EPISODE 2
In the first chapter we pick up our initial thematic line : the layers or layer-cake theme. This is the fall of 1828 : Charles is thirteen and on his first day in school he is still holding his cap on his knees in the classroom. "It was one of those headgears of a composite type in which one may trace elements of the bearskin and otterskin cap, the Lancers' shapska ( a flat sort of helmet ) , the round hat of felt, and the house cap of cotton; in fine, one of those pathetic things that are deeply expressive in their mute ugliness as the face of an imbecile. Ovoid, splayed with whalebone, it began with a kind of circular sausage repeated three times ; then, higher up, there followed two rows of lozenges, one of velvet, the other of rabbit fur, separated by a red band ; next came a kind of bag ending in a polygon of cardboard with intricate braiding upon it ; and from this there hung, at the end of a long, too slender cord, a tassel of gold threads. The cap was new ; its visor shone. ( So, you have ambitions to write a novel, do you ??? )
In this, and in the three other examples to be discussed, the image is developed layer by layer, tier by tier, room by room, coffin by coffin. The cap is a pathetic and tasteless affair : it symbolizes the whole of poor Charles' future life---equally pathetic and tasteless.
Charles loses his first wife. In June 1838, when he is twenty-three, Charles and Emma are married in a grand farmhouse wedding. A set dish, a tiered cake---also a pathetic affair in poor taste ---is provided by a pastry cook who is new to the district and so has taken great pains. "It started off at the base with a square of blue cardboard { taking off, as it were, where the cap had finished ; the cap ended in a polygon of cardboard } ; this square held a temple with porticoes and colonnades and stucco statuettes in niches studded with gilt-paper stars ; there came next on the second layer a castle in meringue surrounded by minute fortifications in candied angelica, almonds, raisins, and quarters of orange ; and, finally, on the uppermost platform, which represented a green meadow with rocks, lakes of jam, and nutshell boats, a little cupid sat in a chocolate swing whose two uprights had two real rosebuds for knobs at the top. "
The lake of jam here is a kind of premonitory emblem of the romantic Swiss lakes upon which, to the sound of Lamartine's fashionable lyrical verse, Emma Bovary, the budding adulteress, will drift in her dreams ; and we shall meet again the little cupid on the bronze clock in the squalid splendor of the Rouen hotel room where Emma has her assignations with Leon, her second lover.
We are still in June 1838 but at Tostes. Charles had been living in this house since the winter of 1835-1836, with his first wife until she died, in February 1837, then alone. He and his new wife Emma will spend two years in Tostes (till March 1840) before moving on to Yonville.{ First layer } : The brick front ran flush with the street, or rather highway. { Second layer} : Behind the door hung a cloak with a small cape, and on the floor, in a corner, there was a pair of leggings still caked with mud. { Third layer } On the right was the parlor , which served also as dining room. Canary yellow wallpaper, relieved at the top by a garland of pale flowers, quivered throughout its length on its loose canvas ; the windows were hung crosswise with white calico curtains, and on the narrow mantelpiece a clock with a head of Hippocrates shone resplendent between two silver-plated candlesticks under oval shades . { Fourth layer } : On the other side of the passage was Charles's consulting room, a little place about six paces wide, with a table, three chairs, and an office armchair. Volumes of the Dictionary of Medical Science, the leaves unopened (that is, not yet cut open) but the
binding rather the worse for the successive sales through which they had gone, occupied almost alone the the six shelves of a deal bookcase. {Fifth layer} : The smell of frying butter could be felt through the walls during office hours, just as in the kitchen one could hear the patients coughing in the consultation room and recounting all their woes. {Sixth layer} : Next came a large dilapidated room with an oven. It opened straight onto the stable
yard and was now used as a woodshed, cellar, and storeroom."
In March 1846 after eight years of married life, including two tempestuous love affairs of which her husband knew nothing, Emma contracts a nightmare heap of debts she cannot meet and commits suicide. In his only moment of romanticist fantasy, poor Charles makes the following plan for her funeral :"He shut himself up in his consulting room, took a pen, and after a spell of sobbing, wrote :"I want her to be buried in her wedding dress, with white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out over her shoulders. { Now come the layers.} Three coffins, one of oak, one of mahogany, and one of lead. . . Over all, there is to be laid a large
piece of green velvet."
All the layers themes in the book come together here. With the utmost lucidity we recall the list of parts that made up Charles's pathetic cap on his first day of school, and the wedding layer cake.
binding rather the worse for the successive sales through which they had gone, occupied almost alone the six shelves of a deal bookcase. {
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