Chapter summary
Every Thursday Emma Bovary takes the stagecoach to Rouen. From the top of the hill she sees the city and feels, in the hundred and twenty thousand souls that throb there, the vapor of the passions she attributes to them. She spends the afternoon with Léon at the hotel and returns in the evening to Charles Bovary, who notices nothing. When he mentions that the piano teacher she says she visits does not know her, Emma turns out the drawers, loses her composure, and on Friday the receipt from the teacher appears inside his boot; her life becomes, the narrator says, a collection of lies in which she wraps her love as in veils to hide it.
Lheureux, who saw her leaving the hotel with Léon, then demands about two thousand francs for curtains, a rug, and dresses, suggests the way out (selling the house at Barneville with the power of attorney), and has her sign four bills of one thousand francs each, which the banker Vinçart discounts, handing her only one thousand eight hundred francs in cash.
When one of the bills reaches the house, Charles writes to his mother; the widow Bovary comes, extracts from him the promise to cancel the power of attorney, and burns it. Emma has a fit of nerves, Charles takes her side and, with many entreaties, takes her to the notary Guillaumin to make another; the notary says he understands, for a man of science cannot be bothered with the details of practical life. The following Thursday, at the hotel, Emma laughs, cries, sings, and dances, irritable, gluttonous, and voluptuous, and Léon, who already copies sonnets to please her, agrees to dress in black and grow a small beard, and when she advises him to buy curtains like hers, he objects that they are expensive: he becomes the dependent part of the couple, as if he were the mistress.
Analysis
The Thursday routine rests on three things: the alibi of the piano, Lheureux's credit, and Charles's oversight. When Charles says the teacher does not know her, Emma turns out the drawers, loses her composure, and on Friday the receipt appears in his boot. Lheureux, who saw her with Léon, knows and collects, but offers a way out: selling the house at Barneville with the power of attorney, which pays for the habit for a while.
This chapter shows what chapters 1 to 6 of Part III demonstrate: adultery becomes routine. Flaubert describes, with an almost bureaucratic detail, Emma's Thursday routine: the exact departure time of the stagecoach, the same hotel, the same hairdresser, the detour through side streets to avoid being seen. Rouen, seen from above, still works as a romantic Babylon in Emma's eyes:
Subscription
The complete analysis of every chapter of Madame Bovary comes with a subscription, along with the explanation of each quote, the quiz, the PDF guide, and the study workbook.