I come now to the four important quotations; I shall make but four; I hold to my outline:  I have said that the first would be the love for Rodolphe, the second the religious reaction, the third the love for Leon, the fourth her death.

Here is the first.  Madame Bovary is near her fall, nearly ready to succumb.

“Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd fancies, marriage tendernesses to adulterous desires.  She would have liked Charles to beat her, that she might have a better right to hate him, to revenge herself upon him.”

What was it that seduced Rodolphe and prepared him?  The opening of Madame Bovary’s dress which had burst in places along the seams of the corsage.  Rodolphe took his servant to Bovary’s house, to bleed him.  The servant was very ill, and Madame Bovary held the basin.

“Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the table.  With the movement she made in bending down, her skirt (it was a summer frock with four flounces, yellow, long in the waist and wide in the skirt) spread out around her on the flags of the room; and as Emma, stooping, staggered a little as she stretched out her arms, the stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her bust.”

Here is Rodolphe’s reflection:  “He again saw Emma in her room, dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her.”

It is the first day they had spoken to each other.  “They looked at one another.  A supreme desire made their dry lips tremble, and softly, without an effort, their fingers intertwined.”

These are the preliminaries of the fall.  It is necessary to read the fall itself.

“When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur Boulanger that his wife was at his command, and that they counted on his good-nature.

“The next day at noon, Rodolphe appeared at Charles’s door with two saddle-horses.  One had pink rosettes at his ears and a deerskin side-saddle.

“Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself that no doubt she had never seen anything like them.  In fact, Emma was charmed with his appearance as he stood on the landing in his great velvet coat and white corduroy breeches.”

“As soon as he felt the ground, Emma’s horse set off at a gallop.  Rodolphe galloped by her side.”

Here they are in the forest.

“He drew her farther on to a small pool where duckweeds made a greenness on the water.  Faded waterlilies lay motionless between the reeds.  At the noise of their steps in the grass, frogs jumped away to hide themselves.

“‘I am wrong!  I am wrong!’ she said.  ‘I am mad to listen to you!’”

“‘Why?  Emma!  Emma!’”

“‘Oh, Rodolphe!’ said the young woman slowly, leaning on his shoulder.”

“The cloth of her habit caught against the velvet of his coat.  She threw back her white neck, swelling with a sigh, and faltering, in tears, with a long shudder and hiding her face, she gave herself up to him.”