ht
it in interminable fancies; and then, meeting a young man upon the way
who coquetted with her, she played the same game with him (Heaven knows
they were both inexperienced enough!) urging herself on by degrees, and
frightened when she turned to the religion of her early years and found
it insufficient. We shall see presently why this was so. At first, the
young man's ignorance and her own preserves her from danger. But she
soon meets a man, of the kind of which there are too many in the world,
who takes possession of her--this poor woman, already perverted and
ready to stray. Here is the main point; now it is necessary to see what
the book makes of it.

The Public Minister becomes incensed, and I believe wrongly so from the
standard of conscience and the human heart, over that first scene, where
Madame Bovary finds a sort of pleasure, of joy, in having broken her
prison, and returns to her home saying: "I have a lover." Do you believe
that this is not the first cry of the human heart! The proof is between
you and me. But we must look a little further, and then we shall see
that, if the first moment, the first instant of the fall, excites in
this woman a sort of transport of joy, of delirium, in some lines
farther on the deception makes itself manifest and, following the
expression of the author, she seems humiliated in her own eyes.

Yes, deception, grief, and remorse come to her at the same time. The man
in whom she has confided, to whom she has given herself up, has only
made use of her for the moment, as he would a plaything; remorse and
regret now rend her heart. It has shocked you to hear this called the
disillusion of adultery; you would have preferred _pollution_ at the
hand of a writer who placed before you a woman who, not having
comprehended marriage, felt herself _polluted_ by contact with her
husband, and who, having sought her ideal elsewhere, found the
_disillusions_ of adultery. This word has shocked you; in the place of
_disillusions_, you would have wished _pollution_ of adultery. This
tribunal shall be the judge. As for me, if I had depicted the same
personage I would have said to her: Poor woman! if you believe that your
husband's kisses are monotonous and wearisome, if you have found only
platitudes--this word has been especially brought to our notice--the
platitudes of marriage--if you seem to see pollution in a union where
love does not preside, take care, for your dreams are an illusion, and