Yonville-l'Abbaye--so called from an old Capuchin abbey of which not
even the ruins remain--is a market-town twenty-four miles from Rouen,
between the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, at the foot of a valley
watered by the Rieule, a little river that runs into the Andelle after
turning three water-mills near its mouth, where there are a few trout
that the lads amuse themselves by fishing for on Sundays.
[Footnote 4: From Part II of "Madame Bovary." Translated by Eleanor
Marx-Aveling. Copyright, 1901, by George Munro's Sons.]
We leave the highroad at a Boissière and keep straight on to the top of
Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. The river that runs through it
makes of it, as it were, two regions with distinct physiognomies--all on
the left is pasture land, all on the right arable. The meadow stretches
under a bulge of low hills to join at the back with the pasture land of
the Bray country, while on the eastern side the plain, gently rising,
broadens out, showing as far as eye can follow its blonde corn-fields.
The water, flowing by the grass, divides with a white line the color of
the roads and of the plains, and the country is like a great unfolded
mantle with a green velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver.
Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of the forest of
Argueil, with the steeps of St. Jean hills scarred from top to bottom
with red irregular lines; they are rain-tracks, and these brick tones,
standing out in narrow streaks against the gray color of the mountain,
are due to the quantity of iron springs that flow beyond in the
neighboring country.
Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy, and the
Ile-de-France, a bastard land, whose language is without accent as its
landscape is without character. It is there that they make the worst
Neuchâtel cheeses of all the _arrondissement_; and, on the other hand,
farming is costly because so much manure is needed to enrich this
friable soil, full of sand and flints.
Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting to Yonville; but
about this time a crossroad was made which joins that of Abbeville to
that of Amiens, and is occasionally used by the Rouen wagoners on
their way to Flanders. Yonville-l'Abbaye has remained stationary in
spite of its "new outlet." Instead of improving the soil, they persist
in keeping up the pasture-lands, however depreciated they may be in
value, and the lazy borough, growing away from the plain, has
naturally spread riverward. It is seen from afar sprawling along the
banks like a cow-herd taking a siesta by the water-side.
At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a roadway, planted
with young aspens, that leads in a straight line to the first houses
in the place. These, fenced in by hedges, are in the middle of
courtyards full of straggling buildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds, and
distilleries scattered under thick trees, with ladders, poles, or
scythes hung on to the branches. The thatched roofs, like fur caps
drawn over eyes, reach down over about a third of the low windows,
whose coarse convex glasses have knots in the middle like the bottoms
of bottles. Against the plaster wall, diagonally crossed by black
joists, a meager pear-tree sometimes leans, and the ground floors have
at their door a small swing-gate, to keep out the chicks that come
pilfering crumbs of bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But the
courtyards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and the fences
disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a window from the end of a
broomstick; there is a blacksmith's forge and then a wheelwright's,
with two or three new carts outside that partly block up the way. Then
across an open space appears a white house beyond a grass mound
ornamented by a cupid, his finger on his lips; two brass vases are at
each end of a flight of steps; scutcheons blaze upon the door. It is
the notary's house, and the finest in the place.
The church is on the other side of the street, twenty paces farther
down, at the entrance of the square. The little cemetery that
surrounds it, closed in by a wall breast-high, is so full of graves
that the old stones, level with the ground, form a continuous
pavement, on which the grass of itself has marked out regular green
squares. The church was rebuilt during the last years of the reign of
Charles X. The wooden roof is beginning to rot from the top, and here
and there has black hollows in its blue color. Over the door, where
the organ should be, is a loft for the men, with a spiral staircase
that reverberates under their wooden shoes.
The daylight coming through the plain glass windows falls obliquely
upon the pews ranged along the walls, which are adorned here and there
with a straw mat bearing beneath it the words in large letters, "Mr.
So-and-So's pew." Farther on, at the spot where the building narrows,
the confessional forms a pendant to a statuette of the Virgin, clothed
in a satin robe, coifed with a tulle veil sprinkled with silver stars,
and with red cheeks, like an idol of the Sandwich Islands, and,
finally, a copy of the "Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the
Interior," overlooking the high altar, between four candlesticks,
closes in the perspective. The choir stalls, of deal wood, have been
left unpainted.
The market--that is to say, a tiled roof supported by some twenty
posts--occupies of itself about half the public square of Yonville.
The town-hall, constructed "from the designs of a Paris architect," is
a sort of Greek temple that forms the corner next to the chemist's
shop. On the ground floor are three Ionic columns, and on the first
floor is a semicircular gallery, while the dome that crowns it is
occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot upon the "Charte" and
holding in the other the scales of Justice.
But that which most attracts the eye is, opposite the Lion d'Or inn,
the chemist's shop of Monsieur Homais. In the evening especially its
argand lamp is lighted up, and the red and green jars that embellish
his shop-front throw far across the street their two streams of color;
then across them, as if in Bengal lights, is seen the shadow of the
chemist leaning over his desk. His house from top to bottom is
placarded with inscriptions written in large hand, round hand, printed
hand: "Vichy, Seltzer, Barège waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent
medicine, Arabian racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, trusses,
baths, hygienic chocolate," etc. And the signboard, which takes up all
the breadth of the shop, bears, in gold letters, "Homais, Chemist."
Then, at the back of the shop, behind the great scales fixt to the
counter, the word "Laboratory" appears on a scroll above a glass door,
which about half-way up once more repeats "Homais" in gold letters on
a black ground.
Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The street--the only
one--a gunshot in length, and flanked by a few shops on each side,
stops short at the turn of the highroad. If it is left to the right
hand and the foot of the St. Jean hills followed, the cemetery is soon
reached.
At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, a piece of wall
was pulled down, and three acres of land by its side purchased; but
all the new portion is almost tenantless; the tombs, as heretofore,
continue to crowd together toward the gate. The keeper, who is at once
grave-digger and church-beadle--thus making a double profit out of the
parish corpses--has taken advantage of the unused plot of ground to
plant potatoes there. From year to year, however, his small field
grows smaller and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether
to rejoice at the deaths or regret the burials.
"You live on the dead, Lestiboudois!" the curé at last said to him one
day. This grim remark made him reflect; it checked him for some time;
but to this day he carries on the cultivation of his little tubers,
and even maintains stoutly that they grow naturally.
Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in fact has changed at
Yonville. The tin tricolor flag swings at the top of the
church-steeple; the two chintz streamers still flutter in the wind
from the linen-draper's; the chemist's fetuses, like lumps of white
amadou, rot more and more in their turbid alcohol, and above the big
door of the inn the old golden lion, faded by rain, still shows
passers-by its poodle mane.
On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at Yonville, Widow
Lefrançois, the landlady of this inn, was so very busy that she
sweated great drops as she moved her saucepans. Tomorrow was
market-day. The meat had to be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn, the
soup and coffee made. Moreover, she had the boarders' meal to see to,
and that of the doctor, his wife, and their servant; the billiard-room
was echoing with bursts of laughter; three millers in the small parlor
were calling for brandy; the wood was blazing, the brazen pan was
hissing, and on the long kitchen-table, amid the quarters of raw
mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled with the shaking of the
block on which spinach was being chopped. From the poultry-yard was
heard the screaming of the fowls whom the servant was chasing in order
to wring their necks.
A man slightly marked with smallpox, in green leather slippers, and
wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel was warming his back at the
chimney. His face exprest nothing but self-satisfaction, and he
appeared to take life as calmly as the goldfinch suspended over his
head in its wicker cage--this was the chemist.
"Artémise!" shouted the landlady, "chop some wood, fill the
water-bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! If only I knew what
dessert to offer the guests you are expecting! Good heavens! Those
furniture-movers are beginning their racket in the billiard-room
again; and their van has been left before the front door! The
Hirondelle might run into it when it draws up. Call Polyte and tell
him to put it up. Only to think, Monsieur Homais, that since morning
they have had about fifteen games and drunk eight jars of cider! Why,
they'll tear my cloth for me," she went on, looking at them from a
distance, her strainer in her hand.
"That wouldn't be much of a loss," replied Monsieur Homais. "You would
buy another."
"Another billiard-table," exclaimed the widow.
"Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Lefrançois. I tell you
again you are doing yourself harm, much harm! And besides, players now
want narrow pockets and heavy cues. Hazards aren't played now;
everything is changed! One must keep pace with the times! Just look at
Tellier!"
The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist went on:
"You may say what you like; his table is better than yours; and if one
were to think, for example, of getting up a patriotic pool for Poland
or the sufferers from the Lyons floods--"
"It isn't beggars like him that'll frighten us," interrupted the
landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. "Come, come, Monsieur Homais;
as long as the Lion d'Or exists people will come to it. We've
feathered our nest; while one of these days you'll find the Café
Français closed with a big placard on the shutters. Change my
billiard-table!" she went on, speaking to herself, "the table that
comes in so handy for folding the washing, and on which, in the
hunting season, I have slept six visitors! But that dawdler Hivert
doesn't come!"
"Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen's dinner?"
"Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? As the clock strikes six
you'll see him come in, for he hasn't his equal under the sun for
punctuality. He must always have his seat in the small parlor. He'd
rather die than dine anywhere else. And so squeamish as he is, and so
particular about the cider! Not like Monsieur Léon; he sometimes comes
at seven, or even half-past, and he doesn't so much as look at what he
eats. Such a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!"
"Well, you see, there's a great difference between an educated man and
an old carabineer who is now a tax-collector."