Rouen, in a fourth-story room overlooking the Seine, which his mother
rented for him, in the house of a dyer of her acquaintance. Here he
studies his medical books, and arrives little by little, not at the
degree of doctor of medicine, but that of health officer. He frequented
the inns, failed in his studies, but as for the rest, he had no other
passion than that of playing dominoes. This is M. Bovary.

The time comes for him to marry. His mother finds him a wife in the
widow of a sheriff's officer of Dieppe; she is virtuous and plain, is
forty-five years old, and has six thousand a year income. Only, the
lawyer who had her capital to invest set out one fine morning for
America, and the younger Madame Bovary was so much affected, so struck
down by this unexpected blow that she died of it. Here we have the first
marriage and the first scene.

M. Bovary, now being a widower, begins to think of marrying again. He
questions his memory; there is no need of going far; there immediately
comes to his mind the daughter of a neighboring farmer, Mile. Emma
Rouault, who had strangely aroused Madame Bovary's suspicions. Farmer
Rouault had but one daughter, and she had been brought up by the
Ursuline sisters at Rouen. She was little interested in matters of the
farm; her father was anxious for her to marry. The health officer
presented himself, there was no difficulty about the _dot_, and you
understand that with such a disposition on both sides, these things are
quickly settled. The marriage takes place. M. Bovary is at his wife's
knees, is the happiest of men and the blindest of husbands. His sole
occupation is anticipating his wife's wishes.

Here the rôle of M. Bovary ends; that of Madame Bovary becomes the
serious work of the book.