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Madame Bovary · Part II

Chapter 14

LoveMoney and WealthReligion

Chapter summary

Charles Bovary, who sees the bills pile up during Emma Bovary's illness, ends up accepting from Lheureux the cloak, the sleeping bag, and the two trunks she had ordered, and signs a promissory note and a bill which, added together, come to one thousand two hundred and fifty francs. At the worst of her illness, believing herself dying, Emma asked for communion and saw heaven open; convalescent, she decides to be a saint: she practices charity, buys rosaries, and reads the devotional books that Abbé Bournisien orders from the bishop's bookseller, but finds no satisfaction. In spring she regains her appetite, has the garden dug up, turns away visitors, and goes to church less often. One afternoon in the arbor, Homais discusses the theater with the priest and advises Charles to take Emma to Rouen to hear the tenor Lagardy, and Charles, by dint of insisting, persuades her to go.

Analysis

Lheureux takes advantage of the illness to bring the cloak, the bag, and two trunks instead of the one Emma had ordered for the escape; when Charles refuses, he threatens to take the matter to court. Alternating threat and lament, he extracts a note from him. Charles does not know these are the escape items; he orders them returned to the warehouse, the servant forgets, and it is the merchant's insistence that makes him sign. The creditor knows the debtor cannot pay and counts on renewals.

The promissory note that Lheureux obtains from Charles has its accounts done in the text itself:

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