Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert

Publisher Marketing: From Chapter Two: One night towards eleven o'clock they were awakened by the noise of a horse pulling up outside their door. The servant opened the garret-window and parleyed for some time with a man in the street below. He came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie came downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts one after the other. The man left his horse, and, following the servant, sud-denly came in behind her. He pulled out from his wool cap with grey top-knots a letter wrapped up in a rag and presented it gingerly to Charles, who rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it. Na-tasie, standing near the bed, held the light. Madame in modesty had turned to the wall and showed only her back. This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of the Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to the Bertaux was a good eighteen miles across country by way of Longueville and Saint-Victor. It was a dark night; Madame Bovary junior was afraid of accidents for her husband. So it was decided the stable-boy should go on first; Charles would start three hours later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet him, and show him the way to the farm, and open the gates for him. Towards four o'clock in the morning, Charles, well wrapped up in his cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still sleepy from the warmth of his bed, he let himself be lulled by the quiet trot of his horse. When it stopped of its own accord in front of those holes surrounded with thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows, Charles awoke with a start, suddenly remembered the broken leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. The rain had stopped, day was breaking, and on the branches of the leafless trees birds roosted motionless, their little feathers bristling in the cold morning wind. The flat country stretched as far as eye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at long intervals seemed like dark violet stains on the cast grey surface, that on the horizon faded into the gloom of the sky. Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary, and, sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, his recent sensations blending with memories, he became conscious of a double self, at once student and married man, lying in his bed as but now, and crossing the operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of poultices mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the curtain-rods of the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he came upon a boy sitting on the grass at the edge of a ditch. "Are you the doctor?" asked the child. Review Citations: Atlantic Monthly 10/01/2004 pg. 175 (EAN 9781419131912, Paperback) Ingram Advance 05/01/2005 pg. 113 (EAN 9780192840394, Paperback) Booklist 11/15/1999 pg. 601 (EAN 9780679600138, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2006 pg. 312 (EAN 9780679420316, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2010 pg. 227 (EAN 9780679420316, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 05/18/2014 pg. 14 (EAN 9781843798477, Compact Disc) Entertainment Weekly 07/05/2013 pg. 101 (EAN 9780486292571, Paperback) New York Times Book Review 10/14/2010 pg. 26 (EAN 9780670022076, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 10/03/2010 pg. 14 (EAN 9780670022076, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 10/10/2010 pg. 26 (EAN 9780670022076, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2011 pg. 28 (EAN 9780670022076, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 287 (EAN 9780670022076, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Flaubert, Gustave Known for his scrupulous devotion to his art and perfectionist style, French writer Gustave Flaubert is counted among the greatest Western novelists, and influenced such writers as Franz Kafka and J. M. Coetzee. Flaubert is best known for Madame Bovary, for which he was prosecuted (and acquitted) for offending public morals. His other works of note include Memoirs of a Madman, November, Salammb?, Sentimental Education, and The Temptation of Saint Anthony. His work has been widely adapted for the stage and screen. Flaubert died in 1880. Contributor Bio:  Marx-Aveling, Eleanor Eleanor Marx Aveling (16 January 1855 - 31 March 1898), also known as Jenny Julia Eleanor "Tussy" Marx, was the English-born youngest daughter of Karl Marx. She was herself a socialist activist, who sometimes worked as a literary translator. In March 1898, after discovering that her partner and prominent British Marxist, Edward Aveling, had secretly married a young actress in June the previous year, she committed suicide by poison. She was 43. Gustave Flaubert (12 December 1821 - 8 May 1880) was an influential French writer widely considered one of the greatest novelists in Western literature.