CHAPTER EIGHT

"What shall I say? How shall I begin?" she asked herself as she went. As she came near the house, she remembered the feeling of her first love.

She went in the same little gate as before. She climbed the staircase, and walked to his room, the last one on the left. She opened the door.

He was sitting in front of the fire, smoking.

"It's you!" he said, standing up quickly.

"Yes, it's me ... Rodolphe, I want some advice," but she could speak no more.

"You haven't changed. You're still so charming!"

He tried to explain why he abandoned her.

She listened, and perhaps believed him.

"I've suffered," she said, looking at him unhappily.

"Life is like that!" he answered.

"Has life been kind to you since we parted?"

"Oh, neither kind nor unkind."

"It might have been better if we'd stayed together."

"Yes. Perhaps!"

"Do you think so?" she said, walking up to him. "Oh, Rodolphe ... I loved you so!"

And then, she took his hand, and they sat for a while, as they did when they first fell in love. Although, for the past three years, he had carefully avoided her.

Emma continued. "You've got other women. Oh, I understand. I forgive them. You have everything to make a woman love you ... but we'll start again. We'll love each other. Look, I'm laughing, I'm happy ... Talk to me!"

She was lovely to see, he thought, as he kissed her cheeks.

"You've been crying!" he said. "Why?"

She began to cry in silence.

"Oh, forgive me! You are the only one I care for! I love you and I shall always love you! Now, tell me, why are you crying?" he asked her tenderly.

"I'm ruined, Rodolphe! You've got to lend me a hundred and twenty pounds!"

"But ... but ... " he said confused.

"My husband gave all our money to the lawyer to handle. The lawyer disappeared. We had to borrow. The patients didn't pay ... and so, trusting in our friendship, I came to you!"

"So that's why you came!" thought Rodolphe. After a pause, he said calmly, "I haven't got it, my dear lady."

He was not lying. He had always spent money on elegant furniture, expensive traveling, and presents for his mistresses, that now he had nothing to spare.

"You haven't got it ... You haven't got it ... You never loved me! You're no better than the rest!"

She then looked around the room. "When people are poor, they don't put silver on their guns, or have a stand for liquor in their bedrooms! You love yourself too much. You've got a country house, farms; you go up to Paris ... One of these useless things could be turned into money! No keep them, I don't want them!"

She stopped for a moment. "And I, I'd have given you everything, just for a smile, or to hear you say, 'Thank you'," she told him. "For two years, you told me you loved only me, and we would be together forever. Our plans for going away—do you remember? Oh, that letter, that letter, it broke my heart. And now, when I come back to him, him with his money and happiness, bringing back all my love—he refuses me because it'd cost him a hundred and twenty pounds!"

"I haven't got it," Rodolphe answered calmly, hiding his anger.

She went. It was late evening; all was dark. She was, once again, hopeless. She soon arrived at the chemist's shop. It was empty. She was about to go in, but thought that someone might come, so she quietly entered through the side gate. Inside, she saw Justin.

"The key! Where is the ... " she said.

"What?" he stared at her. She looked more beautiful than ever before, the whiteness of her face against the darkness of the night.

"I want the key to the cupboard, give it to me!" she told him.

"I'll have to tell Monsieur Homais."

"No! Stop! Don't bother him. I'll tell him myself."

He took her to find the key to the room where the dangerous chemicals were stored. The key turned. She went straight over to the shelf with the pan on it. She did not forget. She grabbed the blue jar, opened it quickly, and began putting the white powder in her mouth.

"Stop!" Justin cried.

"Be quiet! They'll come! Don't say anything. Monsieur Homais will be to blame!"

And she went away, suddenly at peace.

When she returned home, she calmly sat down at her desk and wrote a letter. Charles soon returned. She gave him the letter.

"Read it tomorrow," she said. "Till then, please don't ask me any questions ... not one!"

"But ... "

"No, leave me alone!"

She then lay down on the bed, and closed her eyes, waiting to die. She felt nothing.

"There's not much in dying," she thought. "I shall go to sleep, and it will all be over."

Soon enough, she began to vomit. He started questioning her. She didn't answer. She didn't move. She began to feel ice cold.

"That's it, it's beginning!" she whispered.

"What did you say?"

She said nothing.

At eight o'clock, she began vomiting again. Charles noticed a white powder in the vomit.

"That's strange," he kept saying.

"No, it's nothing," she said.

Her skin turned ghostly white, and she began sweating as she lay still. She pretended to feel better, and said she would soon get up. Then her body began to shake.

"Tell me what you've eaten! Please answer!" Charles asked her, with tenderness in his eyes that she had never seen before.

"All right," she said in a weak voice. "There ... over there ... "

He ran to the desk to read the letter.

"What ... Help! Oh, help! Poisoned! Poisoned!"

Homais soon arrived. Charles sat down next to his wife, and cried.

"Don't cry!" She said. "Soon I shall be troubling you no more."

"Why did you? What made you?"

"It had to be, my dear," she replied.

"Weren't you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could ... "

"Yes ... that's true ... you are a good man," and she passed her hand over his face tenderly.

A bit later, she told him to bring little Berthe. The little girl arrived, looking sleepy, after being woken up.

"Oh, mummy, what big eyes you've got! How pale you are ... I'm frightened!" said the girl, stepping away from her mother.

Soon, Doctor Canivet walked in. He looked over the patient and gave her some medicine to take, but it didn't seem to help. They waited. After some time, the great Doctor Lariviere came in to see the patient. When he saw what medicine Canivet had given her, he became quite angry. When Canivet came for Hippolyte's operation, the doctor had showed nothing but confidence. Now, after the great doctor Lariviere scolded him, he sat in silence.

"She's very bad, isn't she? I don't know ... Oh, think of something! You have saved so many lives!" Charles asked the great doctor anxiously.

"Come, my poor boy. Be brave! There's nothing I can do," and the great doctor turned away.

"Are you going?" Charles asked.

"I'm coming back." He and Canivet then walked outside to the market place. Homais followed, looking at the great doctor with respect and wonder. He invited the two doctors to dine at his home.

"How did she poison herself?" the great doctor asked.

"I've no idea, Doctor. Neither do I know where she could have found Arsenic," Homais told him.

Justin began to shake with fear as he listened.

The meal was over, and the great Doctor Lariviere was about to leave when Madame Homais requested that he examine her husband's health. Dr Lariviere seemed quite annoyed at this request. He returned to Bovary's house, together with Canivet.

Emma looked about to die. She shook in her bed, looked pale as ever, and couldn't speak a word. The priest had come to be with her before her death, and all was silent. Charles remembered when she had been ill for many months, and the good priest had come to cure her.

"There still may be hope," he thought.

Suddenly, they heard a man walking past the house, singing as he went.

When the sun shines warm above,

It turns a young woman's thoughts to love.

Emma sat up, looking out the window. "The blind man!" she cried. And Emma started laughing. She fell back to her pillow and closed her eyes. She was no more.

(end of section)