Madame Bovary

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As public prosecutor,

I demand that further publication|of this novel be forbidden

and that its author, Gustave Flaubert,

be found guilty of committing|the misdemeanor

of an outrage against public morals|and established custom.

This man, this Flaubert,|has created a character, a Frenchwoman,

who is at once a disgrace to France|and an insult to womanhood.

Emma Bovary,|a woman who neglects her own child,

a child that needs her,

who scorns her own husband,|a husband who loves her,

who introduces adultery|and ruin into her home,

this is our heroine.

This corrupt, loathsome,|contemptible creature,

this woman of insatiable passions,

this monstrous creation|of a degenerate imagination,

this is the heroine we are asked to pity,|to forgive,

why, perhaps, to love.

Gentlemen, nowhere in this entire work

does Gustave Flaubert ask us|to blame Emma Bovary

and find her guilty of her crimes.

The state asks you, gentlemen,

to find Gustave Flaubert guilty of his.

Gustave Flaubert.

Gustave Flaubert, do you deny|the accusations of the public attorney?

I do.

And I don't.

If it were only that easy, gentlemen,|to confirm or deny.

The public attorney has read you|certain passages from my work.

Can I deny them?

He has summed up certain|unpleasant facts concerning its heroine,

as if he were a schoolboy|doing a problem of two and two.

But still, can I deny them?

He has indicted me|for the crime of forgiveness.

What can I say?

Forgiveness is still, as I understand it,|among the Christian sentiments.

I do not deny it.

Gentlemen, I do deny that I have made|any attack upon public morality.

I have shown you the vicious, yes,|for the sake of understanding it

so that we may preserve the virtuous.

Furthermore, I deny that Emma Bovary|is a monstrous creation

of my degenerate imagination.

Monstrous she may be,|but it was not I who created her.

Our world, your world and mine,|created her,

as I shall attempt to demonstrate.

There are thousands of Emma Bovarys.|I only had to draw from life.

And there are hundreds and thousands|of women

who wish they were Emma Bovary,

and who have been saved from her fate,|not by virtue,

but simply by lack of determination.

Let me proceed.

Let me take you back, gentlemen,

not to the passages|that the public attorney has read for you.

Let me take you back to the time|when Emma was 20,

when she was still Emma Roualt|and lived on her father's farm.

The night when Charles Bovary|first met her.

See her for the first time as he saw her.

Charles Bovary took little notice|of the farm.

It was rude, substantial, lonely,|in a way, miserable.

He'd seen hundreds of such farms.

Good evening. I should say, good morning.

Are you the doctor from Tostes?|Look, Madame Foulard, how young he is!

Could he fix a broken leg?|That's all I want to know.

I don't know.|I have no faith in young doctors.

We're just neighbors, but we never would|have called you from as far away as Tostes

except that our local doctor...

Oh, a very imposing man, I assure you,|with a beard, happens to be away.

His wife, poor man, is ill.

Madame, I share your doubts.

May I say that my only qualifications|are these, that it's a very stormy night,

that I have no wife,|that I am the doctor who came.

- Now if you'll show me to the patient...|- Oh.

...you both can go home|and get some rest.

Oh, right this way.

I want to see him set the leg, Mama.

Never mind. Never mind.

We're going home. Good night, Emma.|Try to get some rest.

A doctor should have a beard.

- Well, I thank you.|- That's it.

If those harpies are gone,|rouse out my daughter.

- She'll give you some breakfast.|- All right. Goodbye, Monsieur Roualt.

Doctor Bovary? You must be very tired.

- How is my father?|- Your...

Oh, it's a simple fracture, lower right tibia,|no complications.

I'll be back in a week or so.

Boots. Your father's gonna get along just...

He'll get along fine.

I'm sure you'll want some breakfast.|I'll try to hurry.

Oh, no, no. Take your time, please.|Take a...

Take a great deal of time.

Please sit down.

- Perfume.|- Don't you like it?

Mademoiselle, I've come into|many a farmhouse kitchen at dawn.

I've smelled many smells,|sour milk, children's vomit...

I've never smelled perfume before.

Then you do like it.|I hope you like this, too.

What are you doing here?

- Why, I live here.|- Oh.

Yes, I know, but why didn't I see you|when I came in?

I didn't let you. I looked awful.

You do me too great honor.

Dr. Bovary, when I saw you come in here|out of the rain,

and you were so wet,|and you'd come so far,

and those awful women...

I cannot do you too great honor,

and if I please you, well, then,|I am honored, too.

You know, I've been thinking,

your father's leg|might develop complications.

Perhaps I'd better come back tomorrow.

Please.

Here, gentlemen, is the monster.

Here is the corrupt|and loathsome creature.

Here is the disgrace to France|and the insult to womanhood.

Emma Roualt,|the flower beyond the dunghill.

How had she grown here?

The kitchen drudge who had dreamed|of love and beauty.

What are dreams made of?|Where do they come from?

Absurd dreams of fashion and luxury|in a farmhouse bedroom.

Who was the messenger?

Ridiculous dreams of high romance|and impossible love.

The cavalier, the serenade,|the long ago and the faraway.

Images of beauty that never existed.

These things she loved.

Emma Roualt, motherless,

had attended a convent|in the provincial city of Rouen.

Emma at first detested the convent.

The scales, the eternal scales, when|she might have been learning love songs.

The discipline, the dreadful conformity.

The eternal uniform,|when a girl's young body is budding.

Perhaps it was the discipline itself|and Emma's discontent

that drove her to dreams, and taught|a lonely girl to live within herself.

For these became the happy years,|these convent years,

when a young girl's mind could wander.

And then, as if to feed her dreams,

there was the old Swiss seamstress who|sang the love songs of the last century

and told stories about|love in a Swiss chalet

and love in a villa in Italy,

and to make|the geography lesson complete,

slipped them on the sly|novels forbidden by the sisters,

so they could read about|love in a cottage in Scotland

and love in a castle in Spain.

Novels, novels.

She lived in a world of love,|lovers, sweethearts,

persecuted ladies fainting|in lonely pavilions,

horses ridden to death on every page,

gentlemen, brave as lions,|gentle as lambs,

always well-dressed|and weeping like fountains.

Oh, love in Italy! Oh, love in Spain!

It seemed to Emma that certain places|on Earth must bring happiness,

as a plant peculiar to the soil|that cannot thrive elsewhere.

She would find it someday.

Happiness.

Fashion.

High romance.

One kind of dream and another kind of life.

The convent years ended|and Emma returned to the farm.

Had she been a normal girl,|her dreams might likewise have ended,

but in Emma|there was a terrifying capacity

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