Part I, chapter 1
... whose mute ugliness has depths of expression, like the face of an imbecile
Explanation and analysis
The novel opens with a new boy entering the classroom, seen by a classmate, and the narrator spends his attention on what he carries on his knees: a cap. The piece is described part by part, a mix of a fur hat, a round hat, and a cotton skullcap, and only then comes this sentence. It does not speak of the boy, it speaks of the cap: in the original, one of those "poor things" whose mute ugliness has depths of expression, like the face of an imbecile. Right after, when the teacher asks him his name, he shouts it at the top of his lungs as "Charbovari," and the class repeats the word at the top of its voice.
The sentence matters because the book's first portrait is of an object. The cap carries more meaning than it should: its silent ugliness seems to say more than its owner, who has not yet said anything, and the comparison with the face of an imbecile falls, by association, on the boy. It is a habit of style that Flaubert repeats to the end, presenting people through what they wear and possess. Charles will be, in the pages that follow, a man who obeys: his mother, then his first wife, then his own desire, without noticing the difference between one thing and another.
One can read here a tone the book keeps with Charles: the narrator does not spare him, but does not make him a villain either. He is ridiculous and harmless at once. When Emma later comes to despise him, the reader will already have seen, from the first page, how the world looks at him: with laughter, and without curiosity about what he thinks.
Part I, chapter 2
as for Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why he went to the Bertaux with such pleasure
Explanation and analysis
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Part I, chapter 3
well, little by little, one day pushing the next, one spring over one winter and one autumn over one summer, it trickled away thread by thread, crumb by crumb; it went away, departed, went down, I mean, because something always stays at the bottom, so to speak... a weight, here, on the chest!
Explanation and analysis
Emma, by contrast, would have preferred to marry at midnight, by torchlight; but Father Rouault understood nothing of this idea
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 4
it was he, rather, who might have passed for the virgin of the night before, while the bride let nothing show that could be guessed at
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 5
before marrying, she had believed she was in love; but since the happiness that should have come from this love did not arrive, she must have been mistaken, she thought. And Emma tried to find out what was really meant, in life, by the words happiness, passion, and intoxication, which had seemed so beautiful to her in books
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 6
she wanted to get some personal benefit from things [...] being of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, in search of emotions, not landscapes
Explanation and analysis
this spirit, practical amid its enthusiasms [...] who had loved the church for its flowers, music for the lyrics of its songs, and literature for its passionate stimulus, rebelled against the mysteries of the faith
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 7
Charles's conversation was as commonplace as a sidewalk, and everyone's ideas paraded across it in their everyday clothes
Explanation and analysis
her life was cold as an attic whose skylight faces north, and boredom, a silent spider, spun its web in the darkness of every corner of her heart
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 8
but you've lost your mind! They would laugh at you, stay in your place. Besides, it's more fitting for a doctor
Explanation and analysis
had opened a hole in her life, like one of those great fissures that a storm sometimes opens in a single night in the mountains
Explanation and analysis
Part I, chapter 9
like sailors in danger [...] she cast desperate glances over the loneliness of her life, searching far off for some white sail in the mists of the horizon
Explanation and analysis
the little cardboard berries crackled, the wire threads twisted, the braid melted; and the paper petals, dried out, swaying along the plate like black butterflies, finally flew up the chimney
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 1
And the sign, which fills the whole width of the shop, reads in gold letters: Homais, pharmacist.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 2
the mind drifts more freely over this boundless expanse, whose contemplation lifts the soul and conveys ideas of infinity, of the ideal
Explanation and analysis
She did not believe that things could present themselves in the same way in different places, and, since the part already lived had been bad, the part left for her to live would surely be better.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 3
She wanted a boy [...] A man, at least, is free: he can explore every passion and every land, cross obstacles, savor the most distant joys. But a woman is continually prevented from everything.
Explanation and analysis
"How tedious!" he said to himself. "What a dreary life!"
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 4
love, as she believed, had to arise suddenly, with great tumult and flashes [...] a storm from the heavens that falls on life and churns it up, tears wills away like leaves and carries the whole heart off into the abyss.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 5
"A trifle," he replied, "a mere trifle, but there's no rush, whenever you like. We're not Jews!"
Explanation and analysis
Domestic mediocrity incited her to luxurious fantasies; matrimonial tenderness, to adulterous desires.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 6
Yes…, you relieve all miseries.
Explanation and analysis
"It is a strange thing," thought Emma, "how ugly this child is!"
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 7
Poor little woman! I'll bet she yearns for love like a carp for water on the kitchen table! With three words of gallantry, I'm sure she would even adore me!
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 8
Ah!, but there are two kinds [...] the petty, the conventional, the one of men, which varies constantly and shouts so loudly that it stirs on the ground, down to earth [...] But the other, the eternal one, encircles everything and stands above everything, like the landscape that surrounds us and the sky that lights us.
Explanation and analysis
Rodolphe pressed her hand and felt it very warm and trembling, like a captive turtledove that wants to take wing again
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 9
Now, if she loved me from the first day, out of impatience to see me again, she must love me even more. So, let us go on!
Explanation and analysis
I have a lover! A lover!
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 10
What an abundance of illusions! Now not one was left to her! She had spent them all on the adventures of her soul, in every successive condition, in maidenhood, in marriage, and in love, losing them steadily throughout life, like a traveler who leaves part of his wealth at each inn along the road.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 11
Are you not a man, for heaven's sake? What would you do if you had to serve in the army, to fight for your country?
Explanation and analysis
Emma, in front of him, stared at him; she did not share his humiliation, but she felt another: that of having imagined that such a man could have any value, as if she had not already verified his mediocrity dozens of times.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 12
human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which melodies are beaten out to make bears dance, when what was intended was to move the stars to pity
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 13
Fate is to blame!
Explanation and analysis
Why not end it all? Who would stop her?
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 14
When she knelt on the Gothic prie-dieu, she addressed the Lord with the same words of tenderness that she had once murmured to her lover during the effusions of adultery.
Explanation and analysis
Part II, chapter 15
Ah! if, in the freshness of her beauty, before the defilement of marriage and the disillusionment of adultery, she could have given her life to some great and steadfast heart, then, with virtue, tenderness, pleasures, and duty all merged into one, she would never have fallen from such a height of happiness.
Explanation and analysis
Carry me off, take me away, let us flee! For you, for you alone, all my ardors and all my dreams!
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 1
a carriage with its blinds drawn, appearing thus constantly, more closed than a tomb and shaken like a ship
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 2
It is not that I entirely disapprove of the book! The author was a doctor. It contains certain scientific aspects that it is not unbecoming for a man to know, and I am even of the opinion that he should know them. But later, later!
Explanation and analysis
at the touch of his lips, the memory of the other seized her
Explanation and analysis
with a power of attorney, it would be simple, and then we could do some little deals
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 3
Come on, tell us something…, Adolphe…, Dodolphe… I think.
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 4
the lessons [...] are only worthwhile if they are followed
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 5
her life had been nothing but a collection of lies, in which she wrapped her love as in veils, to hide it
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 6
One already knew each other too well to have those surprises of possession that multiply enjoyment a hundredfold. Emma was as weary of Léon as he was tired of her. Emma now found in adultery all the insipidity of marriage
Explanation and analysis
Did the little lady think I would be her supplier and banker until the end of time, out of love for God? Let's be fair! It is quite necessary that I get my money back.
Explanation and analysis
I don't have to worry about that anymore!
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 7
and her life, down to its most intimate corners, was, like a corpse undergoing an autopsy, laid open from end to end to the gaze of those three men.
Explanation and analysis
You take advantage of my distress with impunity! I am to be pitied, but not sold!
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 8
because a request for money is the coldest and most devastating of all the storms that can fall upon love.
Explanation and analysis
first the eyes, which had so coveted all earthly sumptuousness; then the nostrils, eager for warm breezes and amorous perfumes; then the mouth, which had opened to lies, which had moaned with pride and cried out with lust; then the hands, which had delighted in soft touches; and finally the soles of the feet, once so swift when they ran to satisfy her desires, and which would never walk again.
Explanation and analysis
She had ceased to exist.
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 9
as for the texts, one only has to open the history, and it is known that they were forged by the Jesuits.
Explanation and analysis
Read Voltaire! [...] Read Holbach, read the Encyclopédie!
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 10
the wood of the coffin, struck by the stones, made that tremendous noise which seems to us the reverberation of eternity.
Explanation and analysis
Part III, chapter 11
It was fate's fault!
Explanation and analysis
He has just received the Legion of Honor.