Je puis alors fermer les yeux, et rêver que je pars, avec lui, pour un pays inconnu où je n'aurais pas de passé, pas de nom, où je renaîtrais avec un visage nouveau et un coeur ignorant. ( La Vagabonde 1185)

Des tentations la prenaient de s'enfuir avec Léon, quelque part, bien loin, pour essayer une destinée nouvelle. . . ( Madame Bovary424)

THESE HAUNTINGLY SIMILAR PASSAGES expressing the desire of two heroines to break free from confining "real" worlds and start new lives elsewhere are representative of a more fundamental resemblance between the novels in which they are found. Both Flaubert Madame Bovary and Colette La Vagabonde might be seen as illustrations of what Susan J. Rosowski has termed the "novel of awakening," a narrative whose protagonist gradually learns what her place is in the world and how to express herself within that world. ¹ Although the two heroines follow different trajectories in their search for self-knowledge, they share a desire for vagabondage and act out that desire, with varying degrees of success, through writing.

While the very title of Colette's novel immediately indicates the importance of vagabondage for Renée Néré, it also calls to mind, more subtly, a central aspect of Emma's behavior in Madame Bovary. The verb vagabonder and its derivatives are of the utmost importance in Flaubert's novel because they go straight to the heart of the heroine's problem. Early uses of the verb with respect to Emma express a yearning for freedom that can be seen as positive in one sense, but which, on the other hand, is already more fantasy than real possibility. The semantic shadow is cast early in the novel, when vagabonder is used to describe, ironically, as it turns out, an unruly young Charles Bovary (331). Then, shortly before Charles asks Emma to marry him, the verb reappears to depict Emma, "[son regard] noyé d'ennui, [s]a pensée vagabondant" (346); after the wedding, during her walks with Djali, "[s]a pensée, sans but d'abord, vagabondait au hasard, comme sa levrette, qui faisait des cercles dans la campagne. . ." (365), the dog's circular running clearly figuring Emma's thoughts. Even the description of the river in Yonville, which "dessinait sur l'herbe des sinuosités vagabondes" (425), reflects the sluggish, aimless wandering that the heroine herself feels, suggesting that what may at first seem to be a purely objective description of physical surroundings is in fact a projection of the heroine's own frustrated view of life.  

Once Emma was strayed beyond the conventional bonds of her marriage to search for greater fulfillment in affairs with Rodolphe, and then with Léon, the term takes on decidedly negative overtones, all the more so because it becomes linked with other recurring motifs which are clearly negative in the novel. The narrator uses the verb to describe, for example, the wandering thoughts of Léon as he impatiently awaits Emma in the cathedral in Rouen (544), and then, more notably, the movement of the carriage transporting the couple as they make love: "et alors, sans parti pris ni direction, au hasard, [le fiacre] vagabonda" (548). The expression of Emma's desire for vagabondage is thus transferred to the vehicle which permits her adultery. At the level of the language, the shift from subject to object with respect to the carriage's activity clearly shows the negative connotation that vagabondage begins to assume: while the carriage itself initially "acts on" a prolonged series of active verbs (such as descendre, traverser, repartir, etc.), it eventually becomes the object of the indefinite on ("On la vit à Saint-Pol, à Lescure. . ." [548]) and then of "les bourgeois" (549). The narrator compares the wandering coach, moreover, to a tomb, "une voiture . . . plus close qu'un tombeau" (549), thus linking vagabondage to the notion of death.

That the value of the image is now negative for Emma is confirmed by the fact that when vagabonder reappears, it is applied to the hideous blind beggar--a "pauvre diable vagabondant" (568)--who will come to be associated closely with Emma's death. ² Emma is affected profoundly by the beggar's voice, with its "quelque chose de lointain qui [la] bouleversait" (569). The fact that similar phrases describe both the beggar and Emma's agony (the protruding tongue and rolling eyes, for example) and that the beggar's manic song is the last thing she hears before dying suggests that, metaphorically, Emma and the beggar are equated through the use of vagabonder, that she effectively "becomes" the beggar in her death.

Finally, the word vagabond appears at the very end of the novel, in Homais's articles attacking the blind beggar: "Sommes-nous encore à ces temps monstrueux du moyen âge, o৹ il était permis aux vagabonds d'étaler par nos places publiques la lèpre et les scrofules qu'ils avaient rapportées de la croisade?" (640) Homais also reminds his reading public of the laws against vagabondage (640). Thus in the novel as a whole, the "lesson" seems to be that Emma's desire for vagabondage is not only frustrated at every turn, but is depicted in the final analysis, through her association with the beggar, as something degenerate, something that threatens the established values of society. A woman who dares dream of vagabondage is represented--from society's point of view--as a threat, to be duly repressed. ³

Unlike Renée Néré, as we shall see, Emma becomes increasingly immobile and dependent upon men to give direction to her vagabondage. She finds a kindred spirit in Léon, but together they manage to escape only in fantasy to a more stimulating world. She implores Rodolphe to take her away ("Emmènemoi" [502]); later, even more desperate, she goes so far as to fantasize about begging--yet another echo of the blind beggar--the hero of the opera to do the same (532). She ultimately finds herself trapped by her circumstances and even by her own character: "Tout, en elle-même et au dehors, l'abandonnait. Elle se sentait perdue, roulant au hasard dans les abîmes indéfinissables" (597). ⁴ Hindered by her gender and by the bourgeois values against which she revolts so stubbornly, her vagabondage is ultimately fruitless. A man, she is certain, is free to wander, as the following quote, describing Emma's hope for a son, shows: "Un homme, au moins, est libre; il peut parcourir les passions et les pays, traverser les obstacles, mordre aux bonheurs les plus lointains. Mais une femme est empêchée continuellement" (405-06). For a woman such as Emma, vagabondage is but a whirlwind of purposeless activity. What began as something potentially positive--Emma's wandering thoughts of freedom and mobility--undergoes a transformation as the novel unfolds, as if to suggest that vagabondage will inevitably have negative consequences.

It is perhaps not surprising that vagabondage might play a different role in Colette's novel, considering that it was published some fifty years after Madame Bovary, is written in a journal-like manner, and is a much more personal work, in contrast to Flaubert's more objective, third-person narration. ⁵ The heroine of La Vagabonde is an independent thirty-three year old divorcée who, like Colette, not only loves to write, but also becomes a music hall performer in order to earn a living. Renée's demanding career at once satisfies her and heightens her awareness of her solitude and her need for intimacy. La Vagabonde could be read as a performance of the dilemma that has always plagued working women, that is, how to reconcile career and family (or career and love), each of which brings its own sort of fulfillment. Just as Madame Bovary undoubtedly had a profound influence on all future narratives, La Vagabonde also looks forward, "anticipat[ing] the most modern novels about women," as Joan Hinde Stewart affirms, "by virtue of preoccupations with female sexuality and work" (36).

The definitive sense of the novel's title is worked out gradually in the three parts of the narrative. The narrator establishes early on the fundamental link between vagabondage and freedom, a link that is basically positive, as it will remain throughout the novel, and yet not without ambiguity. In Part I, for example, we find a woman who longs to be perfectly free, but at the same time derives much satisfaction from a solitary life at home; although she refers to herself as a vagabond from the very start, ⁶ hers is not yet an entirely productive vagabondage: "Vagabonde, soit, mais qui se résigne à tourner en rond, sur place. . ." (1119). The tension between Renée's desire to be a vagabond and her temptation to "set roots" becomes more obvious in Part II, where we find a Renée who is not only more passive, but even open to the idea of a permanent relationship with a persistent admirer of her music hall performances, Maxime Dufferein-Chautel, and seemingly content to be taken care of, if not "possessed," by a man. Part III marks Renée's coming to terms with her need for vagabondage and the full realization of the novel's title--she acknowledges that a vagabond is what she is and wants to be, rather than what she is resigned to being, even if it means a freedom that is solitary and therefore less reassuring.

Generally speaking, then, Renée's own sense of vagabondage becomes more clearcut and positive as the novel unfolds, in contrast to that of Emma Bovary. The degree of her success is directly related moreover, to her ability to "find herself" through writing, a medium which Emma also tests, as we shall see. The first clue that writing is an essential aspect of Renée's life is a lengthy, very lyrical passage at the beginning of the novel in which the verb écrire, followed by an exclamation point, is repeated numerous times. For Renée, writing is a "longue rêverie" (1074), a game that only a chosen few may play; Renée's colorful vocabulary, evocative images, and sinuous, rhythmic sentences are proof that she is a well-qualified practitioner of the art. She describes, for example, the jeux de la plume qui tourne en rond autour d'une tache d'encre, qui mordille le mot imparfait, le griffe, le hérisse de fléchettes, l'orne d'antennes, de pattes, jusqu'à ce qu'il perde sa figure lisible de mot, mué en insecte fantastique, envolé en papillon-fée. (1074) ⁷

The series of active verbs and the images of transformation in the passage clearly represent Renée's own desires to act and to change, desires that will become increasingly urgent in the third part of the novel. Writing, which requires both control and spontaneity, brings both pleasure and pain. It is a physical need, "vif comme la soif en été," a challenge, to "saisir et fixer, sous la pointe double et ployante, le chatoyant, le fugace, le passionnant adjectif" (1074). Finally, writing represents an escape from reality, but the creation is fragile, easily shattered by the intrusion of the real world, "quand le fournisseur sonne, quand le bottier présente sa facture, quand l'avoué téléphone" (1074).

As Renée's narration unfolds, we gradually learn that her writing, the need to "faire de la littérature" (1084) and the first step in her vagabondage, has arisen from suffering caused by a divorce. She wrote her first book, a "provincial" novel, "pour le seul plaisir de me réfugier dans un passé tout proche" (1084). Although she characterizes it as "plat et clair . . . un peu serin, très gentil" (1084), it was enormously popular. Curiously, even though Renée's second book was much less successful commercially, she basked in the satisfaction of conquering words, experiencing "la volupté d'écrire, la lutte patiente contre la phrase qui s'assouplit, s'assoit en rond comme une bête apprivoisée, l'attente immobile, l'affût qui finit par charmer le mot. . ." (1084).

Renée's description of her literary efforts thus reveals a gradual transition from dependence to independence after her troubled marriage, a transition that has been effected by writing, and which serves as a foreshadowing of how writing will later enable her to embrace her vagabondage and choose not to rely on a man for self-affirmation. This independence is especially evident when Renée explains that although her third book was by far the least successful in terms of public recognition--"il tomba à plat et ne se releva pas"--it was her own favorite--"mon 'chef-d'oeuvre inconnu,' à moi" (1084). "Incompréhensible?" she challenges a hypothetical reader, pour vous, peut-être. Mais, pour moi, sa chaude obscurité s'éclaire; pour moi, tel mot suffit à recréer l'odeur, la couleur des heures vécues, il est sonore et plein et mystérieux comme une coquille où chante la mer, et je l'aimerais moins, je crois, si vous l'aimiez aussi . . . Rassurez-vous! je n'en écrirai pas un autre comme celui-là, je ne pourrais plus. (1084) 

Nothing matters but what Renée herself thinks; she would even shun the book herself if she believed that her public thought highly of it. Writing, for her an entirely self-directed act, can also be a sensual experience, "d'où l'on sort courbatu, abêti, mais déjà récompensé" (1074). As we shall see, Renée will weigh this process of submissiveness/satisfaction against the similar terms that Max has to offer.

Although writing is certainly one of the narrator's focuses in Part I of the novel, it is almost always described in a past context, for Renée has had to abandon it in order to earn a living. ⁸ It is telling that in the second part of La Vagabonde this absence of writing becomes even more definitive, as Renée gradually begins to give in to Max, both physically and psychologically, in spite of the threat to her vagabondage that he represents. Part II opens with a view of Renée's apartment filtered through Max's eyes, significantly interrupted by the narrator's observations of what he fails to notice, the dusty inkpot and dry pen, the very tools that make writing possible. The focus on Max's incomplete perception suggests just how difficult it will be to reconcile the two passions, writing and love; Max not only keeps Renée from her writerly pursuits, but also fails to recognize what she considers her most important talent. The Renée in Part I has been replaced by a passive woman who seems utterly mystified by the constant presence of this man so different from herself. We must assume, due to the absence of writing, that Max has become one of those real-world intrusions that shatter her creative moments. Given Renée's independence, this abandonment to a man who is often described in such negative terms is surprising to the reader, and in fact, recalls that of Emma, who frequently "abandons herself" (the verb s'abandonner is an important motif in Madame Bovary) and seeks an almost ominous self-effacement in her lovers.

Unlike Emma, however, Renée subjects the moments of abandonment to periods of self-questioning (even self-revulsion), so that when she leaves on tour, she appears utterly torn, as eager to return to Max as to recapture the magic of her vagabondage, at once "débordante de regret et d'espoir, pressée de revenir" and "tendue vers [s]on sort nouveau avec l'élan brillant du serpent qui se délivre de sa peau morte" (1194). This striking image of metamorphosis not only calls to mind Emma's urgent (if unfulfilled) desire to "essayer une destinée nouvelle" (424), but also indicates that Renée's decision may have been effectively made even before she leaves. Renée may have mixed feelings about her lifestyle, which requires frequent travel, but her general desire to be flexible and free is clearly more centered, more purposeful than that of Emma Bovary. ⁹

In addition to this physical separation from Max, Renée needs writing at this point in her life in order to realize her new identity as a vagabond. The tension between the two selves (and her two choices) is manifested in the unique form of the third part of the novel, which consists largely of letters that Renée has written to Max during her trip, interspersed with blocks of firstperson narration. Nancy K. Miller calls this part "an epistolary novel revised" (248) and reads it as a mise en abyme of the novel as a whole (251). What are left out of this part of La Vagabonde, however, are Max's letters to her; as Stewart has noted, Part III "is essentially a monologue. Max's very words are subordinated to Renée's, filtered through her consciousness. Its form is linear, there being no real exchange" (40). The fact that Renée controls this "exchange" clearly indicates not only her desire to be inaccessible, but also her need to write for herself, not for Max.

As Renée becomes increasingly involved in her own writing, she finds herself playing the role of reader and critic as well. Evaluating what and how Max writes is an important step in Renée's self-realization; it comes to reveal her more general dissatisfaction with him and the relationship. In her third letter, for example, Renée complains about the length of Max's letters: "Cela se lit en vingt secondes! et je suis sûre que, de bonne foi, vous croyez m'avoir écrit une longue lettre!" (1198). In the text between the third and fourth letters, she elaborates upon Max's attempts at correspondence, commenting that his daily letter both consoles and disappoints her. Even the physical form of his handwriting displeases her: "Sa belle écriture fleurie retarde l'élan de sa main" (1200); it is too elegant, and therefore unnatural. Renée perceives Max's concern for appearances as a hindrance to his creativity, an attitude which contrasts sharply with Renée's own lack of concern for public approval of the content of her writing. Renée finds a certain frigidity in Max's writing: "Sa chaude sollicitude m'arrive . . . toute refroidie sur ce papier, traduite en une écriture bienéquilibrée. . ." (1201). She implores him to be more spontaneous, not to write "lettres 'soignées'" (1206): "Ecrivez n'importe quoi . . . j'ai besoin que ton désordre réponde à celui de ce printemps qui a crevé la terre et se consume de sa propre hâte" (1206). It is Renée's last-ditch attempt to persuade Max to write as she does, "lancer à travers des pages blanches l'écriture rapide, inégale. . ." (1214), to let the muse inspire him and free him from all constraints, to become, himself, a vagabond. In contrast to Max, Renée herself writes easily, and sometimes even gets carried away, showing herself to be a true vagabond: "Mon Dieu, comme je vous écris! Je passerais tout mon temps à vous écrire, j'y ai moins d'effort, je crois, qu'à vous parler" (1202).

It is significant that Renée is able to communicate freely only when apart from Max. As Part III of the novel unfolds, we find that the "vous" in this quote, or more generally the presence of a precise destinataire, becomes less and less important, as Renée becomes more interested in the creative aspect of writing than in the communicative one. For her, creativity involves "playing" with the truth, whether it be simply hiding her true feelings or purposely misleading Max, but in any case, using writing to exclude him. "Que faire?" she writes, "Pour aujour-d'hui, écrire, brièvement, car l'heure presse, et mentir . . ." (1212). From Marseille she writes a purposely ambiguous message, as if to test his ability as a reader: "AVdieu, mon ami chéri. Vous êtes le meilleur des hommes, et vous méritez la meilleure des femmes. Ne regretterez-vous pas d'avoir choisi seulementRenée Néré?" (1212-13). His response shows how unreceptive he was to her message: "un long remerciement sans rature . . . pouvait [lui] donner l'illusion d'avoir écrit: 'Tel jour, telle heure, je suis à vous, nous partons ensemble'" (1213). Renée has slipped into the creative mode so deeply that she is now writing literature, fiction rather than fact, leaving the real-life lines of communication inexorably tangled. It is revealing, too, that Renée refers to her letters as a "manuscrit" (1216), a manuscript in such disorder that Max cannot recognize her (1216): "Dire la vérité, oui, mais toute la vérité, on ne peut pas, on ne doit pas" (1216).

It is as if Renée is in the process of writing her fourth novel here, an unusual novel whose hero, Max, is being destroyed/deconstructed by the very act of writing itself, and whose heroine, Renée, is simultaneously reconstructing herself as a vagabond; as Michel Baude affirms, "la rupture devient possible, non pas parce que Max est resté à Paris, mais parce que Renée écrit de nouveau-elle rédige des lettres" (115-16). Renée begins to forget Max precisely because the only thing that matters to her is to "chercher les mots . . . pour dire combien le soleil est jaune, et bleue la mer, et brillant le sel en frange de jais blanc. . ." (1220). If La Vagabonde is, as Miller has proposed, "the fiction of a return to writing" (234), then the "return" is accomplished precisely because Renée rediscovers the uplifting experience of using language to seize the wonders of the world around her. Vagabondage is an essential part of this quest for words; it means the spatial and temporal freedom to write. Max, who infringes upon both time and space, ¹⁰ has been effectively erased by Renée's overwhelming desire to be a writer and a vagabond (which are, for her, one and the same). This is nowhere better illustrated than when Renée writes "Et Max? . . . Depuis hier je rôde autour de ce point d'interrogation. Et Max? Et Max? Ce n'est plus une pensée, c'est un refrain, un bruit, un petit croassement rythmé . . ." (1223). Max has been reduced to an orthographic symbol, not a thought, but an intrusive noise.

Renée's ability to transform Max into the code used for writing is clearly a measure of her own recognition and ultimate acceptance of herself as a vagabond. Yet while her choice of vagabondage appears definitive, there is a subtle moment of wavering toward the end of the novel: after explaining in her final letter that she refuses to be possessed by anyone, Renée unexpectedly rereads what she wrote, an act that seems uncharacteristic of a self-proclaimed vagabond, because it implies reflexivity and self-questioning. In addition, she pauses to perfect her handwriting--"j'ai arrondi des boucles, ajouté des points, des accents, j'ai daté . . ." (1231)--which was of course one of the aspects of Max's writing which she criticized. Her unconscious imitation of Max's habits suggests how deeply she has been touched by him and how much she is sacrificing by choosing art and the life of a vagabond. Like the Princesse de Clèves, who acknowledges her passion for Nemours but refuses to be blinded by it, Renée declares, using strikingly similar terms, "les plus beaux pays de la terre, je refuse de les contempler, tout petits, au miroir amoureux de ton regard . . . Vagabonde, et libre, je souhaiterai parfois l'ombre de tes murs . . . Ah! tu seras longtemps une des soifs de ma route!" (1232; emphasis mine). ¹¹ Clearly, even though Renée is fully aware of the ease with which she could resume the more comfortable, fixed situation which we see in Part II of the novel, she ultimately chooses, in a decisive act of self-definition and liberation, to name herself a vagabond, as the quote above, appearing on the final page of the narrative, shows.

The extent to which Renée Néré achieves fulfillment and freedom through writing can be appreciated all the more if we come back to Madame Bovary and contrast Renée's situation with what Flaubert's heroine is able to do, since Emma, too, displays a desire to write in order to attain freedom. This becomes evident shortly after Emma marries Charles, in a scene which highlights the heroine's typical pattern of behavior:

Elle s'était acheté un buvard, une papeterie, un porte-plume et des enveloppes, quoiqu'elle n'eût personne à qui écrire; elle époussetait son étagère, se regardait dans la glace, prenait un livre, puis, rêvant entre les lignes, le laissait tomber sur ses genoux. Elle avait envie de faire desvoyages ou de rotourner vivre à son couvent. Elle souhaitait à la fois mourir et habiter Paris. (380)

Emma characteristically wants the things that she associates with an activity, and assumes that those things will automatically lead to satisfaction. Although she possesses all the necessary writing materials, she has no one to whom she can address her thoughts and desires; in contrast to Renée, she is incapable of imagining the benefits of writing for herself. This passage is significant, moreover, because it shows precisely how Emma's lack of focus keeps her not only from writing, but from reading; the concrete items at the beginning of the quote lead only to flights of fancy, marked by the verbs avoir envie and souhaiter. This pattern is repeated all through the novel, as Emma seems able to envision her vagabondage, but cannot motivate herself to carry out the act of fleeing. ¹²

When Emma does enter into correspondence with someone, her difficulties with writing are compounded by the fact that she, like Renée, derives little satisfaction from the letters of her correspondents. She complains, for example, that Rodolphe's letters are too short (474), and implores Léon to write verse, "une pièce d'amour en son honneur" (578), which he is as incapable of doing as is Max of purging his style of flowery touches; Léon "finit par copier un sonnet dans un keepsake" (578), in effect plagiarizing to compensate for his own lack of imagination. But where Renée deals with Max's deficiencies by becoming more active herself in writing, Emma experiences little development. Rarely does she show signs of actually creating with her writing; ironically, she, like Léon, seems content to imitate models.

Yet the need to express herself through writing sharpens toward the end of the novel, when Emma, tiring of her weekly trysts in Rouen, begins to realize that Léon is hardly more intriguing than Charles. Though she wants to break with him, "elle n'en continuait pas moins à lui écrire des lettres amoureuses, en vertu de cette idée, qu'une femme doit toujours écrire à son amant" (590). As Schor aptly explains, "If initially Emma writes to receive letters, to take pleasure in the communication forbidden, impossible on the speech plane, writing subsequently becomes the adjuvant of a 'waning passion' in the manner of an aphrodisiac" (17-18). Here Emma's attitude toward writing resembles Renée's in Part III, when the latter persists in expressing her passion to Max even after she recognizes how little she needs him. For both, writing itself becomes more important than the relationship. Emma ultimately creates a Léon who is able to fulfill her dreams, for a fleeting moment losing herself (yet finding herself) in the writing, much as Renée does:

Mais, en écrivant, elle percevait un autre homme, un fantôme fait de ses plus ardents souvenirs, de ses lectures les plus belles, de ses convoitises les plus fortes; et il devenait à la fin si véritable, et accessible, qu'elle enpalpitait émerveillée. sans pouvoir néanmoins le nettement imaginer, tant il se perdait, comme un dieu, sous l'abondance de ses attributs. Il habitait la contrée bleuâtre où les échelles de soie se balancent à des balcons, sous le souffle des fleurs, dans la clarté De la lune. Elle le sentait près d' elle, il allait venir et l'enlèverait tout entière dans un baiser. Ensuite elle retombait à plat, brisée; car ces élans d'amour vague la fatiguaient plus que de grandes débauches. (590)

Although she still seems dependent upon another to "take her away," she has nevertheless overcome that weakness and passivity to some extent by writing about it.

But while Renée's letters, her "literature," as she describes it herself, lead her to take a positive step, the decision to distance herself from Max and embrace the life of a vagabond, Emma's writing is ultimately as unsatisfying as her attempts at escape. In short, she is incapable of reconciling her desire for freedom with her reality. As Nathaniel Wing suggests, her vagabondage can occur only in a hallucinatory world:  

These letters are Emma's final effort of appropriation and, as throughout the novel, the inability of writing to seize upon the meaningful object of desire simply produces more desire . . . Emma experiences the most intense sensations of pleasure as she evokes this ideal lover. . . . The other, object of desire, is most powerfully "real" as a purely anonymous verbal construct. . . . ⁴ While Emma believes in the power of words to represent an attainable object, she loses touch here; the object becomes "real" only when it is entirely disposed from "reality." (72)

One might see Emma in one sense as a writer "manqué," a woman who has but a taste of the true vagabondage that writing can bring. Ironically, of all the letters that Emma supposedly writes, the reader sees only the opening phrase of the one announcing her death. ¹³

For two heroines who both long to wander--a desire typical of the Romantic imagination--success in writing, and therefore in achieving freedom, could not be more different. ¹⁴ This is perhaps best illustrated by the heroines' contrasting reactions to ink, the fluid which transmits the thoughts and ideas that are writing. For Renée the mere smell of freshly inked pages brings to mind train trips and blessed departures ("le charme du livre . . . le livre tout frais dont le parfum d'encre humide et de papier neuf évoque celui de la houille, des locomotives, des départs!" [1072]); her pen may have dried from disuse at one time, but the ink finally flows freely, symbolizing her own liberation, at the end of the novel. But for Emma, who has the taste of ink in her mouth after ingesting the arsenic (613), this fluid of creativity is not a pleasant perfume, but the horrible taste of death. ¹⁵ Flaubert himself, writing to Louise Colet during the period of Madame Bovary's creation, once characterized ink as an enticing yet dangerous fluid: "L'encre est mon élément naturel. Beau liquide, du reste, que ce liquide sombre! et dangereux! Comme on s'y noie! comme il attire!" (296). ¹⁶ Emmma never really knows the fascination that ink holds for her creator, although she seems able to conceive of it. Emma "drowns," to use Flaubert's own term, in the very fluid which is, ironically, Renée Néré's ticket to freedom, never realizing the "destinée nouvellel," to return to the quotes opening this study, that Renée ultimately finds, not with Max, but within herself.

University of Arkansas/ Fayetteville

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Wing, Nathaniel. The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986 .

Je puis alors fermer les yeux, et rêver que je pars, avec lui, pour un pays inconnu où je n'aurais pas de passé, pas de nom, où je renaîtrais avec un visage nouveau et un coeur ignorant. ( La Vagabonde 1185)

Des tentations la prenaient de s'enfuir avec Léon, quelque part, bien loin, pour essayer une destinée nouvelle. . . ( Madame Bovary424)

THESE HAUNTINGLY SIMILAR PASSAGES expressing the desire of two heroines to break free from confining "real" worlds and start new lives elsewhere are representative of a more fundamental resemblance between the novels in which they are found. Both Flaubert Madame Bovary and Colette La Vagabonde might be seen as illustrations of what Susan J. Rosowski has termed the "novel of awakening," a narrative whose protagonist gradually learns what her place is in the world and how to express herself within that world. ¹ Although the two heroines follow different trajectories in their search for self-knowledge, they share a desire for vagabondage and act out that desire, with varying degrees of success, through writing.

While the very title of Colette's novel immediately indicates the importance of vagabondage for Renée Néré, it also calls to mind, more subtly, a central aspect of Emma's behavior in Madame Bovary. The verb vagabonder and its derivatives are of the utmost importance in Flaubert's novel because they go straight to the heart of the heroine's problem. Early uses of the verb with respect to Emma express a yearning for freedom that can be seen as positive in one sense, but which, on the other hand, is already more fantasy than real possibility. The semantic shadow is cast early in the novel, when vagabonder is used to describe, ironically, as it turns out, an unruly young Charles Bovary (331). Then, shortly before Charles asks Emma to marry him, the verb reappears to depict Emma, "[son regard] noyé d'ennui, [s]a pensée vagabondant" (346); after the wedding, during her walks with Djali, "[s]a pensée, sans but d'abord, vagabondait au hasard, comme sa levrette, qui faisait des cercles dans la campagne. . ." (365), the dog's circular running clearly figuring Emma's thoughts. Even the description of the river in Yonville, which "dessinait sur l'herbe des sinuosités vagabondes" (425), reflects the sluggish, aimless wandering that the heroine herself feels, suggesting that what may at first seem to be a purely objective description of physical surroundings is in fact a projection of the heroine's own frustrated view of life.  

Once Emma was strayed beyond the conventional bonds of her marriage to search for greater fulfillment in affairs with Rodolphe, and then with Léon, the term takes on decidedly negative overtones, all the more so because it becomes linked with other recurring motifs which are clearly negative in the novel. The narrator uses the verb to describe, for example, the wandering thoughts of Léon as he impatiently awaits Emma in the cathedral in Rouen (544), and then, more notably, the movement of the carriage transporting the couple as they make love: "et alors, sans parti pris ni direction, au hasard, [le fiacre] vagabonda" (548). The expression of Emma's desire for vagabondage is thus transferred to the vehicle which permits her adultery. At the level of the language, the shift from subject to object with respect to the carriage's activity clearly shows the negative connotation that vagabondage begins to assume: while the carriage itself initially "acts on" a prolonged series of active verbs (such as descendre, traverser, repartir, etc.), it eventually becomes the object of the indefinite on ("On la vit à Saint-Pol, à Lescure. . ." [548]) and then of "les bourgeois" (549). The narrator compares the wandering coach, moreover, to a tomb, "une voiture . . . plus close qu'un tombeau" (549), thus linking vagabondage to the notion of death.

That the value of the image is now negative for Emma is confirmed by the fact that when vagabonder reappears, it is applied to the hideous blind beggar--a "pauvre diable vagabondant" (568)--who will come to be associated closely with Emma's death. ² Emma is affected profoundly by the beggar's voice, with its "quelque chose de lointain qui [la] bouleversait" (569). The fact that similar phrases describe both the beggar and Emma's agony (the protruding tongue and rolling eyes, for example) and that the beggar's manic song is the last thing she hears before dying suggests that, metaphorically, Emma and the beggar are equated through the use of vagabonder, that she effectively "becomes" the beggar in her death.

Finally, the word vagabond appears at the very end of the novel, in Homais's articles attacking the blind beggar: "Sommes-nous encore à ces temps monstrueux du moyen âge, o৹ il était permis aux vagabonds d'étaler par nos places publiques la lèpre et les scrofules qu'ils avaient rapportées de la croisade?" (640) Homais also reminds his reading public of the laws against vagabondage (640). Thus in the novel as a whole, the "lesson" seems to be that Emma's desire for vagabondage is not only frustrated at every turn, but is depicted in the final analysis, through her association with the beggar, as something degenerate, something that threatens the established values of society. A woman who dares dream of vagabondage is represented--from society's point of view--as a threat, to be duly repressed. ³

Unlike Renée Néré, as we shall see, Emma becomes increasingly immobile and dependent upon men to give direction to her vagabondage. She finds a kindred spirit in Léon, but together they manage to escape only in fantasy to a more stimulating world. She implores Rodolphe to take her away ("Emmènemoi" [502]); later, even more desperate, she goes so far as to fantasize about begging--yet another echo of the blind beggar--the hero of the opera to do the same (532). She ultimately finds herself trapped by her circumstances and even by her own character: "Tout, en elle-même et au dehors, l'abandonnait. Elle se sentait perdue, roulant au hasard dans les abîmes indéfinissables" (597). ⁴ Hindered by her gender and by the bourgeois values against which she revolts so stubbornly, her vagabondage is ultimately fruitless. A man, she is certain, is free to wander, as the following quote, describing Emma's hope for a son, shows: "Un homme, au moins, est libre; il peut parcourir les passions et les pays, traverser les obstacles, mordre aux bonheurs les plus lointains. Mais une femme est empêchée continuellement" (405-06). For a woman such as Emma, vagabondage is but a whirlwind of purposeless activity. What began as something potentially positive--Emma's wandering thoughts of freedom and mobility--undergoes a transformation as the novel unfolds, as if to suggest that vagabondage will inevitably have negative consequences.

It is perhaps not surprising that vagabondage might play a different role in Colette's novel, considering that it was published some fifty years after Madame Bovary, is written in a journal-like manner, and is a much more personal work, in contrast to Flaubert's more objective, third-person narration. ⁵ The heroine of La Vagabonde is an independent thirty-three year old divorcée who, like Colette, not only loves to write, but also becomes a music hall performer in order to earn a living. Renée's demanding career at once satisfies her and heightens her awareness of her solitude and her need for intimacy. La Vagabonde could be read as a performance of the dilemma that has always plagued working women, that is, how to reconcile career and family (or career and love), each of which brings its own sort of fulfillment. Just as Madame Bovary undoubtedly had a profound influence on all future narratives, La Vagabonde also looks forward, "anticipat[ing] the most modern novels about women," as Joan Hinde Stewart affirms, "by virtue of preoccupations with female sexuality and work" (36).

The definitive sense of the novel's title is worked out gradually in the three parts of the narrative. The narrator establishes early on the fundamental link between vagabondage and freedom, a link that is basically positive, as it will remain throughout the novel, and yet not without ambiguity. In Part I, for example, we find a woman who longs to be perfectly free, but at the same time derives much satisfaction from a solitary life at home; although she refers to herself as a vagabond from the very start, ⁶ hers is not yet an entirely productive vagabondage: "Vagabonde, soit, mais qui se résigne à tourner en rond, sur place. . ." (1119). The tension between Renée's desire to be a vagabond and her temptation to "set roots" becomes more obvious in Part II, where we find a Renée who is not only more passive, but even open to the idea of a permanent relationship with a persistent admirer of her music hall performances, Maxime Dufferein-Chautel, and seemingly content to be taken care of, if not "possessed," by a man. Part III marks Renée's coming to terms with her need for vagabondage and the full realization of the novel's title--she acknowledges that a vagabond is what she is and wants to be, rather than what she is resigned to being, even if it means a freedom that is solitary and therefore less reassuring.

Generally speaking, then, Renée's own sense of vagabondage becomes more clearcut and positive as the novel unfolds, in contrast to that of Emma Bovary. The degree of her success is directly related moreover, to her ability to "find herself" through writing, a medium which Emma also tests, as we shall see. The first clue that writing is an essential aspect of Renée's life is a lengthy, very lyrical passage at the beginning of the novel in which the verb écrire, followed by an exclamation point, is repeated numerous times. For Renée, writing is a "longue rêverie" (1074), a game that only a chosen few may play; Renée's colorful vocabulary, evocative images, and sinuous, rhythmic sentences are proof that she is a well-qualified practitioner of the art. She describes, for example, the jeux de la plume qui tourne en rond autour d'une tache d'encre, qui mordille le mot imparfait, le griffe, le hérisse de fléchettes, l'orne d'antennes, de pattes, jusqu'à ce qu'il perde sa figure lisible de mot, mué en insecte fantastique, envolé en papillon-fée. (1074) ⁷

The series of active verbs and the images of transformation in the passage clearly represent Renée's own desires to act and to change, desires that will become increasingly urgent in the third part of the novel. Writing, which requires both control and spontaneity, brings both pleasure and pain. It is a physical need, "vif comme la soif en été," a challenge, to "saisir et fixer, sous la pointe double et ployante, le chatoyant, le fugace, le passionnant adjectif" (1074). Finally, writing represents an escape from reality, but the creation is fragile, easily shattered by the intrusion of the real world, "quand le fournisseur sonne, quand le bottier présente sa facture, quand l'avoué téléphone" (1074).

As Renée's narration unfolds, we gradually learn that her writing, the need to "faire de la littérature" (1084) and the first step in her vagabondage, has arisen from suffering caused by a divorce. She wrote her first book, a "provincial" novel, "pour le seul plaisir de me réfugier dans un passé tout proche" (1084). Although she characterizes it as "plat et clair . . . un peu serin, très gentil" (1084), it was enormously popular. Curiously, even though Renée's second book was much less successful commercially, she basked in the satisfaction of conquering words, experiencing "la volupté d'écrire, la lutte patiente contre la phrase qui s'assouplit, s'assoit en rond comme une bête apprivoisée, l'attente immobile, l'affût qui finit par charmer le mot. . ." (1084).

Renée's description of her literary efforts thus reveals a gradual transition from dependence to independence after her troubled marriage, a transition that has been effected by writing, and which serves as a foreshadowing of how writing will later enable her to embrace her vagabondage and choose not to rely on a man for self-affirmation. This independence is especially evident when Renée explains that although her third book was by far the least successful in terms of public recognition--"il tomba à plat et ne se releva pas"--it was her own favorite--"mon 'chef-d'oeuvre inconnu,' à moi" (1084). "Incompréhensible?" she challenges a hypothetical reader, pour vous, peut-être. Mais, pour moi, sa chaude obscurité s'éclaire; pour moi, tel mot suffit à recréer l'odeur, la couleur des heures vécues, il est sonore et plein et mystérieux comme une coquille où chante la mer, et je l'aimerais moins, je crois, si vous l'aimiez aussi . . . Rassurez-vous! je n'en écrirai pas un autre comme celui-là, je ne pourrais plus. (1084)

Nothing matters but what Renée herself thinks; she would even shun the book herself if she believed that her public thought highly of it. Writing, for her an entirely self-directed act, can also be a sensual experience, "d'où l'on sort courbatu, abêti, mais déjà récompensé" (1074). As we shall see, Renée will weigh this process of submissiveness/satisfaction against the similar terms that Max has to offer.

Although writing is certainly one of the narrator's focuses in Part I of the novel, it is almost always described in a past context, for Renée has had to abandon it in order to earn a living. ⁸ It is telling that in the second part of La Vagabonde this absence of writing becomes even more definitive, as Renée gradually begins to give in to Max, both physically and psychologically, in spite of the threat to her vagabondage that he represents. Part II opens with a view of Renée's apartment filtered through Max's eyes, significantly interrupted by the narrator's observations of what he fails to notice, the dusty inkpot and dry pen, the very tools that make writing possible. The focus on Max's incomplete perception suggests just how difficult it will be to reconcile the two passions, writing and love; Max not only keeps Renée from her writerly pursuits, but also fails to recognize what she considers her most important talent. The Renée in Part I has been replaced by a passive woman who seems utterly mystified by the constant presence of this man so different from herself. We must assume, due to the absence of writing, that Max has become one of those real-world intrusions that shatter her creative moments. Given Renée's independence, this abandonment to a man who is often described in such negative terms is surprising to the reader, and in fact, recalls that of Emma, who frequently "abandons herself" (the verb s'abandonner is an important motif in Madame Bovary) and seeks an almost ominous self-effacement in her lovers.

Unlike Emma, however, Renée subjects the moments of abandonment to periods of self-questioning (even self-revulsion), so that when she leaves on tour, she appears utterly torn, as eager to return to Max as to recapture the magic of her vagabondage, at once "débordante de regret et d'espoir, pressée de revenir" and "tendue vers [s]on sort nouveau avec l'élan brillant du serpent qui se délivre de sa peau morte" (1194). This striking image of metamorphosis not only calls to mind Emma's urgent (if unfulfilled) desire to "essayer une destinée nouvelle" (424), but also indicates that Renée's decision may have been effectively made even before she leaves. Renée may have mixed feelings about her lifestyle, which requires frequent travel, but her general desire to be flexible and free is clearly more centered, more purposeful than that of Emma Bovary. ⁹

In addition to this physical separation from Max, Renée needs writing at this point in her life in order to realize her new identity as a vagabond. The tension between the two selves (and her two choices) is manifested in the unique form of the third part of the novel, which consists largely of letters that Renée has written to Max during her trip, interspersed with blocks of firstperson narration. Nancy K. Miller calls this part "an epistolary novel revised" (248) and reads it as a mise en abyme of the novel as a whole (251). What are left out of this part of La Vagabonde, however, are Max's letters to her; as Stewart has noted, Part III "is essentially a monologue. Max's very words are subordinated to Renée's, filtered through her consciousness. Its form is linear, there being no real exchange" (40). The fact that Renée controls this "exchange" clearly indicates not only her desire to be inaccessible, but also her need to write for herself, not for Max.

As Renée becomes increasingly involved in her own writing, she finds herself playing the role of reader and critic as well. Evaluating what and how Max writes is an important step in Renée's self-realization; it comes to reveal her more general dissatisfaction with him and the relationship. In her third letter, for example, Renée complains about the length of Max's letters: "Cela se lit en vingt secondes! et je suis sûre que, de bonne foi, vous croyez m'avoir écrit une longue lettre!" (1198). In the text between the third and fourth letters, she elaborates upon Max's attempts at correspondence, commenting that his daily letter both consoles and disappoints her. Even the physical form of his handwriting displeases her: "Sa belle écriture fleurie retarde l'élan de sa main" (1200); it is too elegant, and therefore unnatural. Renée perceives Max's concern for appearances as a hindrance to his creativity, an attitude which contrasts sharply with Renée's own lack of concern for public approval of the content of her writing. Renée finds a certain frigidity in Max's writing: "Sa chaude sollicitude m'arrive . . . toute refroidie sur ce papier, traduite en une écriture bienéquilibrée. . ." (1201). She implores him to be more spontaneous, not to write "lettres 'soignées'" (1206): "Ecrivez n'importe quoi . . . j'ai besoin que ton désordre réponde à celui de ce printemps qui a crevé la terre et se consume de sa propre hâte" (1206). It is Renée's last-ditch attempt to persuade Max to write as she does, "lancer à travers des pages blanches l'écriture rapide, inégale. . ." (1214), to let the muse inspire him and free him from all constraints, to become, himself, a vagabond. In contrast to Max, Renée herself writes easily, and sometimes even gets carried away, showing herself to be a true vagabond: "Mon Dieu, comme je vous écris! Je passerais tout mon temps à vous écrire, j'y ai moins d'effort, je crois, qu'à vous parler" (1202).

It is significant that Renée is able to communicate freely only when apart from Max. As Part III of the novel unfolds, we find that the "vous" in this quote, or more generally the presence of a precise destinataire, becomes less and less important, as Renée becomes more interested in the creative aspect of writing than in the communicative one. For her, creativity involves "playing" with the truth, whether it be simply hiding her true feelings or purposely misleading Max, but in any case, using writing to exclude him. "Que faire?" she writes, "Pour aujour-d'hui, écrire, brièvement, car l'heure presse, et mentir . . ." (1212). From Marseille she writes a purposely ambiguous message, as if to test his ability as a reader: "AVdieu, mon ami chéri. Vous êtes le meilleur des hommes, et vous méritez la meilleure des femmes. Ne regretterez-vous pas d'avoir choisi seulementRenée Néré?" (1212-13). His response shows how unreceptive he was to her message: "un long remerciement sans rature . . . pouvait [lui] donner l'illusion d'avoir écrit: 'Tel jour, telle heure, je suis à vous, nous partons ensemble'" (1213). Renée has slipped into the creative mode so deeply that she is now writing literature, fiction rather than fact, leaving the real-life lines of communication inexorably tangled. It is revealing, too, that Renée refers to her letters as a "manuscrit" (1216), a manuscript in such disorder that Max cannot recognize her (1216): "Dire la vérité, oui, mais toute la vérité, on ne peut pas, on ne doit pas" (1216).

It is as if Renée is in the process of writing her fourth novel here, an unusual novel whose hero, Max, is being destroyed/deconstructed by the very act of writing itself, and whose heroine, Renée, is simultaneously reconstructing herself as a vagabond; as Michel Baude affirms, "la rupture devient possible, non pas parce que Max est resté à Paris, mais parce que Renée écrit de nouveau-elle rédige des lettres" (115-16). Renée begins to forget Max precisely because the only thing that matters to her is to "chercher les mots . . . pour dire combien le soleil est jaune, et bleue la mer, et brillant le sel en frange de jais blanc. . ." (1220). If La Vagabonde is, as Miller has proposed, "the fiction of a return to writing" (234), then the "return" is accomplished precisely because Renée rediscovers the uplifting experience of using language to seize the wonders of the world around her. Vagabondage is an essential part of this quest for words; it means the spatial and temporal freedom to write. Max, who infringes upon both time and space, ¹⁰ has been effectively erased by Renée's overwhelming desire to be a writer and a vagabond (which are, for her, one and the same). This is nowhere better illustrated than when Renée writes "Et Max? . . . Depuis hier je rôde autour de ce point d'interrogation. Et Max? Et Max? Ce n'est plus une pensée, c'est un refrain, un bruit, un petit croassement rythmé . . ." (1223). Max has been reduced to an orthographic symbol, not a thought, but an intrusive noise.

Renée's ability to transform Max into the code used for writing is clearly a measure of her own recognition and ultimate acceptance of herself as a vagabond. Yet while her choice of vagabondage appears definitive, there is a subtle moment of wavering toward the end of the novel: after explaining in her final letter that she refuses to be possessed by anyone, Renée unexpectedly rereads what she wrote, an act that seems uncharacteristic of a self-proclaimed vagabond, because it implies reflexivity and self-questioning. In addition, she pauses to perfect her handwriting--"j'ai arrondi des boucles, ajouté des points, des accents, j'ai daté . . ." (1231)--which was of course one of the aspects of Max's writing which she criticized. Her unconscious imitation of Max's habits suggests how deeply she has been touched by him and how much she is sacrificing by choosing art and the life of a vagabond. Like the Princesse de Clèves, who acknowledges her passion for Nemours but refuses to be blinded by it, Renée declares, using strikingly similar terms, "les plus beaux pays de la terre, je refuse de les contempler, tout petits, au miroir amoureux de ton regard . . . Vagabonde, et libre, je souhaiterai parfois l'ombre de tes murs . . . Ah! tu seras longtemps une des soifs de ma route!" (1232; emphasis mine). ¹¹ Clearly, even though Renée is fully aware of the ease with which she could resume the more comfortable, fixed situation which we see in Part II of the novel, she ultimately chooses, in a decisive act of self-definition and liberation, to name herself a vagabond, as the quote above, appearing on the final page of the narrative, shows.

The extent to which Renée Néré achieves fulfillment and freedom through writing can be appreciated all the more if we come back to Madame Bovary and contrast Renée's situation with what Flaubert's heroine is able to do, since Emma, too, displays a desire to write in order to attain freedom. This becomes evident shortly after Emma marries Charles, in a scene which highlights the heroine's typical pattern of behavior:

Elle s'était acheté un buvard, une papeterie, un porte-plume et des enveloppes, quoiqu'elle n'eût personne à qui écrire; elle époussetait son étagère, se regardait dans la glace, prenait un livre, puis, rêvant entre les lignes, le laissait tomber sur ses genoux. Elle avait envie de faire desvoyages ou de rotourner vivre à son couvent. Elle souhaitait à la fois mourir et habiter Paris. (380)

Emma characteristically wants the things that she associates with an activity, and assumes that those things will automatically lead to satisfaction. Although she possesses all the necessary writing materials, she has no one to whom she can address her thoughts and desires; in contrast to Renée, she is incapable of imagining the benefits of writing for herself. This passage is significant, moreover, because it shows precisely how Emma's lack of focus keeps her not only from writing, but from reading; the concrete items at the beginning of the quote lead only to flights of fancy, marked by the verbs avoir envie and souhaiter. This pattern is repeated all through the novel, as Emma seems able to envision her vagabondage, but cannot motivate herself to carry out the act of fleeing. ¹²

When Emma does enter into correspondence with someone, her difficulties with writing are compounded by the fact that she, like Renée, derives little satisfaction from the letters of her correspondents. She complains, for example, that Rodolphe's letters are too short (474), and implores Léon to write verse, "une pièce d'amour en son honneur" (578), which he is as incapable of doing as is Max of purging his style of flowery touches; Léon "finit par copier un sonnet dans un keepsake" (578), in effect plagiarizing to compensate for his own lack of imagination. But where Renée deals with Max's deficiencies by becoming more active herself in writing, Emma experiences little development. Rarely does she show signs of actually creating with her writing; ironically, she, like Léon, seems content to imitate models.

Yet the need to express herself through writing sharpens toward the end of the novel, when Emma, tiring of her weekly trysts in Rouen, begins to realize that Léon is hardly more intriguing than Charles. Though she wants to break with him, "elle n'en continuait pas moins à lui écrire des lettres amoureuses, en vertu de cette idée, qu'une femme doit toujours écrire à son amant" (590). As Schor aptly explains, "If initially Emma writes to receive letters, to take pleasure in the communication forbidden, impossible on the speech plane, writing subsequently becomes the adjuvant of a 'waning passion' in the manner of an aphrodisiac" (17-18). Here Emma's attitude toward writing resembles Renée's in Part III, when the latter persists in expressing her passion to Max even after she recognizes how little she needs him. For both, writing itself becomes more important than the relationship. Emma ultimately creates a Léon who is able to fulfill her dreams, for a fleeting moment losing herself (yet finding herself) in the writing, much as Renée does:

Mais, en écrivant, elle percevait un autre homme, un fantôme fait de ses plus ardents souvenirs, de ses lectures les plus belles, de ses convoitises les plus fortes; et il devenait à la fin si véritable, et accessible, qu'elle enpalpitait émerveillée. sans pouvoir néanmoins le nettement imaginer, tant il se perdait, comme un dieu, sous l'abondance de ses attributs. Il habitait la contrée bleuâtre où les échelles de soie se balancent à des balcons, sous le souffle des fleurs, dans la clarté De la lune. Elle le sentait près d' elle, il allait venir et l'enlèverait tout entière dans un baiser. Ensuite elle retombait à plat, brisée; car ces élans d'amour vague la fatiguaient plus que de grandes débauches. (590)

Although she still seems dependent upon another to "take her away," she has nevertheless overcome that weakness and passivity to some extent by writing about it.

But while Renée's letters, her "literature," as she describes it herself, lead her to take a positive step, the decision to distance herself from Max and embrace the life of a vagabond, Emma's writing is ultimately as unsatisfying as her attempts at escape. In short, she is incapable of reconciling her desire for freedom with her reality. As Nathaniel Wing suggests, her vagabondage can occur only in a hallucinatory world:

These letters are Emma's final effort of appropriation and, as throughout the novel, the inability of writing to seize upon the meaningful object of desire simply produces more desire . . . Emma experiences the most intense sensations of pleasure as she evokes this ideal lover. . . . The other, object of desire, is most powerfully "real" as a purely anonymous verbal construct. . . . ⁴ While Emma believes in the power of words to represent an attainable object, she loses touch here; the object becomes "real" only when it is entirely disposed from "reality." (72)

One might see Emma in one sense as a writer "manqué," a woman who has but a taste of the true vagabondage that writing can bring. Ironically, of all the letters that Emma supposedly writes, the reader sees only the opening phrase of the one announcing her death. ¹³

For two heroines who both long to wander--a desire typical of the Romantic imagination--success in writing, and therefore in achieving freedom, could not be more different. ¹⁴ This is perhaps best illustrated by the heroines' contrasting reactions to ink, the fluid which transmits the thoughts and ideas that are writing. For Renée the mere smell of freshly inked pages brings to mind train trips and blessed departures ("le charme du livre . . . le livre tout frais dont le parfum d'encre humide et de papier neuf évoque celui de la houille, des locomotives, des départs!" [1072]); her pen may have dried from disuse at one time, but the ink finally flows freely, symbolizing her own liberation, at the end of the novel. But for Emma, who has the taste of ink in her mouth after ingesting the arsenic (613), this fluid of creativity is not a pleasant perfume, but the horrible taste of death. ¹⁵ Flaubert himself, writing to Louise Colet during the period of Madame Bovary's creation, once characterized ink as an enticing yet dangerous fluid: "L'encre est mon élément naturel. Beau liquide, du reste, que ce liquide sombre! et dangereux! Comme on s'y noie! comme il attire!" (296). ¹⁶ Emmma never really knows the fascination that ink holds for her creator, although she seems able to conceive of it. Emma "drowns," to use Flaubert's own term, in the very fluid which is, ironically, Renée Néré's ticket to freedom, never realizing the "destinée nouvellel," to return to the quotes opening this study, that Renée ultimately finds, not with Max, but within herself.