Facing a boring spinsterhood on her widowed father's farm, Emma agrees to marry the local doctor. Charles Bovary is kindly and conscientious, but limited in his medical skills and hopelessly dull. She has a baby, in which she is not particularly interested, and through the pharmacist Homais her husband acquires a post in a larger town. There she meets the law clerk Léon, with whom she can talk about art and literature and music, but he leaves to study in Paris. The parish priest is not much help over her unhappiness. But the womanising landowner Rodolphe decides he would like a little affair with her and, under the pretence of offering riding lessons, finds her more than willing.