He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from a Twelfth-night feast at a neighbour’s.  His wife had been dead for two years.  There was with him only his daughter, who helped him to keep house.

The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.

The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge, disappeared; then he came back to the end of a courtyard to open the gate.  The horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to stoop to pass under the branches.  The watchdogs in their kennels barked, dragging at their chains.  As he entered the Bertaux, the horse took fright and stumbled.

It was a substantial-looking farm.  In the stables, over the top of the open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietly feeding from new racks.  Right along the outbuildings extended a large dunghill, from which manure liquid oozed, while amidst fowls and turkeys, five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois farmyards, were foraging on the top of it.  The sheepfold was long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand.  Under the cart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with their whips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose fleeces of blue wool were getting soiled by the fine dust that fell from the granaries.  The courtyard sloped upwards, planted with trees set out symmetrically, and the chattering noise of a flock of geese was heard near the pond.

A young woman in a blue merino dress with three flounces came to the threshold of the door to receive Monsieur Bovary, whom she led to the kitchen, where a large fire was blazing.  The servant’s breakfast was boiling beside it in small pots of all sizes.  Some damp clothes were drying inside the chimney-corner.  The shovel, tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all of colossal size, shone like polished steel, while along the walls hung many pots and pans in which the clear flame of the hearth, mingling with the first rays of the sun coming in through the window, was mirrored fitfully.

Charles went up the first floor to see the patient.  He found him in his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, having thrown his cotton nightcap right away from him.  He was a fat little man of fifty, with white skin and blue eyes, the forepart of his head bald, and he wore earrings.  By his side on a chair stood a large decanter of brandy, whence he poured himself a little from time to time to keep up his spirits; but as soon as he caught sight of the doctor his elation subsided, and instead of swearing, as he had been doing for the last twelve hours, began to groan freely.

The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of complication.