Flaubert himself has retreated, and
it is Emma with whom we immediately deal. Take, for example, the two
figures of her lovers, Rodolphe and Leon, the florid country-gentleman
and the aspiring student; if Flaubert were to describe these men as
_he_ sees them, apart from their significance to Emma, they would not
occupy him for long; to his mind, and to any critical mind, they are
both of them very small affairs. Their whole effect in the book is the
effect they produce upon the sensibility of a foolish and limited
little woman. Or again, take the incident of Emma's single incursion
into polite society, the ball at the great house which starts so many
of her romantic dreams; it is all presented in her terms, it appears
as it appeared to her. And occasionally the point of view is shifted
away from her to somebody else, and we get a brief glimpse of what
_she_ is in the eyes of her husband, her mother-in-law, her lover.
Furthermore, whether the voice is that of the author or of his
creature, there is a pictorial manner of treating the matter in hand
and there is also a dramatic. It may be that the impression--as in the
case of the marquis's ball--is chiefly given as a picture, the
reflection of events in the mirror of somebody's receptive
consciousness. The reader is not really looking _at_ the occasion in
the least, or only now and then; mainly he is watching the surge of
Emma's emotion, on which the episode acts with sharp intensity.
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