#why's it such a big deal the family's trapped in paris? it's an hours flight...

[solarwreathe]

christmas with no limits

really, this art was all an excuse to show you this image. i miss when old movie promo photos were awkward as shit.

[melanielocke]

Lost in the Shadows - Chapter 27

AO3

Taglist: @alastaircarstairsdefenselawyer @foxglove-airmid @alastair-esfandiyar-carstairs1 @justanormaldemon @styxdrawings @ipromiseiwillwrite @a-dream-dirty-and-bruised@alastair-appreciation-month

Previous Chapter: Chapter 26

Next Chapter: Chapter 28

Thomas was still in the same position on the couch by the time Alastair reached him, both his parents on the other couch, carefully monitoring him. Thomas had put on a movie, and Alastair got the idea he was trying to ignore his parents, who both looked worried. Alastair found a way to sit beside him on the couch.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.

‘I slept for several hours,’ Thomas said. ‘Then my parents arrived and found out I was sick and pretty much everything went downhill from there. What about you? Did you encounter anything? No offense, but you kind of smell.’

Alastair made a face. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Seriously, what happened?’

‘A deer.’

Thomas frowned. ‘A deer?’

‘I have always been terrified of deer. Today just reminded me why. Or perhaps it wasn’t really a deer. Lucie decided to call it eldritch horror deer, which is the closest I can come to describing it. You don’t want to know more, trust me. Either way, it’s dead now, no need to worry about it.’

Ever since he’d seen his father’s memory of that monster, he’d been afraid of deer. Because that deer had looked completely normal too before he’d realized it wasn’t, and Alastair had realized anything could hide a monster.

‘So you smell of dead eldritch horror deer... It’s not so bad as after we got the skin and you had to swim through I don’t know what.’

‘This is why I don’t want to dedicate my life to fighting these things or be a hero or anything like that. Dead body parts are disgusting no matter what creature they come from and you always come back covered in gross smelly things. I’m going to take a bath. You want to join?’

Thomas turned very red, although that could have been the fever.

‘Maybe it’ll help you get warm,’ Alastair added.

He went upstairs to draw a bath, and threw in a good amount of bath foam with eucalyptus scent. Alastair loved the fresh sharpness of eucalyptus, and used many eucalyptus scented products. He quickly got into the shower while the bath was still not full, rinsing off the worst of the dirt, before inviting Thomas in and getting in the bath tub. Thomas still turned around while undressing, and Alastair politely looked in the other direction. With the amount of foam he’d used, there wouldn’t be much to see once Thomas was in the bath anyway and he understood Thomas might still be a bit awkward with this.

Thomas settled next to him, and Alastair turned on the bubbles. He tried to remember if Jem’s house had a bubble bath, but if not it needed one. He was pretty sure there was a big bathroom, at least, and as far as he remembered there was a bath tub but he had no idea what Jem had done to the place.

‘Is it alright if I lean against you?’ Alastair asked.

Thomas didn’t answer, just opened his arm and allowed Alastair to find a comfortable position leaning against his shoulder. Thomas really was warm and feverish.

‘How are you feeling?’ Alastair asked.

‘A lot better now that I’m in the bath. Still a little cold but I imagine that’ll be over soon enough. I’d slept for several hours on the couch and everything kind of hurts now. I took another two paracetamol before coming here, so hopefully they’ll start working soon. The eucalyptus scent really wakes me up though.’

‘It opens the airways,’ Alastair said. ‘Did the fever change at all?’

‘No, not really. I just took it again. It’s still around 38,5 degrees,’ Thomas said. ‘When I woke up my parents were there and I had to explain what was going on. They were kind of upset I didn’t immediately tell them I’d fallen ill and immediately started the whole routine of taking care of sick baby Thomas. Which is exactly why I didn’t tell them.’

Alastair took a hold of his hand. ‘Did you tell them why you didn’t want them to find out about your sickness?’

‘No,’ Thomas said.

‘Why not? It makes you unhappy that they are treating you this way.’

‘I don’t want to hurt their feelings,’ Thomas admitted. ‘I know they mean well, and I know they’re scared too.’

Alastair looked him in the eye. Often he forced himself to do that, make eye contact at just the right moment despite the discomfort. For a long time, he’d wanted nothing more than to be normal, and eye contact was part of that. With Thomas, it was easier. His eyes really were beautiful. The discomfort never quite went away though, so he settled his gaze on Thomas’ brow instead. People usually couldn’t tell when he was faking eye contact. It was only when he lied that he had to avoid someone’s gaze altogether.

‘So they have no clue that you hate being taken care of?’ Alastair asked. ‘You’ve never once asked them to stop and leave you be?’

‘I think sometimes they do ask if they’ve hurt my feelings,’ Thomas admitted. ‘When they’re being too protective. But in the moment, I always downplay it, I don’t want to hurt them and I understand why they’re protective.’

‘But if you want them to stop doing it, you don’t do it by hiding your sickness from them. You tell them how you feel, even if it is uncomfortable for them to hear.’

Alastair knew he wasn’t much better in that regard, he didn’t know how to deal with what he felt well. He was far more aware of what he felt than people thought, but that didn’t always mean he could explain it without feeling like he was crazy. Repressing and hiding was easier, but Alastair had learnt the hard way it made everything worse in the long run.

‘Maybe I can do that,’ Thomas said. ‘Thank you.’

‘Anytime. You had no issue telling me you didn’t like being taken care of,’ Alastair said.

‘No, I know that. I’m not sure why it’s different. Perhaps because if I tell my parents, they’ll have to feel guilty for being overprotective practically all my life, whereas you’ve never done that before. Telling you to stop would be less hurtful than it would be to tell my parents.’

‘The longer you wait, the worse it’ll get,’ Alastair said. ‘They are right to be worried, you are in danger and we’re running out of time. But that doesn’t mean they can’t change how they treat you when you’re sick.’

‘You really think that’s what this is, isn’t it? I’m going to die.’

Alastair took hold of Thomas’ hand. ‘No, you’re not going to die. I won’t let you.’

Not even if it cost him his life, Alastair told himself, but he wouldn’t say that out loud. He didn’t want to worry Thomas.

‘What else can we do?’ Thomas asked. ‘Tatiana’s gone.’

Alastair frowned. ‘Gone?’

‘My dad went into the village and asked people about her. The staff from that hotel and restaurant said she’d left, so if the plan is to go after her… We have no clue where she is. On the bright side, phones are back in order, and we’re no longer trapped.’

‘It’s not entirely true that we can’t find her,’ Alastair said. ‘Lucie did find something today, before our encounter with the monster. A locket, and a note from Jesse. How he wrote it as a ghost, I have no idea.’

Alastair’s best guess was that Jesse had grown stronger as Thomas had gotten sick, and that he could now hold things. Closer to being alive than he had been before.

‘Anyway, Lucie can summon him with the locket. Assuming he’s been around Tatiana, but I can’t imagine where else he would be. He can lead us back to her.’

Alastair knew they needed a plan, and fast. He had promised Lucie he would help her work on Barbara’s memory. So far, no success. Alastair couldn’t see dead people, and his power didn’t work on dead people. Lucie was still convinced that in between her commanding ghosts and Alastair’s access to people’s memory there was a way to witness the realm of the thief of souls. If that didn’t work, they’d have to go after Tatiana. Stopping her would at the very least save Thomas for the time being, buy them enough time to find a way to permanently defeat the thief of souls.

Grace had said he’d been a mortal once. He was not a god or a devil, or something that was meant to exist. He’d been a mortal who’d claimed a world and started stealing souls, but he was not meant to be there. Which meant he could be defeated, and Alastair was convinced that with cortana and Lucie’s magic, their chances were better than most people’s. Unfortunately, that didn’t mean those were good chances.

‘Did you call anyone?’ Alastair asked. ‘I think I should call my mother.’

‘My sisters,’ Thomas said. ‘They were both very upset. Eugenia had just gotten off her flight back from India with her friend Kamala, they’ll come here as soon as they can. Barbara’s still in Paris with her boyfriend, but she says she’s getting on the next flight.’

‘I’d love to meet your sisters,’ Alastair said.

He was nervous too, people rarely liked him, why would Thomas’ sisters? Then again, Thomas liked him, Thomas’ parents seemed to like him, so maybe he had a better chance with Thomas’ sisters than with the average person.

‘Preferably not now though,’ Thomas said. ‘I urged them not to come here, but they wouldn’t listen. I told them it would be dangerous, but they both insisted on coming and told me I couldn’t stop them.’

‘It seems the stubbornness runs in the family,’ Alastair said.

‘Dad called uncle Gabriel,’ Thomas added. ‘Uncle Gabriel tried to convince Barbara to instead come to London and watch the children for him while he and Cecily come here to help. So far, I think Barbara is insistent on coming.’

Alastair could imagine why. Even if they were hopeful, even if they had a plan, there was a chance Thomas would die. He understood Thomas’ sisters wanted to be with him in case that happened, to at least be able to say goodbye.

It was time for dinner when Alastair and Thomas got out of the bath, dried off, and dressed themselves. Thomas felt less cold, which Alastair guessed was good, but still very tired and had very little appetite. Instead of joining them for dinner, he retreated to the couch again, only eating some soup and a piece of bread. At least it was something.

Alastair had to stop himself from taking care of him. Thomas didn’t want it, he just needed some rest. Thomas put on another movie, not yet tired enough to fall asleep, and Alastair retreated to his bedroom so he could call his mother.

‘Alastair, it’s been so long since I heard from you!’ his mother scolded as she picked up.

She spoke in Farsi, and it was somehow comfortable to speak to her in her language.

‘I’m sorry, maman. A lot has been happening, and we couldn’t reach anyone outside.’

‘I think you and your sister should come home, you’re not safe there,’ his mother said.

Alastair sighed. ‘We can’t. Leaving won’t make the problems go away. Thomas needs me, and Lucie is in danger as well. Without Cordelia and her sword, neither of them stand a chance.’

‘I understand, azizam. I just wish I could know you were safe.’

‘I can’t make a any promises. But I’ll protect Cordelia. We’ll be home before you know it. Jem told us about the baby.’

‘You’re not mad, I hope?’ his mother asked.

‘No, of course not,’ Alastair said. ‘I can’t wait to meet my baby brother or sister, same for Cordelia. It is not what either of us expected, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.’

‘I haven’t seen your father,’ his mother promised. ‘I must have gotten pregnant before we left, it was an accident, but one that I am happy about. I’ll be raising the baby by myself. Risa has promised to help, of course.’

‘I’ll be there too,’ Alastair promised. ‘The baby will have everything they need.’

‘I hope you are not angry with me,’ his mother said quietly.

‘Why would I be?’

‘Because I didn’t protect you,’ his mother said. ‘I thought you could handle it, you could protect Cordelia and we would be fine. But I was wrong, protecting you was my responsibility and I failed you.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ Alastair said and he meant it.

It wasn’t the first time his mother or someone else had pointed out she should have been there for him, should have protected him, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame her for it. She’d been a victim too, he’d told her, he’d told his therapist. Maybe she could have done better, she could have seen he was struggling sooner, but she hadn’t wanted to see. Father had told her Alastair’s odd behavior was normal, that teen boys went through times like that, and he’d believed her.

‘Still, I am sorry. I know you do not blame me, but that does not mean I don’t regret what I did. How has it been with the Herondales? I’d thought you would be happier there, but I never imagined all this would happen to you.’

‘It has been nice here,’ Alastair said. ‘But yes, also dangerous. Nothing to be done about that. I’m not sure if you’ve gotten any of my text, but I’ve been spending a lot of time with Thomas, and he’s my boyfriend now.’

‘Oh, that’s nice. I’m happy for you, joon-am.’

‘Me too. I’m just scared something’s going to happen to him. He’s gotten sick and I think he’s going to get worse. It’s not looking good.’

‘I know I never wanted you and Cordelia to run towards danger like Elias did. But if it saves the boy you love… I have faith in you, Alastair.’

After ending the phone call, Alastair returned downstairs to find Thomas had finished the movie and was turning off the tv. As Thomas closed his eyes and presumably fell asleep again, Alastair sought out Lucie.

‘I think we should give it another try,’ Alastair said. ‘With Barbara’s memory.’

‘You’re right. She’s at the Lightwood cottage, she doesn’t like big crowds and prefers to stay there. I’ll ask aunt Sophie.’

Lucie returned to the kitchen, where Thomas’ parents were doing the dishes, and Alastair returned to Thomas, who had his eyes opened once more.

‘I’m going with Lucie to see if we’re getting anywhere with Barbara,’ Alastair said. ‘If your parents are bothering you, you tell them, alright?’

‘I’m considering it. Kiss me before you go?’

Alastair obliged, leaning down to kiss Thomas on the mouth before leaving him to get some more rest.

‘Rest well, delbaram,’ Alastair said.

Alastair returned to Lucie and Sophie, who were on their way back to the Lightwood cottage.

‘I can’t stay here,’ Sophie said. ‘I cannot leave Thomas alone for too long when he’s so sick.’

Alastair wondered if he should say anything. He didn’t want to speak for Thomas, but it seemed clear that Sophie had no idea how Thomas really felt about his parents concern.

‘Thomas has gone back to sleep,’ Alastair said. ‘He said he wanted to rest, best to leave him until he wakes.’

Telling her not to worry felt wrong, so he didn’t. Thomas could die, of course she was worried. Alastair was too. He wasn’t sure what he’d have to do, to keep Thomas alive. He’d read a little about the ritual, and together with that memory of Gideon who’d once interrupted his father, Alastair knew how to summon the thief. Perhaps that was how he could be defeated, by bringing him here and then attacking him. Although if it was that simple, Alastair wondered why no one else had tried it.

‘Alright. Please tell me you have a plan,’ Sophie said.

‘We’re going to try to get information from Barbara,’ Alastair said. ‘Based on that, we figure out how to take on the thief of souls. If we need more time, Lucie will summon Jesse and find out where Tatiana is, confront her there and stop her. If she does not fulfill her end of the bargain, Jesse will not live and therefore Thomas will not die.’

Alastair was mostly certain of that. Mostly. There was a chance that Jesse was far enough gone that when Tatiana stopped, the thief of souls could once again choose which of Benedict’s grandsons he wanted, and let the other go. If that was the case, Alastair wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t choose Thomas.

‘And we want to find out how to defeat the thief of souls,’ Lucie added. ‘He is mad with me because I stole Barbara from him, so he’s going to come after me either way. Perhaps he even realized who my mother is. Not to mention I don’t want Jesse to go back to being trapped there.’

The three of them arrived at the Lightwood’s cottage. Even if with a ghost living in there, Alastair felt the little cottage with its adorable garden was welcoming. A nice place to spend the summer.

‘Show yourself,’ Lucie commanded, and Barbara appeared, sitting on the couch.

‘How have you been?’ Lucie asked.

‘I’m alright, thank you. The other ghost at your house can be a bit much, so I am happy to stay here for now.’

Alastair hoped Barbara meant Jessamine, and not another ghost he didn’t know about. As much as he was used to the supernatural, ghosts made him a bit uncomfortable, mostly because he couldn’t see them and he could never be sure he wasn’t being watched. At least Jessamine was far more prudish than he was and Alastair trusted her to turn around and go somewhere else when he was in the bathroom or changing or kissing Thomas.

‘We want to try once more to enter your memory,’ Lucie explained. ‘Are you up for it?’

‘Of course. Not much else here for me, I’m afraid,’ Barbara said. ‘I wish I could be of more help. It’s like it’s on the tip of my tongue, like a dream that slips away when you wake up and I just can’t remember.’

Alastair could imagine that was frustrating. It was hard for him to picture, not being able to remember something. Dreams could be trickier, and sometimes he lost them, but Alastair did not care much for dreams and would much rather not dream at all. Memories, however, could never be lost, he could never forget. At most he could get frustrated if he couldn’t find the right memory for certain information.

‘Can you command ghosts to be alive, Lucie?’ Alastair asked.

Lucie frowned. ‘I can’t bring people back from the dead.’

‘No, but perhaps temporarily. You can make ghosts visible, you can make them corporeal enough to touch things. All of those bring them closer to what qualifies as alive. Perhaps if you command them to be alive, they will be able to do all these things at once, even if for only a moment. And then I’d be able to access her memory.’

‘Alright. I’ll give it a try. Barbara, I command you to live.’

Alastair couldn’t see anything change, but when he tried to enter Barbara’s memory, he found it was there. She did put up a bit of resistance.

‘It’s alright,’ he said. ‘It’s just me, you can let me in.’

Barbara relaxed, and Alastair tried to search for the right memory. Usually, people tried to recall the memory, they controlled what memory was shown, not he. But Barbara couldn’t recall what she didn’t remember. He’d found ways around that, ways to bring back lost memories. When he was younger he’d tried to restore his father’s memory of a night he’d been too drunk to remember, thinking it would help. Alastair had long given up that practice though, it didn’t make a difference. He’d believed once that if his father remembered what he did while he was drunk, he would stop. He would realize how much hurt he was causing and stop drinking. But it didn’t make a difference, and his father had mostly found it inconvenient. It was easier for him to forget.

With Tessa, he’d used a different, harder strategy of searching through association, starting with what he knew ought to be there. Jessamine, the house. Tessa still didn’t remember everything, but she was getting there.

With Barbara, he took a different approach. The trick in this case was to start at the last thing someone remembered and then speed things along a little. Alastair knew the last thing Barbara remembered, which was her fight with her husband and then her death. He tried to brace himself as he asked Barbara to remember that, hoping he wouldn’t get lost in his own memory.

They managed to start the memory after Benedict stalked off into his own study and Barbara rushed to get the children. He could tell she was confused, but took the opportunity just the same, rushing through the mansion. In the distance, he could hear a baby cry. Alastair assumed that was Tatiana. Then Barbara collapsed to the ground and Alastair felt something awfully painful in his back. Blood. The spinal cord, severed. Was it Benedict, behind her, who had stabbed her? Barbara didn’t turn around, didn’t see her attacker, but it had to be. She hadn’t dropped dead when Benedict had made the deal. She’d been murdered. Because the thief might prefer spouses, but those weren’t connected by blood, so he couldn’t kill them himself.

Alastair wondered how Benedict had gotten away with murdering his wife, a knife in her back while she was at home was hard to explain away. But then he guessed it was easy for the thief of souls to make her body disappear, or use some magic to change it to resemble a suicide. He didn’t know, had not asked Gideon what he’d once believed happened to his mother. He thought that would be too painful.

She was in pain for only a little while, and then the Lightwood’s manor disappeared. She was in a forest not unlike the one around here. It was dark and cold and gloomy. Alastair could feel the chill touch his skin. Barbara looked around, taking in the environment with great care. There were others like her. People, but there was something unusual about their eyes. Alastair couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something was not right. Those had to be the other souls. There were many of them, spread out across where Barbara could see.

‘Follow me.’

There was a woman. She looked like the others, human, but something was not right. She appeared a little more alive though, a little less broken. She seemed to be somewhat in charge here.

‘Who are you? Where am I?’ Barbara asked.

‘Follow me,’ the woman repeated.

Reluctantly Barbara followed. Alastair sped up the next part, as the walk was rather long. The woods seemed endless, which made Alastair wonder where this was exactly. In the land in between, some buildings still existed, but here there seemed to be none at all. There were souls all over though, what was their purpose? Some were doing something, carrying things Alastair couldn’t identify, working for the thief? Others wandered around aimlessly. Alastair did the best he could to take in any landmarks she passed. He never knew if he would have to navigate this realm.

At last they reached a castle. The castle the others had been dreaming about. Alastair was the only one who hadn’t dreamt and he was glad for it. Although perhaps compared to his usual dreams, nightmares about a spooky castle were an improvement.

Barbara entered the castle. Based on the gothic building style, the many sharp shapes, Alastair guessed it must have been built somewhere in late medieval time. It certainly wasn’t the style he would choose if he could live in a castle, too bleak for his taste. He’d prefer a bit more welcoming style, big windows, light and bright colors. A big private bathhouse. Old Persian style, or perhaps Roman or ancient Greek. Instead, the inside of the castle looked dreary and a bit messy. Had it been rebuilt over time, or was this an indication of how old the thief of souls was?

The woman led Barbara into the throne room. On the throne was a man with dark hair and a skin the color of paper. His eyes were red and glowing, and his head was decorated with big antlers. He’d been mortal once, so where had the antlers come from? Alastair could only say he was right that deer were scary.

‘I take it you had to walk here,’ he said.

His voice was surprisingly human, although loud and authoritative. Barbara didn’t say anything.

‘Yes, my lord, she appeared in the forest approximately seventy miles south of here,’ said the woman who had accompanied Barbara.

Seventy miles… Had Barbara really just walked that far? Alastair suspected distance was different in the land of the thief.

The red eyes glowed a little brighter. ‘Did I ask?’

‘Forgive me, my lord,’ the woman said.

She had to be one of his souls, but somehow she’d gotten a higher position in serving him. Were there more souls like this?

‘Your name is Barbara Lightwood, isn’t it?’

Barbara looked up, shaking on her feet. ‘Yes, that is correct.’

‘Barbara, Barbara… given to me by your husband. Betrayal after marriage has its use for me, but it is surprisingly common, I’m afraid. All sorts of marriages go sour and so often people have grown to hate their spouse so much they’re willing to sacrifice the soul. Still, it is an interesting sort of betrayal, a broken vow. Did you see it coming, Barbara? Were you afraid of your husband?’

Barbara was silent.

‘You are new here, and so I will be forgiving. But it does not do to ignore my questions,’ the thief of souls said, angry but calm and in control. ‘When I ask you a question, you will give me an honest answer. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes… Yes, sir.’

A small smile appeared on the thief’s face. ‘Alright then, Barbara. Amuse me. Did you see it coming?’

‘I… Yes. And no. I knew he was dangerous, I knew he might hurt me or the children. But I did not think any of this existed, or that he would choose me as a sacrifice.’

‘Intriguing,’ the thief said. ‘It has been such a long time since I was one of your kind. Your love, hate, betrayal. It is absolutely fascinating. What drives a husband to betray his wife to me? How much power do I need to offer, for them to stab someone they claimed to love in the back. Can any soul be corrupted? And what was the reason your husband first was unwilling to make a deal, but now summoned me and told me it was done and you could be mine?’

Alastair could not feel what someone else was feeling in their memories, not entirely. He got a glimpse of it, but little more. He could tell Barbara was horrified though, betrayed. And for the thief, it was a source of entertainment besides power. He seemed intrigued by the horrors humans were capable of, and loved to bring out the worst in them.

‘I was leaving,’ Barbara said slowly. ‘I knew my children and I weren’t safe there. He found out I was leaving, and got angry.’

The thief of souls laughed, his face bright. ‘Of course, that’s so often the cause. People are far more likely to sacrifice someone who is leaving them. Perhaps if you’d been a good wife and stayed, he would have let you live.’

Alastair tried to push down his anger, his sense of helplessness. This whole conversation was difficult to listen to, the way the thief was fascinated by the way people used and abused others and liked to leverage such situations to his advantage. The way he blamed Barbara for what her husband had done. He felt sick, and had no choice but to push away and leave. Both he and Barbara were on the couch, shaking. Sophie was sitting opposite to them, whereas Lucie looked like she was about to fall asleep.

‘Did you find what you needed?’ Lucie asked, suppressing a yawn.

‘More or less,’ Alastair said. ‘I got to see his realm. It is a huge dark forest and the souls are everywhere. Some have jobs, or I don’t know, serve him somehow. Many just wander around. And he was human once. Apparently, it’s not so uncommon for people who deal with him to sacrifice their spouse. Even if because of the whole blood connection thing, people have to kill their spouses themselves.’

Alastair didn’t want to think about the kind of people that did. No one in a good and healthy relationship woke up one day and sacrificed their partner for power. The thief said he wondered if anyone could be corrupted but Alastair didn’t think so. He imagined many had been abused before. It made him wonder, if he’d stayed with Charles, if Charles had known about all this, would he have been willing to sacrifice Alastair to get the power he wanted?

‘That sounds rather awful,’ Sophie said.

‘Not very romantic,’ Lucie added.

‘Marriage isn’t always,’ Alastair said. ‘Nor are relationships. Sometimes it’s less about love and more about power.’

‘Benedict was all about power,’ Barbara said. ‘At first, I thought he was good underneath that cold exterior. He could be so charming, but they so often are, aren’t they?’

‘They are,’ Alastair said, thinking of Charles.

‘I thought that my love could temper his moods,’ Barbara continued. ‘It was just like a romance novel, you know? Average woman meets cold but charming and wealthy man and her love changes him. I always loved those.’

‘I like love stories too,’ Lucie said. ‘But real life is not always like the stories. Sometimes someone is not who you think they are.’

‘Stupid, isn’t it? I should have known. I should have seen through his charm and his stupid lies.’

Alastair twisted his fingers, pained. He told himself that so often. He should have known Charles could not be trusted, should have known he only cared about himself. He should have known Charles was taking advantage of him. It had all been so obvious to Cordelia when he’d told her, so why hadn’t he known better?

‘It’s not your fault,’ he said instead, because he was still doing the best he could to convince himself of that. Funny how it was so much easier to believe it when it was someone else. ‘It’s his, and his alone.’

‘Being naïve or looking past warning signs doesn’t change that,’ Sophie added. ‘You deserved better. Your children did too. I hope you can find peace.’

Barbara smiled at Sophie through her tears. ‘I’m so happy my son found someone like you.’

[writer-or-whatever]

I'm the anom from the Coffee one, your fic was sweet and amazing thank you very much Rory/Paris: Rory tries to be more sophisticated in one the Weller galas for Paris sake with hilarious results.

Hi, yes, I saw this and was like I know what I’m gonna do and then I proceeded to write all 3,253 words of it instead of reading my middle age lit for tomorrow because i really was not in the mood for old English, tbh. 

Also, just a note, I may have taken the “with hilarious results” and sort of… chucked that bit out the window. I really didn’t mean to; I had a nice, funny, fluffly, fic planned out and then I got to writing it and I was about three quarters of the way done writing it and I was like  what if, instead, I have angst and so I did. 

Oops. 

Anyway, enjoy (or cry your heart out, either way):

[Read on AO3 or FFN]

“Grandma, could I talk to you for a minute?” It was an odd request, not because Rory and her grandmother didn’t get along, but because she hadn’t once, in the two years of Friday Night Dinners, ever asked to talk to either of her grandparents alone. That was usually her mother’s thing, and, at least with Lorelai, it never meant anything good. Her grandmother, however, didn’t ask questions, merely nodded and followed Rory into her grandfather’s study, the closest private space she could think of.

“Rory, is everything alright?” Her grandmother looked concerned, and Rory felt kind of bad for worrying her over something that wasn’t even a problem. Well, something that wasn’t a huge problem, anyway. Just the little issue of her secret girlfriend asking her to come to her family’s super important, super formal, Hanukkah celebration that she had absolutely no idea how to act for.

No big deal, not at all.

“Everything’s fine, Grandma. I was just wondering if maybe you could help me with something?”

“Of course, Rory, but why are you asking me in here and not at the dinner table if nothing is wrong?” Ah, just another aspect of the problem at hand: not only did Lorelai not know that she was dating Paris, but she would be mocked endlessly if she knew that Rory wanted grandma’s help to act like a proper lady and impress Paris’s family, even if they didn’t know that Rory was their daughter’s girlfriend.

“Well, see, a friend from school invited me to an event and I don’t really know how to act at those sorts of things and I thought that you would know but you know mom, she’d mock my desire to learn about proper etiquette until the day she dies, possibly longer. You know how mom is when she sets her mind to something, nothing will stop her, not even death and-”

Emily interrupted her rambling before it could go on for too long, “Say no more, I completely understand. Now this even, when is it?” Her grandma’s interest was clearly piqued now that there was a chance to teach Rory something that was clearly important to her without Lorelai. The fact that it was about etiquette, Emily Gilmore’s specialty, just made it that much better.

“It’s on the seventh.”

“The seventh? Well, that doesn’t leave us much time, but it’ll be alright. So, who invited you to this, again?”

“Just a friend from school.” Rory really, really, hoped that she wouldn’t push any further because they were treading on dangerous ground here as it was.

“Someone whose family you want to impress by showing them that you’re a proper Gilmore? A boy you like, perhaps? Of course her grandmother would push, it’s Emily Gilmore, she’s the queen of pushing for information.

“Something like that.” There, hopefully Rory provided just enough to placate her grandmother’s need for information without actually confirming if there was a boy, which there most certainly was not.

“Alright, well, I’m glad you’ve moved on from that Dean, clearly to someone more suitable since they attend Chilton. How about you come over here a few days this week and we’ll have you all ready for next Sunday in no time.” With that, her grandmother lead the way back into the dining room, quick as you please, leaving behind a slightly grim looking Rory who could only nod her head and think about how, if her grandmother found out about who all this was for, she might actually prefer Dean.

Back at the table, she came face to face with a very curious Lorelai Gilmore, to whom she could offer no sturdy excuse for her talk to grandma.

“So, what was that,” she waved her hand between Rory and Emily, “all about?”

“Oh, you know, just asking grandma if I could come over here a couple of days next week and get a ride to the Hartford Library to get some books for school.” She could tell, before the entire excuse was even out of her mouth, that it would not hold up against her mother.

“What’s wrong with Stars Hollow’s library?”

“They don’t have the book I need, I looked.”

“And what book is that?”

Oh boy.

“I, uh, don’t remember off the top of my head.”

“You, Rory Gilmore, girl who actually likes school and studies for more hours than she sleeps, don’t remember something about school? About books?!” Her mom was in fine form tonight, both dramatic and relentless about something Rory would much rather not talk about.

Great.

“Well, I can’t be perfect all the time, right? Give someone else a chance, eh?” She could tell her mother wasn’t buying it, but, thank God, her grandfather changed the subject to his upcoming business trip to Utah. Her mom went with it, asking what else could there possibly be to insure in Utah other than cows, but Rory knew that this interrogation was far from over.

Mid-afternoon on Sunday the seventh of December found Rory in her grandmother’s house hiding in the kitchen on the phone with Paris. It’d been nine days of hiding etiquette lessons with her grandmother from her mother and hiding the person that was the reason for said lessons from her grandmother. Frankly, it was exhausting and Rory just really wanted to see Paris, formal event and etiquette be damned.

“I can’t believe you accepted her offer.” Paris was laughing at her, which, if it were anyone else trapped in the Gilmore house hiding from Emily and her personal stylist, she would be laughing too. But, it was Rory and Rory would just like some support from her girlfriend, thank you very much.

“Well, to be fair, when she offered it was less like an offer and more like an order.”

“You’re going to show up here looking like a proper seventy year old woman.” Paris was still laughing. “Oh, this is going to be great. You’ll really liven up my spirits; it’s the perfect Hanukkah gift.”

“Keep it up and I’ll bring her along to give you a last minute makeover. Then we’ll match. Won’t that be fun?” Paris stopped laughing, she was pretty sure Rory was serious.

“You’re not serious about that are you?” Oh, she did think Rory was serious.

“As a heart attack.” She still sounded serious, but just barely.

“I take it back,” and, with those words, Rory let out the laughter she had been holding in since she first threatened Paris with an old lady makeover. “Are you laughing, Gilmore?”

“I might be.” Not even two seconds after those words left her mouth, her grandma came into the kitchen. “Uh, gotta go, talk to you later,” and then she hung up on Paris, a thing that was basically a cardinal sin in the guide to dealing with Paris Geller.

“Who was that on the phone?” Her grandmother was looking at her with that look, the one that meant that she knew that Rory was talking to “the gentleman,” as she’d taken to calling the nonexistent boy that Rory was doing all this for.

“Just Paris, I needed to double check about the pages for the reading for history is all.” It wasn’t completely untrue, it was Paris on the phone, just not for information on the history reading.

“I see,” her grandmother said in a way that made Rory fairly certain that she believed that Rory was telling her it was Paris as a cover but didn’t want to pry, “well, now that you’ve cleared that up let’s finish getting you ready, shall we?”

When Rory left her grandparents’ house, she looked like an illustration pulled straight out of a modern retelling of Cinderella, tiara and all. She cannot believe she let her grandmother dress her like this, but there was nothing for it now. She approached the Geller’s house, which made the Gilmore residence look like a humble home in comparison, and rang the doorbell, secretly hoping that the butterflies in her stomach would take flight and take her with them. She was so nervous, what if Mr and Mrs. Geller didn’t like her? After all, they were not the most affectionate people in the world. What if they found out about her and Paris? What if Rory embarrassed herself? There was so much that could go wrong. Thank God the maid answered the door, took her coat, and ushered her inside.

She wasn’t even ten steps into the house when a hand grabbed her from one of the closets in the foyer and pulled her in.

“What the hell?! Let go of me,” She was yelling and twisting away from the hands that were on her arms in the dark closet.

“Gilmore, chill the fuck out. And stop yelling.” It was Paris. Of course it was. She came to see her in her own house at her invitation and she was still getting pulled into closets.

“Oh, hi.” She turned to face what assumed was Paris’s face, though it was too dark to see anything.

“Hi,” She flipped the light on as she said it, revealing the two of them and about four coats in the small space.

The butterflies were back, but this time it wasn’t because Rory was nervous, it was because Paris was fucking gorgeous. “You look nice,” she reached up to grab Paris’s hands from where they rested on her upper arms.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm,” not only did Paris look nice, but Rory really wanted to kiss her. Unfortunately, Paris chose tonight to actually wear a lipstick that would be very noticable if it were both smudged and on Rory.

“You do too, not at all like a grandmother.” Paris was smiling when she said it, very clearly holding back a laugh over Rory’s early hysterics over being turned into an old lady by her grandmother’s stylist.

“Thank you,” Rory did a little curtsey as she said it, just adding to the princess illusion.

“My very own princess charming, what do you know,” And Paris was leaning in, and, yeah, lipstick be damned because they were kissing and Rory was fairly certain that it was magical and that fact had nothing at all to do with her fairytale appearance and everything to do with the fact that it was Paris that she was kissing, being in love will do that to you. Not that Rory was in love with Paris or anything. Or, at least, not that she’d admit. Yet.

When they broke for air, Rory decided that she needed to point out the flaw in their kissing plan, “What are the odds that we’ll be able to make it to a bathroom to fix this,” she gestured to her lipstick smeared mouth, “without running into anyone and outing ourselves?”

“Very high, the maid knows and there’s a bathroom that’s for the staff three doors down from this one. She’ll give us a knock when all the other guests are here,” and, with her worries cleared up, they were back to kissing.

This lasted for about five more minutes before there was a knock on the closet door, clearly from the maid, since Paris pulled away and straightened up. “After you, her majesty, your public awaits.”

“Har de har har,” but Rory followed Paris out of the closet and into the bathroom anyway.

They got cleaned up and slipped into the midst of the party without anyone noticing, much to Rory’s relief. It wasn’t that difficult of a night, she remember to stand up straight, which fork was used for the salad, and how to politely exit a conversation every time someone asked her if she, a nice young lady, was seeing anyone.

It was all going fine, or at least it was, until the other guests had left and it was just Paris and her parents.

She was going to leave with everyone else, but Paris had asked her to stay for the lighting of the last candle on the Menorah, something that she typically just did with her family. It obviously meant a lot to Paris that Rory be there, and, if she was honest, it meant a lot to Rory to have been asked to stay. They lit the candle, followed the traditions, and everything was fine. Her parents were leaving, on their way to their separate wings of the house, when it happened. Paris turned to her and whispered, “I love you, thank you for coming. And thank you for staying.”

Rory was just about to return the sentiments when, faster than Rory would think possible for the large man, Mr. Geller was there and he was not happy. “What did you say? You love her? She’s a girl, Paris. You were raised better than this. You were raised to bring greatness upon the Geller name, not shame.”

“She’s not bringing shame, Mr.Geller. She’s being who she is, someone who is wonderful and ambitious and driven and intelligent and you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking such a thing, let alone saying it to your own daughter on a night that is supposed to be special and about celebration.” Rory couldn’t help it, she jumped to Paris’s defense, snapping and merciless, even though she knew Paris was completely capable of defending herself.

“It is a shame and she is not welcome in this house until she realizes it.” He turned away, resolute and hard in his decision, while Paris’s mother simply looked on.

“Good. There’s nothing here for me anyway, with parents that love their family name and money than they ever could me.” Paris was angry, and she certainly sounded it, but Rory could also see from the set of her jaw that she was moments away from crying.

“Let’s go, Par. Come home with me.” Rory’s arm was around Paris and guiding her over to the door where they both got their coats and a kiss on the forehead from Paris’s nanny, who Paris promised to call tomorrow.

They drove to Stars Hollow in silence, Rory driving Paris’s car and Paris glaring resolutely out of the passenger side window.

When they pulled up to Rory’s house, Paris finally spoke, “So, how are we going to play this? Poor Paris needed a night away from her parents so she’s spending the night at her friend, Rory’s, house?” Paris basically spat the word friend with more venom than she’d ever heard her use before, even back in their sophomore year when they were enemies and Paris didn’t spend a free minute not tormenting Rory.

“No. I’m going to tell her. I’m going to go in there and say ‘mom, this is my girlfriend, Paris, whom you’ve met, and I love her very much and she’s had a very rough night, can she please crash here?”

“You love me?” The hard edge left Paris’s voice, leaving a soft vulnerable whisper in its wake.

“Yeah, I do. And I’m so sorry that your parents are such homophobic assholes and I know that this won’t make up for it, but I do and I want you to know that.” Just as the last word left her mouth, Paris was kissing her, and it was salty and wet and sad, but it was Paris.

“Okay, then,” Rory said, getting out of the car and heading around to Paris’s side to open her door, “let’s do this, shall we?”

When they got into the Gilmore household, it was dark, but there were lights and sounds coming from the living room, so the tv was clearly on. And, when in the Gilmore house, where you can find a movie, you can find Lorelai, so the two girls made their way into the living room, divesting themselves of their heels in the process.

“Hey, Rory, how was the thing?” Her mom was very caught up in the movie, Casablanca, and hadn’t yet looked at Rory and so she didn’t see Paris, either.

“Not so great.”

“No? Nothing a little classic love triangle can’t fix.” She was still absorbed in the movie, despite having seen it approximately one thousand times.

“Not this time, mom.” That got Lorelai’s attention, alright, because, in the world according to Lorelai Gilmore, there was very little that could not be fixed by Casablanca. She was clearly surprised to see Paris standing there in her living room along with Rory, both of them disheveled and clearly upset.

“What happened?” She made her way off the couch and over to the two girls, Rick and Ilsa completely forgotten.

“Um, well, I went to the party at Paris’s, like I said, and it was fine until after everyone else left. I stayed to watch them light the Menorah because Paris asked me to and then, well, her parents found out about me.”

“Found out that you were there? Didn’t they invite you? Strange people, those Gellers.” At any other time, Rory really would have appreciated her mother’s attempt to make light, but not tonight.

“No. They found out that I am Paris’s girlfriend.” There, she said it. Now all that was left was to see how it went over.

“Girlfriend? Like friend who is a girl or…”

“The or option. Girlfriend as in hold hands, kiss, go on dates, kind of girlfriend.”

“Okay. So they found that out and what? They weren’t happy with it?” Lorelai sounded like she was teetering on the edge of the dangerous kind of angry that she only got when someone did something to hurt her kid, which, in a way, the Gellers definitely did.

“Definitely not.” Rory wasn’t really sure how much more Paris wanted her to say.

“They kicked me out.” Paris, apparently, had no qualms about telling Lorelai the whole thing now that it had been established that she didn’t care about the fact that they weren’t straight and were very much together.

“What’s your address, again, Paris? Tomorrow I’m going to go over there and give them a piece of my mind, I think. In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to stay here.”

Rory couldn’t help it, she practically leapt forward to hug her mother and whispered, “thanks, mom” into the embrace. Hugging one girl clearly wasn’t enough for Lorelai, since she pulled Paris into a hug as well.

Later that night, when Paris had gone to bed in her bed because Rory wouldn’t let her take the couch, Lorelai sat down on the arm of the couch by where Rory’s feet where, as she lay sprawled out on the couch under about four hundred blankets. “So, is this why you and Dean didn’t work out? I thought it was about Jess, but was it because you don’t like boys?” Her mom was quiet, something rare for her, which meant that she was trying to really understand, not make light.

“No. Dean and didn’t work out because I had feelings for someone else, but it wasn’t Jess. It was Paris.” She took a deep breath, “I really did love him, you know. I just wanted him to be happy, but, after a while, I wanted to be happy too. I hated hurting him, but it wasn’t because of Jess. I mean Jess is a great friend but that’s really all he is.”

“So, you like boys and girls?”

“Pretty much.”

“How lucky for you.”

“What?” She didn’t expect her mom to be made about it but lucky? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“You’ve got twice as many fish in the sea, kid.”

“Oh my god.”

〚Consider supporting me through Ko-fi〛

[fitzandthebigread]

Chapter 85: This Provincial Life

In researching for this essay, I stumbled across this gem, published by The Guardian in 2002. It’s AS Byatt, of Possession fame, reacting to Madame Bovary, which she read first when she was working as an au pair in France. (And if that isn’t just the most badass, appropriate time to read Madame Bovary, I don’t know what is.) The whole essay is beautiful, but I’ve excerpted it here.

Reading Madame Bovary for the first time was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life - at least up to that point. I was a very young woman - not even eighteen. I was au pair in the French provinces in the 1950s, and I read Madame Bovary in French, sitting in the furrow of a vineyard. I was like Emma Rouault before she became Madame Bovary, someone whose most intense life was in books, from which I had formed vague images of passion and adventure, love and weddings, marriage and children. I was afraid of being trapped in a house and a kitchen.

Madame Bovary opened a vision of meaninglessness and emptiness, which was all the more appalling because it was so full of things, clothes and furniture, rooms and gardens. The worst thing of all was that it was the books that were the most insidious poison. Recently Madame Bovary appeared in a British newspaper listing of the 'fifty best romantic reads.' It was, and is, the least romantic book I have ever read. If I have come to love it , it is because now I am half a century older, and not trapped in a house and kitchen, I can equably sympathise with the central person in the book, who is its author - endlessly inventive, observant, and full of life.

Madame Bovary was published in 1856-7 and is at the centre of any discussion of the European realistic novel of bourgeois life - especially provincial life. The nineteenth-century novel, however much it criticises the bourgeoisie, is a bourgeois form that grew up with the prosperous middle classes who had time for reading, and were interested in precise discriminations of social relations and moral and immoral behaviour. The novel was interested in the structures of societies - from money to education, from religious habits to kinship and marriages, from ambition to failure. Fairy tale images, the hopes of princesses and kitchenmaids, of youngest sons and poor old women, are contained in but also corrected by the realist novel. Fairy stories end with the lovers marrying and living happy ever after. Jane Austen's novels keep that pattern. The great realist novels study at length what happens after marriage, within marriages, within families and businesses. One of the great subjects of the realist novel is boredom - narrow experiences in small places and unsympathetic groups. There is no greater study of boredom than Madame Bovary - which is nevertheless never boring, but always both terrifying and simultaneously gleeful over its own accuracy.

Madame Bovary is also at the centre of any discussion of literary descriptions of adultery. The outward events of Emma Bovary's life are a petit bourgeois version of the doom of Anna Karenina - with important differences. Both heroines have sexually unappealing husbands, and lives that leave them dissatisfied. Both take lovers and both, in their ways, are betrayed or let down by their lovers. Both are sensual and vulnerable and both commit suicide. It might even be said that both are physically attractive to the men who invented and trapped them in their stories, and that both are punished by their authors, as well as by society. Anna Karenina is tragic almost despite Tolstoy. But if Emma Bovary - who is small-minded and confused and selfish - is tragic, it is not in a romantic way, and not because her readers share her feelings or sympathise with her. Our sympathy for her is like our sympathy for a bird the cat has brought in and maimed. It flutters, and it will die.

When Emma Rouault marries Charles Bovary - the fairy tale happy ending - she becomes the third Madame Bovary in the book, after her living mother-in-law and Charles Bovary's dead first wife, whose decaying wedding bouquet she finds in her drawer. Her name, and the title of the novel, define her as a person who is expected to behave in certain ways, fitting her station and function. She loses what individual identity she had. She herself has had vague conventional expectations of marriage, and Flaubert wonderfully describes her sexual disappointment, her reluctance to let go of the idea that she is experiencing post-wedding bliss. He also describes her fairytale, women's magazine attempts to make her house and clothes conform to an idea she has of decorum and elegance. What makes it impossible for her to inhabit her house or her marriage is her romantic sense that there is something more, some more intense experience, some wider horizon if she could only find it. 

It is not a nice story. So why is it one of the greatest novels of all time? To answer that, it is necessary to look at the history of its writing, and Flaubert's ideas about what he was trying to achieve.

Flaubert was born in 1821 in Rouen, where his father was the chief surgeon at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital. His father hoped that Gustave would also be a doctor but the son seems always to have known that he wanted to write. He lived most of his life in Normandy, though he travelled often to Paris and in 1851 travelled with his friend Maxime du Camp in Egypt, the Near East and the Mediterranean. He contracted syphilis on this journey, and was also subject to severe epileptic fits. He never married, and lived close to his mother. He had a long, unsatisfactory affair with Louise Colet, eleven years older than he was, and also a writer, who saved his splendid letters. He had himself a Romantic interest in the distant and strange, both in space and in time. In 1849 Flaubert finished writing La Tentation de Saint Antoine, inspired by a painting by Brueghel he had seen in Genoa in 1845, which depicted the ascetic saint in the desert beset by demons and fleshly temptations. He did a great deal of research on fourth century beliefs, pagan, Christian and heretical, and staged his tale as an exotic drama of ideas. In 1849, just before setting out for Egypt with Du Camp, he spent - according to Du Camp - thirty-two hours reading the text aloud to him and his other great friend Louis Bouilhet. Also according to Du Camp, Bouilhet, when Flaubert finally demanded his opinion of the work, said 'I think you should throw it into the fire and never speak of it again.' Flaubert was understandably distressed by this response. In 1851 he abandoned various other romantic and exotic projects - Une Nuit de Don Juan, Anubis - and embarked on his novel of provincial life. The immediate inspiration for the plot was the death of a local doctor in Normandy, Eugène Delamare, whose second wife, Delphine, had caused scandal by taking lovers and running up huge debts. But already at the age of sixteen Flaubert had written a tale based on a news story in the Rouen newspapers. He called it Passion et Vertu. Its central character is a woman who poisons her husband and children in order to join her lover in America, and commits suicide when the lover rejects her. Flaubert gave his murderess and suicide romantic tastes as motivation, whereas the original woman seems to have been driven more by money and a desire to evade trial and execution.

Flaubert's published letters - especially those to Louise Colet about the writing of Madame Bovary - are some of the most fascinating accounts of the writing process that exist. He tells her he is 'two distinct persons: one who is infatuated with bombast, lyricism, eagle flights, sonorities of phrase and lofty ideas; and another who digs and burrows into the truth as deeply as he can, who likes to treat a humble fact as respectfully as a big one, who would like to make you feel almost physically the things he reproduces.' And early in the writing of the novel he says 'The entire value of my book, if it has any, will consist of my having known how to walk straight ahead on a hair, balanced above the two abysses of lyricism and vulgarity (which I want to fuse in a narrative analysis.) When I think of what it can be, I am dazzled.' He wrote also that his new novel would be 'a book about nothing, a book dependent on nothing external, which would be held together by the external strength of its style, just as the earth, suspended in the void, depends on nothing external for its support; a book which would have no subject, or at least in which the subject would be almost invisible, if such a thing is possible.' He was both excited and exhausted by the difficulty of the enterprise - Bovary, he told Louise in July 1852, 'will have been an unprecedented tour de force (a fact of which I alone shall ever be aware): its subject, characters, effects etc. - are all alien to me. Writing this book I am like a man playing the piano with lead balls attached to his knuckles.'

The prose of Madame Bovary depends for many of its most startling effects on its accurate rendering of things. Flaubert told Louise that he wanted to make his reader feel his world 'almost physically' and the emotion and feeling of the novel are embedded in things, from Charles's uncouth cap in the first chapter, to Emma's delicate presentation of her meals, to her presents to Rodolphe.

Emma makes herself an image of domestic finesse and elegance, slightly absurdly beyond the limitations of her, and Charles's social situation. Her whole world is imbued with her sensations - we experience her most intensely through them, because she does not think clearly or well in abstract language, but only with images. Occasionally Flaubert's choice of comparison carries with it a lyric charge. Here is his description of Emma's vision of her garden in winter, when she has become bored and disillusioned. She is seeing a winter world through windows heavily frosted, whose whitish light remained unvaried throughout the day. She goes into the garden, which is a place loaded with Madame Bovary's ennui and her way of seeing. The cabbages have taken on silver lace trimmings from romance. The idea of paradise is excluded from this real place. The vine is just a vine, not the True Vine, and is indifferently identified with the serpent, who is sick. 'Cloportes' which drag themselves along are not angels to close the gates but woodlice. The verbs are in the indefinite past - 'seemed to sleep' and 'saw... dragging themselves along.' Flaubert wrote that he liked 'clear sharp sentences... which must be clear as Voltaire, as abrim with substance as Montaigne, as vigorous as La Bruyère, and always streaming with colour.' He orchestrates the colours of the book as he orchestrates Emma's and the reader's sensations - in the passage I have just quoted silver and white, elsewhere, notably in the seduction in the forest, the blue of romantic distances, which is transmuted into the blue of the bottle of arsenic powder Emma steals from Monsieur Homais. 

The effect of his spreading of the feeling of the characters, and the novels, into the physical world, varies with the distance from which the narrator watches the things. It is not clear, when Flaubert describes Charles Bovary's first vision of Emma's flesh, exactly where Charles's thoughts end and authorial commentary begins. 'Tout en cousant, elle se piquait les doigts, qu'elle portait ensuite a sa bouche pour les sucer.' This is an erotic simple sentence, and it presents the young woman as unselfconscious and awkward with household tasks. It is followed by a long analysis - from very close - of her finger-nails, ostensibly from Charles's point of view, though in fact there are several elements of the description which read oddly if the reader looks, so to speak, out of Charles's head.

It is not exactly Charles's thought - or sensation - process. It appears to be, and some critics have seen in the ostensible use of the technical 'phalanges' and the possibly diagnostic note of the absence of 'molles inflexions' Charles's 'medical' eye. But the Charles whose life we have so far followed is not in the habit of making such precise discriminations about what is and is not beautiful. And the romantic comparison with the ivories of Dieppe is not Charles Bovary's, nor is the tone of voice describing the effect of Emma Rouault's 'regard' on an abstract 'you' which includes both the narrator and the reader? It is Flaubert mingling, but not fusing, his characters' relations to the physical world with his own.

Something similar happens when he tries very directly to involve us in a physical analogy which he ascribes directly to Madame Bovary herself. In this case she is thinking in a conventional way about why she wanted a son not a daughter. 'Un homme au moins est libre; il peut parcourir les passions et les pays.'

Here again, although the comparison between the veil and the female consciousness inside it is a beautiful physical image of the constraints of a woman's view of the world and of her volatile will on its string or cord, I do not quite believe the comparison is one Madame Bovary generated or thought out. It is beautifully articulated and precise, and is part of Flaubert's vision of his creation, not of her vision of her world. It is almost a complex metaphor - and complex metaphors, as we shall see, are not the way in which Madame Bovary proceeds. 

Further passages describe Emma's world, and moves from the novels she reads to her uncomprehending but admiring husband and out, by way of the dumb animal to the world of inanimate objects. But those objects have a buried metaphorical meaning, in that - still described in the indefinite past tense of prolonged states of being - the burning logs in the hearth and the pendulum of the clock do represent the passing of time through the stasis of boredom. The logs and the clock are in a way Flaubert's metaphor for the movement of Emma Bovary's life, all the more effective for not being presented as metaphor, but simply as real objects. This precision and simplicity has the effect of making the whole book into one worked image, memorable for a reader simultaneously as a direct physical experience and as a whole as an articulated image for a certain state of things, the world of ennui, romantic longing, and physical restriction. Flaubert admired his heroic artists - Rabelais, Shakespeare, Cervantes - for their power to create simple, absolute types and scenes. He says somewhere that great art can appear almost silly, stupid, in its self-sufficiency. His descriptions have exactly that self-sufficiency, a simplicity of presence which is meaning.

Flaubert may appear to keep a controlled and glacial distance from his fictional world. In fact his attitude to it was double. He told Louise Colet 'Rien dans ce livre n'est tiré de moi . . . Tout est de tête', but he also told Amélie Bosquet, famously, 'Madame Bovary c'est moi! - d'après moi.' His mother told him 'Your mania for sentences has dried up your heart'. But he lived the moments he was writing intensely - 'for better or worse it is a delicious thing to write, to be no longer yourself, but to move in an entire universe of your own creating. Today, for instance, as man and woman, both lover and mistress, I rode in a forest on an autumn afternoon under the yellow leaves, and I was also the horses, the leaves, the wind, the words my people uttered, even the red sun that made them almost close their love-drowned eyes.' And when he came to kill Madame Bovary he imagined her agony so intensely that he tasted the bitterness of the arsenic in his own mouth, to the point of vomiting.

When the novel was finished, Flaubert sent it to Bouilhet to be published in six bi-monthly parts in the Revue de Paris. Bouilhet sent him a letter which is a warning to all editors tempted to respond to complex manuscripts with confident proposals for improvement.

'Let us take full charge of the publication of your novel in the Revue; we will make the cuts we think indispensable. My personal opinion is that if you do not do this, you will be gravely compromising yourself, making your first appearance with a muddled work to which the style alone does not give sufficient interest. Be brave, close your eyes during the operation, and have confidence - if not in our talent, at least in the experience we have acquired in such matters and also in our affection for you. You have buried your novel under a heap of details which are well done but superfluous: it is not seen clearly enough, and must be disencumbered - an easy task. We shall have it done under our supervision by someone who is experienced and clever; not a word will be added to your manuscript, it will merely be pruned; the job will cost you about 100 francs which will be deducted from your payment, and you will have published something really good instead of something imperfect and padded. . .'

Flaubert, understandably, objected furiously. The novel was finally published in the review with only one cut - perhaps the most famous scene - the wild journey of the cab through the streets of Rouen, the box inside which Emma consummates her affair with Léon. Madame Bovary was nevertheless prosecuted by the police for obscenity in January 1857. Flaubert and his publishers were acquitted on February 7th; Flaubert was afraid the Ministry of Justice would appeal but it did not, and the notoriety added to the book's success, not entirely to Flaubert's pleasure - he said he disliked Art to be associated with things alien to it. In later years, after the publication of Salammbô, (1862), a novel about a Carthaginian princess, L'Education Sentimentale in 1869, and his Trois Contes in 1877, he complained about the excessive notoriety of Madame Bovary, as authors do when they feel one of their books is being singled out at the expense of others.

Contemporary writers were made uneasy by Flaubert. Henry James expressed a recurrent unease which he said was experienced by the 'alien reader' and persisted. 'Our complaint is that Emma Bovary, in spite of the nature of her consciousness and in spite of her reflecting so much that of her creator, is really too small an affair.' DH Lawrence, a naturally visionary and prophetic realist himself, was more vehement. Flaubert, he said, 'stood away from life as from a leprosy.' Even Proust, writing his precise and elegant defence of Flaubert, begins with a caveat. 'Ce n'est pas que j'aime entre tous les livres de Flaubert, ni même le style de Flaubert.' All these express an unease which persists in readers faced with this very great novel. But between seeing Emma Bovary as 'really too small an affair', and Flaubert's vision of life as a leprosy, and understanding that Madame Bovary, with all its realistic nineteenth-century apparatus, is the beginning of a new vision, a modern vision, is only a step. The resolution with which Flaubert polished his perfect surface, and kept it almost purely surface, not transparent, not revealing any deeper meaning than its existence, is behind the nausea of Sartre's Roquentin, and the reduced worlds of Beckett's bare survivors. Its beauty is enchanting and terrible. It shows us implacably the limitations of our habitation in our bodies, in space and time. Emma Bovary is indeed 'really too small' but there is a sense in which she is a type of everywoman. Flaubert's relentless and fastidious observation and creation of his small world is itself a form of contemplation. He shows us laughter, irony and fear. And in the end gentleness, for sad, stupid, honest Charles, and silly, greedy, unsatisfied Emma. And grief for an unconsidered accidental daughter, who comes to a sad - and probable - end.

PAGE COUNT: 34,479

BOOK COUNT: 85/100