Chapter summary
The next morning Léon greets Emma Bovary, in her dressing gown, at the window, and spends the day waiting for dinner time, while Homais fawns over the Bovarys to win the doctor as an ally: summoned before the king's prosecutor in Rouen for illegal practice of medicine, he wants the silence of Charles Bovary and secures it with favors and with the newspaper every morning. Charles, with no patients and his dowry spent, consoles himself with Emma's pregnancy. She wanted a boy, who would be called Georges and would be the revenge for all her past frustrations, and she faints when her husband announces that a girl was born, on a Sunday, at sunrise.
Emma chooses for the daughter the name Berthe (Berthe Bovary), heard at La Vaubyessard, where the marquise called a young woman by that name. The christening is a farce: grandfather Bovary pours champagne over the baby's head, Abbé Bournisien is indignant and nearly walks out, and he is appeased only by entreaties. After the christening, Emma suddenly feels the need to see her daughter and sets out on foot for the wet nurse's house; Léon comes out of a neighboring door and she asks him to accompany her; there, the wet nurse asks for coffee, soap and brandy, and the two return together along the riverbank, with Emma attentive to his shoulder and his well-kept nails.
Afterwards, back at the notary's office and not working, Léon climbs up to the Pasto, on the slope of Argueil, lies down under the pines and, alone, complains: "What boredom! What a tiresome life!" He laments living in that village, with Homais as a friend and Guillaumin as employer, and among the faces that fill his life in Yonville, Emma's stands out.
Analysis
The walk to the wet nurse's house comes from an impulse of Emma's: she suddenly feels the need to see her daughter and, weak in the heat, hesitates to return; when Léon comes out of a neighboring door, she invites him to accompany her. The visit is brief: the wet nurse asks for coffee, soap and brandy. Emma's attention only awakens when they are alone, and she notices his shoulder and his well-kept nails.
The chapter details Homais's social calculation: cultivating Charles as an ally after having been summoned before the king's prosecutor in Rouen for illegal practice of medicine, thereby ensuring silence should the pharmacist again exceed the limits of the law. It is the first sign that Yonville's sociability (see Yonville) is made of interest in disguise as good neighborliness, the same pattern that Lheureux will repeat with credit.
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