Page 29 - madame-bovary

CHAPTER THREE

ne morning old Rouault brought Charles the money
Ofor setting his leg—seventy-five francs in forty-sou
pieces, and a turkey. He had heard of his loss, and consoled
him as well as he could.
‘I know what it is,’ said he, clapping him on the shoul-
der; ‘I’ve been through it. When I lost my dear departed,
I went into the fields to be quite alone. I fell at the foot of
a tree; I cried; I called on God; I talked nonsense to Him.
I wanted to be like the moles that I saw on the branches,
their insides swarming with worms, dead, and an end of
it. And when I thought that there were others at that very
moment with their nice little wives holding them in their
embrace, I struck great blows on the earth with my stick. I
was pretty well mad with not eating; the very idea of going
to a cafe disgusted me—you wouldn’t believe it. Well, quite
softly, one day following another, a spring on a winter, and
an autumn after a summer, this wore away, piece by piece,
crumb by crumb; it passed away, it is gone, I should say it
has sunk; for something always remains at the bottom as
one would say—a weight here, at one’s heart. But since it
is the lot of all of us, one must not give way altogether, and,
because others have died, want to die too. You must pull
yourself together, Monsieur Bovary. It will pass away. Come
to see us; my daughter thinks of you now and again, d’ye

Madame Bovary