Page 268 - madame-bovary

that ideal happiness as beneath that of the manchineel tree,
without foreseeing the consequences.’
‘Perhaps she’ll think I’m giving it up from avarice. Ah,
well! so much the worse; it must be stopped!’
‘The world is cruel, Emma. Wherever we might have
gone, it would have persecuted us. You would have had to
put up with indiscreet questions, calumny, contempt, insult
perhaps. Insult to you! Oh! And I, who would place you on
a throne! I who bear with me your memory as a talisman!
For I am going to punish myself by exile for all the ill I have
done you. I am going away. Whither I know not. I am mad.
Adieu! Be good always. Preserve the memory of the unfor-
tunate who has lost you. Teach my name to your child; let
her repeat it in her prayers.’
The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up to,
shut the window, and when he had sat down again—
‘I think it’s all right. Ah! and this for fear she should
come and hunt me up.’
‘I shall be far away when you read these sad lines, for I
have wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun the temp-
tation of seeing you again. No weakness! I shall return, and
perhaps later on we shall talk together very coldly of our old
love. Adieu!’
And there was a last ‘adieu’ divided into two words! ‘A
Dieu!’ which he thought in very excellent taste.
‘Now how am I to sign?’ he said to himself. ‘ ‘Yours devot-
edly?’ No! ‘Your friend?’ Yes, that’s it.’
‘Your friend.’
He re-read his letter. He considered it very good.