Madame Bovary (58 page)
Authors: Gustave Flaubert trans Lydia Davis
| 230 | staves: A staff in music is a set of five horizontal lines and the four spaces between them on which the notes to be played are marked; there are two staves in a piece of piano music—generally, the right hand plays the higher notes (on the upper staff) and the left hand the lower. |
| 231 | the Miséricorde: A convent school in Rouen. |
| 235 | bathing odalisque: The reference is to a series of paintings by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867). The odalisque, a female slave or concubine in a harem, was a popular subject of paintings at this time and earlier. |
| 235 | the pale beauty of Barcelona: The reference is most likely to a poem by Alfred de Musset (1810–57) titled “L’Andalouse,” which appeared in his first collection, Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie (Tales of Spain and Italy, 1829). |
| 236 | Some of them would get out: In other words, they would walk up the hill in order to lighten the load for the horse. |
| 236 | beaver hat: A hat made of beaver skin or a fabric imitation. |
| 237 | Oft in the warmth … : Flaubert evidently noted on his manuscript page that he had taken the blind man’s song from Nicholas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne (1734–1806), a novelist and dramatist who wrote prolifically about Paris low-life, including particularly its women, as well as a number of tracts on social reform. |
| 241 | hectares: Metric units for measuring area, each equal to about two and a half acres. |
| 247 | monacos: Slang for money, cash (literally, the coin of Monaco). |
| 247 | dazzle … the bourgeoisie: With the ellipsis in his phrase, éblouir … les bourgeois , Flaubert may be alluding to the common expression épater les bourgeois (“shock the conventionally minded”). |
| 247 | footmuff: An open box or bag lined with fur, for keeping the feet warm. |
| 248 | Pommard: A Côte de Beaune wine from Burgundy in eastern France. |
| 249 | garus: An elixir composed of cinnamon, saffron, nutmeg, et cetera, used as an aid to digestion. |
| 249 | Cujas and Bartole: Jacques Cujas was a sixteenth-century French lawyer; Bartolo da Sassoferrato was a fourteenth-century Italian jurist. |
| 252 | protest of nonpayment: A sworn statement in writing that payment of a promissory note or a bill has not been received. |
| 254 | ells: An ell was a unit of length, mainly for cloth, equal to about forty-five inches. |
| 254 | antimacassars: An antimacassar (from “anti-” plus “Macassar,” a brand of hair oil) was a cover to protect the back or arms of a piece of furniture. |
| 256 | nanny: Flaubert describes Félicité variously as “servant,” “maid,” “cook,” “nanny”—she functioned as all of these. |
| 258 | Mid-Lent Day: A day halfway through Lent, the period of fasting and penitence in the Roman Catholic religion; in some places and at some times, it was marked by festivities. |
| 265 | cheminots: Usually spelled chemineaux , the name, in Rouen, for little unleavened loaves that were eaten during Lent. Originally Flaubert planned to make a love of this bread Homais’s “one human weakness,” then transferred the weakness to his wife. |
| 265 | century of the Crusades: The Crusades were a series of wars, most of them in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, undertaken by European Christians to recover the Holy Land (historic Palestine) from the Muslims. |
| 265 | hippocras: A sweet wine infused with cinnamon and cloves or other spices, popular in medieval Europe. |
| 266 | “cornea” … “sclerotic,” “facies”: The cornea is the transparent part of the eyeball that covers the iris and pupil and allows light into the interior; sclerotic means affected with sclerosis, or hardening of certain tissues of the body; a facies is a facial appearance and expression characteristic of a specific medical condition. |
| 266 | liards: A liard was a coin made of copper and worth one-fourth of a sou. |
| 266 | antiphlogistic salve: An ointment that counteracts inflammation. |
| 268 | Steuben’s Esmeralda and Schopin’s Potiphar: Reproductions of popular paintings of the day. The German painter Charles Auguste Guillaume Steuben, or Karl August von Steuben (1788–1856), did more than one painting in which the Gypsy Esmeralda appears, at least one of them including her pet goat Djali; she was a character in Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris (1831; The Hunchback of Notre-Dame ). Henri-Frédéric Schopin (1804–80) was a German-born, naturalized French painter of historical and biblical subjects; it is not clear which painting of his this is. |
| 272 | at Bautzen and at Lützen: Victories of Napoléon I in 1813 over the Russians and the Prussians. |
| 272 | the French campaign: Lasting from January to April 1814, this was Napoléon I’s doomed attempt to resist the invasions of France by allied forces and to keep his throne. |
| 272 | Legion of Honor: A national hierarchical order created by Napoléon I in 1802 as recompense for civil and military service. |
| 277 | damascened: Ornamented with inlaid work using precious metals. |
| 277 | display of arms: A wall ornament consisting of weapons arranged in a pattern. |
| 277 | Boulle clock: A clock featuring inlaid decoration of tortoiseshell, yellow metal, and white metal, named after André Charles Boulle, a cabinetmaker who died in 1732. |
| 283 | my little shoe: The custom was for a child to set out one of her shoes the night before New Year’s Day or Mid-Lent Day; it would contain one or more small gifts or coins in the morning. |
| 284 | theriaca: A mixture of many animal, plant, and mineral ingredients and honey once thought to be an antidote to poison. |
| 284 | berlin: A fast, light, fashionable covered carriage with two interior seats, four wheels, and a separate hooded rear seat. |
| 284 | Bichat: Marie François Xavier Bichat (1771–1802), French anatomist and physiologist. He studied and classified tissues and wrote several books on anatomy. His work was the basis for modern histology, the branch of anatomy that deals with the microscopic structure of plant and animal tissues. |
| 286 | siccity … pharynx … epigastrium … superpurgation: Again, Homais is using some specialized medical vocabulary; siccity is dryness; the pharynx is the part of the alimentary canal between the cavity of the mouth and the esophagus; the epigastrium is the part of the abdomen above and in front of the stomach; superpurgation is extreme purging—as would result from the use of an emetic. |
| 286 | Amphitryon: The name is that of a king in Greek mythology in whose absence a banquet was provided by the god Zeus, assuming his form and deceiving the guests as well as Amphitryon’s wife, Alcmene. The story has been retold in many different dramatic works. In the version offered by Molière in his play of the same name, when Amphitryon returns home in the midst of the banquet and challenges the assembled banqueters to decide which of them, he or Zeus, is the true host, their answer is “Le véritable Amphitryon est l’Amphitryon où l’on dine” (“The true Amphitryon is the one who provides the feast”). “Amphitryon” has since come to be synonymous with “generous host.” |
| 287 | cantharides, the upas tree, the manchineel, the viper: Cantharides was a preparation of dried beetles (such as Spanish flies) used as a counterirritant; the upas tree is an Asiatic and East Indian tree with a latex that contains poisonous substances used as arrow poison; for manchineel , see note to p. 178; a viper is a venomous snake. |
| 287 | Cadet de Gassicourt: Charles-Louis Cadet de Gassicourt (1769–1821), an illegitimate son of Louis XV and eventually chief pharmacist to Napoléon I (1809), published numerous works on the sciences and other subjects. |
| 287 | torrefied it himself, triturated it himself, and compounded it himself: Again, Homais is using technical vocabulary, in this case pharmaceutical—he has roasted, ground, and mixed the coffee. |
| 287 | Saccharum: Latin for “sugar”—Homais is once again parading his (superficial) learning. |
| 287 | holy oil: Olive oil blessed by a bishop for use in a Roman Catholic sacrament, in this case extreme unction, a ritual in which the priest anoints a critically ill person and prays for his or her recovery and salvation. |
| 287 | soutane: An ankle-length robe with close-fitting sleeves and buttons down the front worn by Roman Catholic secular clergy. |
| 288 | stole: A long, narrow band worn around the neck by bishops and priests. |
| 288 | Misereatur … Indulgentiam: Two short prayers normally following confession and preceding extreme unction, in the Roman Catholic rite. The Misereatur consists of the following: “May the Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you all your sins, and bring you to everlasting life.” The Indulgentiam consists of the following: “May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of our sins.” |
| 288 | began the unctions: During the anointing, the priest traditionally says the following as he anoints certain specified parts of the body: “Through this Holy Unction, and through the great goodness of His mercy, may God pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by evil use of (sight, hearing, smell, taste and speech, touch, and ability to walk).” Traditionally the priest anoints six places; in this scene Flaubert specifies five, for some reason omitting the ears (and with them the sense of hearing). |
| 289 | passing bell: The church bell that is tolled to announce a death. |
| 292 | Cover her entirely with a large piece of green velvet: Although the original could mean that the cloth should cover the outermost coffin, Flaubert’s earlier drafts make it clear that the cloth was to be placed directly over her body inside the oak coffin. |
| 292 | rationalist: The French term is philosophe. The philosophes held that human reason ought to be the supreme guide in human affairs, and they were therefore skeptical of religious and political authority. As usual, Flaubert is not entirely sincere in dubbing Homais a philosophe: it is Homais who styles himself a rationalist, not Flaubert who respects him as such. |
| 294 | Voltaire … d’Holbach … the Encyclopedia: For Voltaire, see note to p. 68. Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach (1723–89), a French philosopher, was a proponent of naturalistic and materialistic views and vigorously opposed Christianity. The twenty-eight-volume Encyclopedia , or Methodical Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades , published between 1751 and 1789, was mainly the work of Denis Diderot, the French philosopher, novelist, and dramatist. It was one of the great literary works of the eighteenth century, with articles contributed by a group known as the Encyclopedists, or philosophes (which included Voltaire); its spirit of rational inquiry led it to oppose religious authority, superstition, and the like. |
| 294 | Letters of Some Portuguese Jews … Proof of Christianity , by the former magistrate Nicholas: The first is the truncated title of Letters of Some Portuguese, German, and Polish Jews to Monsieur Voltaire (1772), a rebuttal to Voltaire’s skepticism by the prominent Christian apologist Abbé Antoine Guénée (1717–1803). The second is apparently not by Nicholas but actually by one M. de Genoude (1792–1849). |
| 294 | catalepsy: A condition characterized by the persistence of postures or facial expressions and the lack of response to external stimuli. |
| 294 | magnetism: Perhaps a reference to the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer’s (1734–1815) theories concerning the curative powers of magnetic force fields, especially popular for a time in Paris in the late eighteenth century. |
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