r his face, like a man seized with giddiness. Then he let it
fall on Emma's. She took hers away.

"And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He only who was so blind,
so plunged (I do not fear to say it), so plunged in the prejudices of
another age as still to misunderstand the spirit of agricultural
populations. Where, indeed, is to be found more patriotism than in the
country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more intelligence, in a
word? And, gentlemen, I do not mean that superficial intelligence, vain
ornament of idle minds, but rather that profound and balanced
intelligence that applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus
contributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration and to the
support of the state, born of respect for law and the practice of
duty----"

"Ah! again!" said Rodolphe. "Always 'duty.' I am sick of the word. They
are a lot of old blockheads in flannel vests and of old women with
foot-warmers and rosaries who constantly drone into our ears 'Duty,
duty!' Ah! by Jove! one's duty is to feel what is great, cherish the
beautiful, and not accept all the conventions of society with the
ignominy that it imposes upon us."

"Yet--yet----" objected Madame Bovary.

"No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are they not the one
beautiful thing on the earth, the source of heroism, of enthusiasm, of
poetry, music, the arts, of everything, in a word?"

"But one must," said Emma, "to some extent bow to the opinion of the
world and accept its moral code."

"Ah! but there are two," he replied. "The small, the conventional, that
of men, that which constantly changes, that brays out so loudly, that
makes such a commotion here below, of the earth earthy, like the mass of
imbeciles you see down there. But the other, the eternal, that is about
us and above, like the landscape that surrounds us, and the blue heavens
that give us light."

Monsieur Lieuvain had just wiped his mouth with a pocket-handkerchief.
He continued:

"And what should I do here, gentlemen, pointing out to you the uses of
agriculture? Who supplies our wants? who provides our means of
subsistence? Is it not the agriculturist? The agriculturist, gentlemen,
who, sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows of the country,
brings forth the corn, which, being ground, is made into a powder by
means of ingenious machinery, comes out thence under the name of flour,
and from there, transported to our cities, is soon delive