routine of existence by itself is not satisfying. Emma knew she could never be one with her husband; and the thought worried her so much that she hazarded everything, even her own life, to resolve the enigma. What Emma sought without knowing it was an immortal love.
One interesting thing about Flaubert's novel is that there is nowhere any statement whether the author considered Emma to have been in love with her paramours or not. Flaubert never passes judgment on her for good or ill. That is exactly the attitude that one would expect. This is the whole point about being in love. You can never prove to yourself that you are really in love: that it is not just illusion. It is only in action that you can prove to the other that your love is real, or alternatively that it is fickle, and hardly more than a passing feeling. It does however undoubtedly annoy some people that love, or being in love, refuses to be classified as either generally real, or generally illusion. Some psychologists label religion illusion, little realising I suspect that they are condemning the whole inner world as a lifeless illusion, the counter-part of lifeless chemical reactions in the brain; including falling in love. Many people would say that such a condemnation rebounded. I, at least, intend to take Emma's love affairs seriously.
They pose two problems. Firstly, was she really in love, or did she just imagine it? I think the answer is, probably a bit of both. Secondly, was there a bond, a unity between herself and her husband, even though she was completely unaware of it, and would indignantly have repudiated the idea? This is much more difficult to answer.
Now reducing the problem to its stark simplicity, husband and wife are either one in flesh, or one in spirit. But as many people have pointed out a man's and a woman's flesh never do become one physically. They come together for a brief moment, and then separate. There may be a fleeting…