Why did he always offer a glass of something to everyone who came?  What obstinacy not to wear flannels!  In the spring it came about that a notary at Ingouville, the holder of the widow Dubuc’s property, one fine day went off, taking with him all the money in his office.  Heloise, it is true, still possessed, besides a share in a boat valued at six thousand francs, her house in the Rue St. Francois; and yet, with all this fortune that had been so trumpeted abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps a little furniture and a few clothes, had appeared in the household.  The matter had to be gone into.  The house at Dieppe was found to be eaten up with mortgages to its foundations; what she had placed with the notary God only knew, and her share in the boat did not exceed one thousand crowns.  She had lied, the good lady!  In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary the elder, smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having caused misfortune to the son by harnessing him to such a harridan, whose harness wasn’t worth her hide.  They came to Tostes.  Explanations followed.  There were scenes.  Heloise in tears, throwing her arms about her husband, implored him to defend her from his parents.

Charles tried to speak up for her.  They grew angry and left the house.

But “the blow had struck home.”  A week after, as she was hanging up some washing in her yard, she was seized with a spitting of blood, and the next day, while Charles had his back turned to her drawing the window-curtain, she said, “O God!” gave a sigh and fainted.  She was dead!  What a surprise!  When all was over at the cemetery Charles went home.  He found no one downstairs; he went up to the first floor to their room; say her dress still hanging at the foot of the alcove; then, leaning against the writing-table, he stayed until the evening, buried in a sorrowful reverie.  She had loved him after all!

Chapter Three

One morning old Rouault brought Charles the money for setting his leg—­seventy-five francs in forty-sou pieces, and a turkey.  He had heard of his loss, and consoled him as well as he could.

“I know what it is,” said he, clapping him on the shoulder; “I’ve been through it.  When I lost my dear departed, I went into the fields to be quite alone.  I fell at the foot of a tree; I cried; I called on God; I talked nonsense to Him.  I wanted to be like the moles that I saw on the branches, their insides swarming with worms, dead, and an end of it.  And when I thought that there were others at that very moment with their nice little wives holding them in their embrace, I struck great blows on the earth with my stick.  I was pretty well mad with not eating; the very idea of going to a cafe disgusted me—­you wouldn’t believe it.  Well, quite softly, one day following another, a spring on a winter, and an autumn after a summer, this wore away, piece by piece, crumb by crumb; it passed away, it is gone, I should say it