Page 252 - madame-bovary

Then she had strange ideas.
‘When midnight strikes,’ she said, ‘you must think of
me.’
And if he confessed that he had not thought of her, there
were floods of reproaches that always ended with the eternal
question—
‘Do you love me?’
‘Why, of course I love you,’ he answered.
‘A great deal?’
‘Certainly!’
‘You haven’t loved any others?’
‘Did you think you’d got a virgin?’ he exclaimed laugh-
ing.
Emma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning his
protestations with puns.
‘Oh,’ she went on, ‘I love you! I love you so that I could
not live without you, do you see? There are times when I
long to see you again, when I am torn by all the anger of
love. I ask myself, Where is he? Perhaps he is talking to oth-
er women. They smile upon him; he approaches. Oh no; no
one else pleases you. There are some more beautiful, but I
love you best. I know how to love best. I am your servant,
your concubine! You are my king, my idol! You are good,
you are beautiful, you are clever, you are strong!’
He had so often heard these things said that they did not
strike him as original. Emma was like all his mistresses;
and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a gar-
ment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has
always the same forms and the same language. He did not

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