Emma Bovary's death was both tragic and comic. As with most her life, she imagined everything she did to be romantic, from marrying an unknown gentleman moving into the city and, of course, death by poison. She must have thought her heartbeat and breathing would slow, till she can no longer stand herself, when she would then faint on a soft chaise and let out one final sigh. Except, it was excruciatingly painful and wretched and ugly. I suppose there's romance in that too, as she bore the pain she thought no other human has ever experienced, so that, even in her frantic state, she managed to belt out some verse, true to the scripted life she has led, that was ultimately empty though superficially pretty.

Yet how was she supposed to know any better? She lived a sheltered life peppered by romance novels and gossip from the local ladies. How are any of us supposed to know life's possibilities beyond the exemplars we come across either through fiction or real life? Even then the elements of story, predetermined by the very human way we see the world, taints and limits the expanse of hope without pretense and love without irony.