Then how many things had been spoilt or lost during their carriage from Tostes to Yonville, without counting the plaster cure, who falling out of the coach at an over-severe jolt, had been dashed into a thousand fragments on the pavements of Quincampoix!  A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely, the pregnancy of his wife.  As the time of her confinement approached he cherished her the more.  It was another bond of the flesh establishing itself, and, as it were, a continued sentiment of a more complex union.  When from afar he saw her languid walk, and her figure without stays turning softly on her hips; when opposite one another he looked at her at his ease, while she took tired poses in her armchair, then his happiness knew no bounds; he got up, embraced her, passed his hands over her face, called her little mamma, wanted to make her dance, and half-laughing, half-crying, uttered all kinds of caressing pleasantries that came into his head.  The idea of having begotten a child delighted him.  Now he wanted nothing.  He knew human life from end to end, and he sat down to it with serenity.

Emma at first felt a great astonishment; then was anxious to be delivered that she might know what it was to be a mother.  But not being able to spend as much as she would have liked, to have a swing-bassinette with rose silk curtains, and embroidered caps, in a fit of bitterness she gave up looking after the trousseau, and ordered the whole of it from a village needlewoman, without choosing or discussing anything.  Thus she did not amuse herself with those preparations that stimulate the tenderness of mothers, and so her affection was from the very outset, perhaps, to some extent attenuated.

As Charles, however, spoke of the boy at every meal, she soon began to think of him more consecutively.

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past.  A man, at least, is free; he may travel over passions and over countries, overcome obstacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures.  But a woman is always hampered.  At once inert and flexible, she has against her the weakness of the flesh and legal dependence.  Her will, like the veil of her bonnet, held by a string, flutters in every wind; there is always some desire that draws her, some conventionality that restrains.

She was confined on a Sunday at about six o’clock, as the sun was rising.

“It is a girl!” said Charles.

She turned her head away and fainted.

Madame Homais, as well as Madame Lefrancois of the Lion d’Or, almost immediately came running in to embrace her.  The chemist, as man of discretion, only offered a few provincial felicitations through the half-opened door.  He wished to see the child and thought it well made.

Whilst she was getting well she occupied herself much in seeking a name for her daughter.  First she went over all those that have Italian endings, such as Clara, Louisa, Amanda, Atala; she liked Galsuinde pretty well, and Yseult or Leocadie still better.