Chapter 6

Out of politeness Léon extends an invitation to Monsieur Homais to visit him in Rouen and the pharmacist, feeling something of a daredevil, decides to relive some of the glories of his youth.  Emma and Léon are both surprised when Monsieur Homais accompanies Emma to Rouen one day and immediately drags the clerk off to dine.  Emma is vexed and impatient and spends the afternoon waiting in their hotel room.  Léon suffers through a long meal with the pharmacist who then insists on accompanying him on his business visits.  Léon manages to steal a few minutes at the hotel where Emma, hysterical from waiting, fails to appreciate his predicament.  Homais insists that Léon accompany him to another café.  Eventually Léon is able to return to the hotel but finds that Emma has left in a fury.  In the coming weeks she tries to recapture some of her original passion for him by pushing herself to extremes.  For his part, Léon grows to be somewhat frightened of her and begins to resent her.  Still, he is beguiled by her beauty and her attention.  One day, after leaving the hotel, she sees the walls of her old convent and sits on a nearby bench to ponder her childhood ardor and present feelings.  She finds that she is totally devoted to her passions.  One day a representative of Monsieur Vinçart, the Rouen banker, arrives with a note for 500 francs due immediately.  Emma sends him away with a promise to pay the following week.  The next day, however, she receives an official protest of non-payment.  She visits Lheureux in his office and he explains that he was forced to sign the note over to the banker and that Vinçart will not be appeased.  She is furious.  He washes his hands at the whole matter and blames the banker.  She pleads with him but to no avail.  Finally he agrees to advance her four 250 franc notes against the balance of the cottage.  Before she leaves he sells her some fine fabric on credit.  Soon she finds that there is nothing to the inheritance except the cottage and 600 francs a year.  She sends requests for payment to Charles' patients and selling her things in Rouen.  Additionally she borrowed money from everyone she can.  She signs more promissory notes.  The household begins to fall into disarray and Emma becomes defensive when Charles asks about their financial troubles.  Autumn arrives and she is alternatively morose and consumed by passion for Léon.  She banishes Charles to sleeping in the attic while she stays awake, reading lurid novels.  Léon, alarmed by the change in his mistress, wonders if he should break it off.  He is about to be promoted to head clerk and he resolves to give up his romantic ideals and act sensibly.  He is bored with her and her with him but she cannot give him up.  She is tortured by an ideal bliss, an ideal man which she cannot grasp and she is tormented by countless official documents of debt that continue to arrive.  On the night of the mid-Lenten festivities she accompanies Léon and his friends to a costume ball and in a café afterward is disgusted by the company she is keeping.  She swoons in a faint and revives thinking of her daughter.  When she returns home Félicité shows her a recently arrived document that proclaims she must pay 8,000 francs the following day or suffer a public seizure of all her possessions.  Lheureux refuses to help.  She puts her hand on his knee but she acts insulted when he asks if she is trying to seduce him.  He knowingly tells her that she has many friends and she had better raise the money through them.