Chapter summary
Back in Yonville, Emma Bovary is called to the pharmacy, where Homais, shouting, scolds Justin for having taken the key to the cabinet, the laboratory where he keeps the blue jar of arsenic, and confiscates from the boy a book, The Conjugal Love, before giving him the news: the father of Charles Bovary has died of apoplexy. At home, Charles weeps while Emma, indifferent, sees in her husband a weak and worthless man and thinks of Léon. With the arrival of the widow Bovary, Lheureux reappears offering his services and hinting that Charles should give Emma a power of attorney, and Emma brings her husband the model of a general authorization to manage the couple's property. To deal with the matter, she persuades Charles to let her go to Rouen to consult Léon, where she stays for three days.
Analysis
The text shows the sequence: Lheureux plants the advice, Emma learns the technical terms, brings Charles a model of a general authorization and, when he asks where the paper came from, attributes it to Guillaumin. When Charles thinks of consulting Léon, she offers to go, with a sudden wave of feigned kindness, and the mourning for her father-in-law sets the deadline and the tone. The road to Rouen is born of the power of attorney.
Given the news in a jolting manner, with Emma already on her way out, Homais calms down and grumbles in a paternal tone about the book he took from Justin:
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