FlAUBERT
205
-and
this is
what gives them their strange chann and fascina–
tion-have for
him
something equivocal and suspect since the reader
is
not only Madame Bovary but
also
Flaubert, and since he sees both
the poetry and the beauty from the same objective position.
Appearances are unmasked, and the opening through which they
are exposed changes
this
beautiful fonn of dubious quality into an
art fonn.
Equally fine, astonishing even, by reason of its virtuosity and
modernism,
is
the famous scene at the Agricultural Show during
which, between the platitudes pronounced on stage by the county–
councillor, then by M. Derozerays, and the subtler, more secretive
ones that Madame Bovary's lover Rodolphe is whispering into her
ear, there is established a sort of counterpoint. At times the two
discourses seem to prolong each other with no transition, separated
by a simple interval; at others, they appear to be the responses of a
skillfully composed duet.
The commonplaces spoken by Rodolphe,
his
tasteless refine–
ment, his false sincerity,
his
complacent disdain for the proprieties,
his cheap sentiments, stand out, heightened, against the coarser
platitudes of the official speeches, the cliches of which are admirably
set off by Rodolphe's amorous declarations and philosophical com–
ments.
In
Madame Bouary,
through the rift in appearances, we are
constantly in the presence of a fictional substance so remarkably re–
created that it retains all the complexity and richness of a living
substance. In this novel, therefore, authentic emotions may be seen to
start with the tritest of cliches, as when Emma's daydreams about
Rodolphe and Love lead to an emotion that is impossible to
dis–
tinguish from genuine, passionate love of less impure origin.
Inversely, a sincere sentiment occasionally leads to a cliche.
This happens in the case of
Uon's
love which, after being described
as
any spontaneous love would be, suddenly changes into a shoddy
sentiment. In the portrayal of the love that exists between
Uon
and
Emma:
They were so completely wrapped up
in
the possession of each
other that they believed themselves to
be
in
their own home,
where they would live until death should part them, like an
eternally young newly-wedded couple. . . .
