_ridiculus sum_' twenty times." Then, in a gentler tone, "Come, you'll
find your cap again; it hasn't been stolen."

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the "new fellow" remained
for two hours in an exemplary attitude, although from time to time some
paper pellet flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. But he
wiped his face with one hand and continued motionless, his eyes lowered.

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens from his desk,
arranged his small belongings, and carefully ruled his paper. We saw him
working conscientiously, looking out every word in the dictionary, and
taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the willingness he
showed, he had not to go down to the class below. But though he knew his
rules passably, he had little finish in composition. It was the cure of
his village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, from
motives of economy, having sent him to school as late as possible.

His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary, retired
assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 in certain conscription
scandals, and forced at that time to leave the service, had then taken
advantage of his fine figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand
francs that offered in the person of a hosier's daughter who had fallen
in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great talker, making his
spurs ring as he walked, wearing whiskers that ran into his moustache,
his fingers always garnished with rings, and dressed in loud colors, he
had the dash of a military man with the easy air of a commercial
traveller. Once married, he lived for three or four years on his wife's
fortune, dining well, rising late, smoking long porcelain pipes, not
coming in at night till after the theater, and haunting cafes. The
father-in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, "went in
for the business," lost some money in it, then retired to the country,
where he thought he would make money. But, as he knew no more about
farming than calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to
plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in cask, ate the
finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased his hunting-boots with the
fat of his pigs, he was not long in finding out that he would do better
to give up all speculation.

For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on the border of the
provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a kind of place half farm, half