IN THE HOTEL DE LA MOLE
293
his emotional, fiery, and uncritical temperament, as well as with
the Romantic way of life, to sense hidden demonic forces every–
where and to exaggerate expression to the point of melodrama.
In the next generation, which comes on the stage in the fifties,
there is a strong reaction in this respect. In Flaubert realism be–
comes impartial, impersonal, and objective. In a previous study on
"Serious Imitation of Everyday Life" I analyzed a paragraph from
Madame Bovary
from this point of view, and will here, with slight
changes and abridgments, reproduce the pages concerned, since they
are congruous with the present train of thought and since it is un–
likely, in view of the time and place of their publication (Istanbul,
1937), that they have reached many readers. The paragraph con–
cerned occurs in Part I, chapter 9, of
Madame Bovary:
M ais c'etait surtout aux heures des repas qu'elle n'en pouvait plus,
dans cette petite salle au rez-de-chaussee, avec le poele qui fumait, fa
porte qui criait, les murs qui suintaient, les paves humides; toute l'amer–
tume de ['existence lui semblait servie sur son assiette, et,
a
la fumee du
bouilli,
il
montait du fond de son
arne
comme d'autres bouffees d'af–
fadissement. Charles etait long
a
manger; elle grignotait quelques
noisettes, ou bien, appuyee du coude, s'amusait, avec la pointe de son
couteau, de faire des raies sur la toile ciree .
The paragraph forms the climax of a presentation whose sub–
ject is Emma Bovary's dissatisfaction with her life in Tostes. She
has long hoped for a sudden event which would give a new tum to
it-her life without elegance, adventure, and love, in the depths of
the provinces, beside a mediocre and boring husband; she has even
made preparations for such an event, has lavished care on herself and
her house, as if to earn that turn of fate, to be worthy of it; when it
does not come, she is seized with unrest and despair. All this Flau–
bert describes in several pictures which portray Emma's world as it
now appears to her; its cheerlessness, unvaryingness, grayness, stale–
ness, airlessness, and inescapability now first become clearly apparent
to her when she has no more hope of fleeing from it. Our paragraph
is the culmination of the portrayal of her despair. Next we are told
how she lets everything in her house go, neglects herself and begins to
sicken, so that her husband decides to leave Tostes, thinking that
the climate does not agree with her.
