Then everyone began “taking advantage” of him. Mademoiselle Lempereur presented a bill for six months’ teaching, although Emma had never taken a lesson (despite the receipted bill she had shown Bovary); it was an arrangement between the two women. The man at the circulating library demanded three years’ subscriptions; Mère Rollet claimed the postage due for some twenty letters, and when Charles asked for an explanation, she had the delicacy to reply⁠—

“Oh, I don’t know. It was for her business affairs.”

With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come to the end of them. But others followed ceaselessly. He sent in accounts for professional attendance. He was shown the letters his wife had written. Then he had to apologise.

Félicité now wore Madame Bovary’s gowns; not all, for he had kept some of them, and he went to look at them in her dressing-room, locking himself up there; she was about her height, and often Charles, seeing her from behind, was seized with an illusion, and cried out⁠—