CLARISSA AND EMMA AS PHEDRE
829
First, upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon
the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous
odours; then upon the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had curled
with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands that had
delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the soles of the feet,
so swift of yore, when she was running to satisfy her desires, and that
would now walk no more.
As
Albert Thibaudet says, in his book on Flaubert, Emma is not
in love with a lover but with lovers, not with men but with love.
But as the passion which animates her demands more of her lovers
than they can contribute as men, so, also, she is more than herself
as a country doctor's wife. She is Aphrodite: on her forest ride with
Rodolphe, her face appears under her veil "in a bluish transparency
as
if
she were floating under azure waves." The men inflecting her
love-career are all three confused in the odor of the Viscount's hair–
pomade. Rodolphe has recently been on a party in the same pleasure–
boat where she picnics with Leon; she runs to rendezvous with Leon
in the same lane where she had formerly met Rodolphe; she meets
the Viscount again as she is hurrying from her last appointment with
Leon. In each case, sexuality is given its mythological dimension by
the serpent-image. After dancing with the Viscount ("Their legs
commingled. . . . A torpor seized her . . . , " etc.) she is taken to
the hothouse
where strange plants, bristling with hairs, rose in pyramids under
hanging vases, whence, as from overfilled nests of serpents, fell long
green cords interlacing.
On her last voluptuous night with Rodolphe, they watch the moon on
the river:
The silver sheen seemed to writhe through the very depths like a head–
less serpent covered with luminous scales.
And in her final desperate throes with Uon, the image appears again:
She undressed brutally, tearing off the thin laces of her corset that
nestled around her hips like a gliding snake . . . there was upon that
