Emma and her intrigue; it belongs to the
book integrally, much more so than the accidental lovers who fall in
Emma's way. They are mere occasions and attractions for her fancy; the
town and the _cure_ and the apothecary and the other indigenous
gossips need a sharper definition. And accordingly Flaubert treats the
scenery of his book, Yonville and its odd types, as intensely as he
treats his heroine; he broods over it with concentration and gives it
all the salience he can. The town with its life is not behind his
heroine, subdued in tone to make a background; it is _with_ her, no
less fully to the front; its value in the picture is as strong as her
own.

Such is the picture that Flaubert's book is to present. And what,
then, of the point of view towards which it is to be directed? If it
is to have that unity which it needs to produce its right effect there
can be no uncertainty here, no arbitrary shifting of the place from
which an onlooker faces it. And in the tale of Madame Bovary the
question of the right point of view might be considerably perplexing.
Where is Flaubert to find his centre of vision?--from what point,
within the book or without, will the unfolding of the subject be
commanded most effectively? The difficulty is this--that while one
aspect of his matter can only be seen from within, through the eyes of
the woman, another must inevitably be seen from without, through
nobody's eyes but the author's own. Part of his subject is Emma's
sense of her world; we must see how it impresses her and what she
makes of it, how it thwarts her and how her imagination contrives to
get a kind of sustenance out of it. The book is not really written at
all unless it shows her view of things, as the woman she was, in that
place, in those conditions. For this reason it is essential to pass
into her consciousness, to make her _subjective_; and Flaubert takes
care to do so and to make her so, as soon as she enters the book. But
it is also enjoined by the story, as we found, that her place and
conditions should be seen for what they are and known as intimately as
herself. For this matter Emma's capacity fails.

Her intelligence is much too feeble and fitful to give a sufficient
account of her world. The town of Yonville would be very poorly
revealed to us if Flaubert had to keep within the measure of _her_
perceptions; it would be thin and blank, it would be barely more than
a dull background for the beautiful apparition of t