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MARY McCARTHY
mute revolt against organized society. He is a sheer accident, nothing
less than a placid miracle occurring among the notaries and tradesmen,
the dyers and spinners of the textile city of Rouen, where he hankers, un–
obtrusive, uncomplaining, for his country home, which was no arcadia
either. He is a revelation, and at the same time his whole effort is to
escape detection, to hide in his fleshly envelope like some hibernating
animal. Moreover, his goodness (for that is what it amounts to) has no
practical utility and will leave no trace behind it. As a husband, he is
a social handicap to Emma, and his mild deference probably contributes
to her downfall; a harsher man might have curbed her extravagances,
so that she would not have been obliged to commit suicide. After his
death, his little girl is sent to work as a child laborer in a cotton mill;
he has not even been able to protect his young. His predecessor, the
Polish exile (another romantic?), at least left behind him
in situ
the
bower he made to drink beer in on summer evenings, but the only re–
minder of himself Charles leaves in Yonville l'Abbaye is Hippolyte's
stump and two artificial legs, one for best-bought by Emma-and one
for everyday. Was he drawn from life? Or did Flaubert make him up,
as a consolation to himself? All that can be said is that Charles Bovary
is a possibility that cannot be ruled out even from a pessimistic view
of the march of events.
