Page 253 - madame-bovary

distinguish, this man of so much experience, the difference
of sentiment beneath the sameness of expression. Because
lips libertine and venal had murmured such words to him,
he believed but little in the candour of hers; exaggerated
speeches hiding mediocre affections must be discounted; as
if the fullness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the
emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact
measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sor-
rows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on
which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we
long to move the stars.
But with that superior critical judgment that belongs
to him who, in no matter what circumstance, holds back,
Rodolphe saw other delights to be got out of this love. He
thought all modesty in the way. He treated her quite sans
facon.* He made of her something supple and corrupt. Hers
was an idiotic sort of attachment, full of admiration for him,
of voluptuousness for her, a beatitude that benumbed her;
her soul sank into this drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned
in it, like Clarence in his butt of Malmsey.
*Off-handedly.
By the mere effect of her love Madame Bovary’s manners
changed. Her looks grew bolder, her speech more free; she
even committed the impropriety of walking out with Mon-
sieur Rodolphe, a cigarette in her mouth, ‘as if to defy the
people.’ At last, those who still doubted doubted no longer
when one day they saw her getting out of the ‘Hirondelle,’
her waist squeezed into a waistcoat like a man; and Madame
Bovary senior, who, after a fearful scene with her husband,

Madame Bovary