Madame Bovary's Daughter (10 page)

Monsieur Millet used him for many more sketches. The artist liked to talk as he drew. And he conversed with Renard on all kinds of farm topics.

“So, how do you think the harvest will be, come fall?” At first Renard didn't answer but Millet persisted in his efforts to engage the young man. “I see you keep your scythe in good condition. How often do you sharpen it?”

“My father has a fine stone that his father left to him. It takes
only a minute to put an edge on my blade,” Renard said, stroking the flat side of the scythe with his thumb.

“You're quite a strong young man. I can see that by the thickness of your arms. I wager you can lift a horse.” Millet flexed his arms.

“Maybe a small cow,” said Renard, laughing. Berthe found herself laughing too.

One beautiful fall morning when the sky was a brilliant blue and a cool breeze blew over the fields, Monsieur Millet asked Berthe to do her afternoon milking on a hilltop which overlooked the ocean many miles away. It was a good half hour's walk from her grand-mère's farm.

“Today I work in pastels,” he said, unrolling a piece of pale blue paper that he affixed to his drawing board.

“Pastels?” she asked, looking up from Céleste.

“Colored chalks,” he explained. “I found an old box. It's been so long since I've worked in color, I am afraid I will have lost the knack.” He gazed up at the sky as if measuring its blueness. “But if there was ever a day that called for color, this is it.”

The sketch that day took much longer than usual. Monsieur Millet asked her to stay seated on her stool long after she finished her milking. Céleste was perfectly content munching away at the thick grass.

“Done,” he said finally, sighing. Berthe rose and moved to peer over his shoulder.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, clapping her hands, “it's beautiful.”

The drawing captured the brilliant green of the grass, the turquoise of the water, and the blazing blue of the sky. Céleste was the glorious centerpiece. Her end-of-the-summer sleekness shone in the brilliant sunshine. But Berthe was disappointed in
how she herself looked in the picture, in her plain black skirt, blue homespun kerchief, and dowdy white cap.

“Why couldn't you at least put me in a pretty dress?” she asked. “I look so hideous.” She thought about Renard's remark. She knew she wasn't ugly, but as her mother had always told her, “Clothes can make all the difference.” She glanced down at herself. “I hate these things,” she said, yanking the itching kerchief off her neck and pulling at it with both hands as if to tear it into shreds. She was feeling strangely weepy, almost as if the beautiful day was working against her.

Millet drew the kerchief from her clenched fingers.

“Look at this carefully,” he said, “and tell me exactly what you see.”

“I see horrible, scratchy cloth,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning down.

“And what do they call this cloth?”

“Homespun.”

“Yes,” he said. “Homespun. Spun at home. It's a beautiful word for a beautiful material. It is made from the wool of lambs, carded and then spun and made into thread and finally woven into fabric.”

“I don't care how it's made, it's still ugly.” She stood with her hands on her hips.

“Dear Mademoiselle Berthe, don't you see?” he said, lightly touching her cheek with one finger. “This is fabric that comes from the land, from the hard work of human hands. That is what makes it so beautiful. Hold it up to the sun and pull it taut.”

She grudgingly did as he told her. The sun shone through the material and she could see a crosshatch of lines that were not unlike those in Monsieur Millet's drawings.

“This is the beauty of texture. The fine lines that make up the fabric of everything around us,” he said. As she continued to
gaze through the material she saw a flock of geese fly past the golden sun. Slowly, she replaced the kerchief around her neck.

“Look around you. Look at the soil we stand on.” He bent down, scooped up a handful of earth, and poured it into her hands. It was filled with pebbles, dry clumps of dirt, and bits of straw. “From this comes that,” he said, pointing to an apple tree heavy with yellow fruit. “From that shaggy sheep over there comes the thread of the wool to make a kerchief to keep the sun from baking your beautiful skin.” He lifted her hands, wiping the dirt from them. “These dear callused hands bring forth the sweet milk of Céleste. And from the crude heavy lines of my rough sketches will hopefully come a beautiful painting one day.”

Millet had, just by the magic of his words, managed to transform Berthe's mood and lift her heart. She did love the countryside. It had been a great comfort to her since moving in with her grand-mère. The first thing she did every morning when she got up was to look out her small window at the lovely fields. She was always filled with gratitude for the beauty that surrounded her. It was the closest she came to saying her morning prayers.

“This is the most important thing I can teach you: the coarser the texture, the sturdier the weave; the rougher the life, the greater the reward. I believe this with all my heart, Mademoiselle Berthe. Your days may be difficult now but the gift of hard work will serve you well. Cherish the calluses and the blisters, see the dignity in the sweat of your labors, and always, always honor the homespun.”

Berthe vowed then and there never to forget what Monsieur Millet said. She could only imagine what a joy it would be to put all her energy and effort into something she actually loved doing. Something creative and beautiful like Millet's art. That, she thought, would be a dream.

“Monsieur Millet, how did you know?” she asked, as she moved Céleste to a new patch of grass. The cow was growing fat and happy from all the posing she was doing.

“How did I know what?” He tilted his head back to study his sketch and then made a few quick corrective smudges with his little finger.

“How did you know you could make a living by your art?” She picked up a piece of Conté crayon from the box and began to roll it between her fingers.

“Oh, I didn't know. In the beginning I survived by doing portraits for very little money. But that allowed me to continue my studies. And then I began to do the drawings that got me not only great attention but much grander prices.”

“What kind of drawings?”

“I'll bring some tomorrow and show you. But what about you, Mademoiselle Bovary? You must have a special talent. I mean beyond taking such good care of Céleste.”

“I like to sew,” she said simply. “But I don't believe it's a talent. Everyone can sew. It's just a skill one learns.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“The difference between a skill and a talent is in the eyes of the beholder.” Groaning, he got up from his stool and handed her a piece of the heavy paper. “Here, you sit and draw for a change. I'm getting too old for this, I fear.”

“Draw what?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Whatever comes into your pretty head. Just not the cow. I've had enough cows for one day.”

She closed her eyes and saw a field of flowers and over it the cross-hatching of the homespun. She quickly sketched what she had seen in her mind's eye and handed it to Monsieur Millet.

“Ha! I knew it. You do have an eye. And that, my dear Berthe, is a talent.”

The next day Monsieur Millet brought a small black portfolio with him.

“These are some of the drawings I spoke of.” He untied the black ribbons that held the case closed. Inside was a stack of rough sketches. They were drawings of women in various poses without a stitch of clothing. Berthe quickly closed the portfolio, her face flushed with heat.

“Don't be embarrassed, mademoiselle, they're just sketches.” He chuckled.

“But the women are naked!” she said.

“That's how the artist studies the human body,” he explained.

“But this is not how people walk around,” she said. “Decent people wear clothes.”

“It has nothing to do with decency.” He laughed. “When I draw peasants working in the field I have to know how their legs support their bodies, how their arms work, how their backs lean into the labor. The human form is the foundation of everything I paint. I must be intimately acquainted with its workings. You see a naked figure. I merely see shapes and shadows.”

She nodded her head. As he explained them, the nude sketches made sense. Still, it had been a shock to see so many different naked bodies. She thought of her mother. How she used to study herself in the full-length mirror, turning this way and that as if to reassure herself that she was still beautiful. It seemed to Berthe that her mother's loveliness had brought her nothing but heartache.

“I want to sketch you this way, Berthe.”

“Without any clothes? Oh, no, monsieur, I couldn't.” She ducked her head down so that he wouldn't see her beet-red face.

“I understand your shyness. I won't force you to do anything you don't want to. But this is art, Berthe. And I will be happy to pay you,” he said.

She lifted her chin. “Pay me, not my grand-mère?”

“You.”

“In sketches or in money?” she asked, her serious expression relieved by a small smile.

He had already given her two rough sketches: one of her milking Céleste and another of her sitting at the spinning wheel pretending to spin. But whereas Berthe loved his sketches, she desperately wanted, needed, prayed for the money. Because she knew money, if not spent, could beget money. Money could grow. Money could become a way out of this life and through the front door of a fabulous new life. She had seen how money worked. She had watched as Monsieur Lheureux had taken her mother's money and put it in his pocket. And his store on the rue Forchette had grown and prospered. She remembered walking by his once-humble shop with Félicité the maid. He had taken over the house next door and doubled the size of his business and his adjoining living quarters.

“Hmm, I see Monsieur Lheureux is putting your family's money to good use,” Félicité had remarked.

Monsieur Millet ran his fingers through his thick beard and stared down at her through narrowed eyes.

“My, my, I have a bargainer to boot. Yes, mademoiselle, I will pay you in real money.”

“How much?” she asked too quickly.

He thought a moment and then said, “Twenty francs. That is what I pay in Paris for professional models.”

“I don't know …” She chewed on the end of her braid.

Berthe had grown to trust the artist. He spoke to her in a
kind and patient way that her own father never had. He made her feel as if she mattered in the world. But it was her body that gave her pause. Recently she felt as if her body wasn't her own anymore. Was she prepared to now hand it over to the world of art? She remembered the miniature painting her mother had shown her so many years before. The woman in
Une Odalisque
had no clothes but she hadn't seemed naked at all.

“You will think about it?” Millet asked. She nodded.

She felt a trill of anticipation mingled with fear. This is what models did, she reasoned. They took off their clothes and let famous artists capture their images for all time. Remembering Renard's words, she knew that Millet would not ask someone ignorant and ugly to model naked.

In fact, he made it sound like an honor. It was an honor, wasn't it?

The next afternoon Berthe drove the geese down to the river. Monsieur Millet found her there. It was a sweltering hot September day and the water looked cool and inviting. She sat on the riverbank and watched as the geese swam about.

Millet sat a way off, sketching quietly.

“Do you have a family?” she asked.

“Indeed I do. I am the proud papa of nine children.”

“And where are they?” She threw a stone into the river. It barely missed one of the geese, who honked indignantly. She was stalling for time. What had seemed like a perfectly fine idea a day before now seemed more than a little threatening. She didn't want Millet to think she was a silly, naïve girl. She desperately wanted to keep modeling for him even if it meant having to do something that wasn't entirely comfortable.

“They are all at home with my wife,” he said. “I have a home not far away, in Barbizon.”

“You are able to feed such a large family with your painting?”

“Almost,” he said, chuckling. “My wife is very good at making the soup stretch.”

“Is she beautiful, your wife?” Her cheeks burned. She felt jealous of a wife and family she had never even met.

“My Catherine is the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said, getting off his stool. He rummaged around in his bag. “Here, I have a drawing of her.” He took out a small sketchbook and showed her.

She saw a woman with a sweet, soft face; she looked too young to be the mother of nine children. Her thick dark hair was parted in the middle and held in a loose chignon. She had long lashes, thick eyebrows, and a small upturned nose. Her mouth was soft and small with an upper lip that protruded slightly over the lower.