His physical appearance consumes the entirety of his corrupt mentality. The interactions of the beggar and Emma raise awareness of her role as a reflection of how the reader perceives her emotional breakdown. Her visionary romantic life has slipped away from her as she faces reality. This conception, so clearly displayed as Flaubert writes: “The blind man crouched down, leaned his head back, rolled his greenish eyes, stuck out his tongue, rubbed his stomach with both hands and uttered a sort of dull howl, like a hungry dog,” indirectly compares Emma to a demented dog (260). Her damaged perception of reality left her with the outer shell of a well-put-together Victorian woman, with an internal state equivalent to the appearance of a beggar. The description of the beggar represents Emma as she internalizes the irony of becoming one with the beggar. Flaubert highlights this moment of realization by writing: “…imagining that she could see the hideous features of the miserable beggar silhouetted in the shadows of eternity like the face of terror itself” (282). Berthe and the blind beggar unite Emma's internal conflict of rejecting her reality and discovering the extent of her self-destructive power.