Chapter 3

Léon is deeply affected by his conversation with Emma.  The pharmacist assists the Bovarys to become accustomed to life in Yonville.  The narrator informs us that the apothecary's motives are not entirely based on kindness - Monsieur Homais had violated a law forbidding anyone without a diploma from practicing medicine and received a stern warning from the authorities in Rouen.  He continued to practice medicine, however, and felt that by befriending Monsieur Bovary the latter would be more likely to ignore the indiscretion.  At first Charles is bereft of patients and bored but he is overjoyed at the progress of Emma's pregnancy.  Emma resigns herself to her condition but, because she cannot afford what she wants, she makes no preparations for the child.  She hopes that it will be a boy so it can steer its own course in the world.  The child, a girl, is born one Sunday morning at sunrise.  Emma names the girl Berthe because she remembers hearing the marquise at La Vaubyessard use that name.  Charles' parents come for the baptism and in the absence of Emma's father Monsieur Homais serves as the child's godfather.  Charles' father spends a month in Yonville making drunken displays of mock chivalry which delight Emma but disgust the elder Madame Bovary.  One day Emma decides to visit Berthé at the wet nurses' house and Léon accompanies her on the walk.  At the wet nurse's squalid country cottage Léon is amazed at the sight of such a refined lady as Emma surrounded by such poverty.  Before they leave the midwife pesters Emma for more money and goods.  The peaceful walk home touches both Emma and Léon deeply though they do not admit this to each other.  Back in the village Emma returns to her house but Léon climbs to the pasture on the hilltop and muses on the dreariness of his existence in Yonville.