Meaning of italics in translation of Madame Bovary?

I'm reading "Madame Bovary" in the new translation by Lydia Davis and am wondering about the meaning behind the italicizing of many words and phrases. They don't seem to relate to the end notes, and I can't see any meaning to them in the context of the story so it seems unlikely that they come from Flaubert's original. The book makes no mention of them that I can find; it may be in the introduction, but the author warns you it contains spoilers and not to read it if you've never read the book before. It's certainly not the only translated work I've read, but it is by far the newest, so if it's a convention used in translated works, it may just not have been around back when the others I've read were published. Thanks for any light anyone can shed on this.