“Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist—that is to say, a chemist. And the object of chemistry, Madame Lefrancois, being the knowledge of the reciprocal and molecular action of all natural bodies, it follows that agriculture is comprised within its domain. And, in fact, the composition of the manure, the fermentation of liquids, the analyses of gases, and the influence of miasmata, what, I ask you, is all this, if it isn’t chemistry, pure and simple?”

The landlady did not answer. Homais went on—

“Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is necessary to have tilled the earth or fattened fowls oneself? It is necessary rather to know the composition of the substances in question—the geological strata, the atmospheric actions, the quality of the soil, the minerals, the waters, the density of the different bodies, their capillarity, and what not. And one must be master of all the principles of hygiene in order to direct, criticize the construction of buildings, the feeding of animals, the diet of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefrançois, one must know botany, be able to distinguish between plants, you understand, which are the wholesome and those that are deleterious, which are unproductive and which nutritive, if it is well to pull them up here and re-sow them there, to propagate some, destroy others; in brief, one must keep pace with science by means of pamphlets and public papers, be always on the alert to find out improvements.”

The landlady never took her eyes off the “Café François” and the chemist went on—

“Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or that at least they would pay more attention to the counsels of science. Thus lately I myself wrote a considerable tract, a memoir of over seventy-two pages, entitled, ‘Cider, its Manufacture and its Effects, together with some New Reflections on the Subject,’ that I sent to the Agricultural Society of Rouen, and which even procured me the honour of being received among its members—Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological. Well, if my work had been given to the public—” But the druggist stopped, Madame Lefrançois seemed so preoccupied.

“Just look at them!” she said. “It’s past comprehension! Such a cookshop as that!” And with a shrug of the shoulders that stretched out over her breast the stitches of her knitted bodice, she pointed with both hands at her rival’s inn, whence songs were heard issuing. “Well, it won’t last long,” she added. “It’ll be over before a week.”

Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down three steps and whispered in his ear—

“What! you didn’t know it? There is to be an execution in next week. It’s Lheureux who is selling him out; he has killed him with bills.”

“What a terrible catastrophe!” cried the druggist, who always found expressions in harmony with all imaginable circumstances.

Then the landlady began telling him the story that she had heard from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin’s servant, and although she detested Tellier, she blamed Lheureux. He was “a wheedler, a sneak.”

“There!” she said. “Look at him! he is in the market; he is bowing to Madame Bovary, who’s got on a green bonnet. Why, she’s taking Monsieur Boulanger’s arm.”

“Madame Bovary!” exclaimed Homais. “I must go at once and pay her my respects. Perhaps she’ll be very glad to have a seat in the enclosure under the peristyle.” And, without heeding Madame Lefrançois, who was calling him back to tell him more about it, the druggist walked off rapidly with a smile on his lips, with straight knees, bowing copiously to right and left, and taking up much room with the large tails of his frock-coat that fluttered behind him in the wind.

Rodolphe, having caught sight of him from afar, hurried on, but Madame Bovary lost her breath; so he walked more slowly, and, smiling at her, said in a rough tone—