, there was no difficulty about the _dot_, and you
understand that with such a disposition on both sides, these things are
quickly settled. The marriage takes place. M. Bovary is at his wife's
knees, is the happiest of men and the blindest of husbands. His sole
occupation is anticipating his wife's wishes.

Here the role of M. Bovary ends; that of Madame Bovary becomes the
serious work of the book.

Gentlemen, does Madame Bovary love her husband, or try to love him? No;
and from the beginning there has been what we might call the scene of
initiation. From the moment of her marriage, another horizon stretched
itself out before her, a new life appeared to her. The proprietor of
Vaubyessard Castle gave a grand entertainment. He invited the health
officer and his wife, and this was for her an initiation into all the
ardour of voluptuousness! There she discovered the Duke of Laverdiere
who had had some success at Court; she waltzed with a viscount and
experienced an unusual disturbance of mind. From this moment she lived
a new life; her husband and all her surroundings became insupportable to
her. One day, in looking over some furniture, she hit a piece of wire
which tore her finger; it was the wire from her wedding bouquet.

To try to dispel the _ennui_ that was consuming her, M. Bovary
sacrificed his office and established himself at Yonville. Here was the
scene of the first fall. We are now in the second number. Madame
arrived at Yonville, and there, the first person she met upon whom she
could fix her attention was--not the notary of the place, but the only
clerk of that notary, Leon Dupuis. This is a young man who is making
his own way and is about to set out for the capital. Any other than
M. Bovary would have been disquieted by the visits of the young clerk,
but M. Bovary is so ingenuous that he believes in his wife's
virtue. Leon, wholly inexperienced, has the same idea. He goes away, and
the occasion is lost; but occasions are easily found again.

There was in the neighborhood of Yonville one Rodolphe Boulang