Madame Bovary's Daughter (15 page)

She awoke a few hours later. The sun had set and it was growing dark. She was hungry, cold, and sore. She knew she couldn't go back to her grand-mère's. She was terrified of the woman's fury. She vaguely remembered where Renard's house was and made her way slowly over the bumpy, harvested fields in that general direction.

She was practically penniless, pitiless, and now homeless. All she had in the world was the hundred francs Millet had given her
to model. It was hardly enough to live on. The image of Monsieur Millet's painting,
The Gleaners
, came to her. She realized her life was not unlike the wretched women he had portrayed. She shared their misery and poverty because, like them, she had not even the scanty remnants of a life to pick up.

She stumbled along until she came upon a low farmhouse. Could this ramshackle house be where her beautiful Renard lived? She knocked on the rough-hewn door. A tired-looking woman answered. She appeared almost as old as Berthe's grand-mère. She was stooped over by the weight of her breasts, which hung down practically to her waist. In the dimly lit room Berthe could see several children playing with stones in front of the fire.

“Excuse me for intruding, madame, but does Renard live here?”

“Who are you?” the woman demanded.

“My name is Berthe Bovary. I am the granddaughter of Madame Bovary.”

“She owes us money,” the woman said curtly. “She is always so slow in paying. Just when I think it will never come, she manages to cough up the few francs to pay my poor boy.”

“Is he here?” Berthe said, wrapping her arms around herself.

“Renard is in the barn. Tell him supper is almost on the table. If he doesn't come in soon, there will be nothing left.” Renard's mother slammed the door.

The barn was a crumbling affair that looked as if it would fall down with the next strong wind. The roof sagged in the middle and there were holes in the siding. The light of a small oil lamp gave the interior a warm glow.

She heard them before she saw them. There was the sound of rustling hay. Renard was on the barn floor bent over a neighbor girl. Her plump white legs were wrapped around him, her skirt hiked up above her waist. They were moving up and down making
animal-like noises. The girl looked over Renard's shoulder and gave Berthe a broad grin.

“Renard, I think your sweetheart is here.” He lifted his head from her bare bosom, turned, and smiled at Berthe.

“Ah, Berthe, come here. Join us.” Berthe stood with her mouth agape. At first she felt like laughing. Was this a game they were playing? Then she felt the heat of a blush rise up her face. That was when she realized what it was she was seeing. She was aware of the fact that she had been holding her breath. She let out a sudden “Oh!” and stamped her foot hard on the dirt floor. She felt tears starting down her cheeks and she furiously wiped them away. They were not going to see her cry. Filled with an emotion she had never before experienced, she suddenly wanted to strike out, to beat Renard with a stick. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. And finally she did:

“You horrid pigs!” She turned and ran out of the barn.

How could he turn out to be so opposite of who she had thought he was? She had thrilled at being touched and touching him. It was something that was just between the two of them, she had thought. How dirty she felt now. How could someone who had made her feel so happy and alive and so appreciated make her feel like the lowest thing on earth? Love wasn't supposed to be this way. She ran quickly along the old cow path, not bothering to look where she was going. Suddenly, she tripped and fell face forward onto the stone-covered path, coming down hard on her hands and knees. She sat there waiting for the pain to go away. Her hands and knees were bleeding.

She remembered her mother reading aloud from one of her favorite books,
Pride and Prejudice
. How even when things weren't going well between Darcy and Elizabeth, they treated each other with respect and well-chosen words. And in the
book's end, after so many painful pages of misunderstandings, their elegant love had won out. That was what Berthe had grown up expecting from life, just as her mother had. How terribly, terribly wrong they both had been.

Berthe stood and limped slowly toward her grand-mère's house. She stopped and drew in a deep breath. She realized she would have to apologize to her grand-mère for what the old woman had witnessed between her and Renard. At this moment she began to see her grand-mère's side. The old woman had been shocked. She had a right to be angry, Berthe reasoned. From now on she would learn to live by her grand-mère's rules. After all, she was providing a safe home for her granddaughter. Berthe would show her that she was grateful to have a roof over her head. Her mother and all her rich fantasies had not been able to provide that. The least Berthe could do was respect her grand-mère and honor her way of life.

The oil lamp was still burning in the kitchen.
Grand-mère must be waiting up for me to give me my beating
. She took a deep breath and made herself ready to receive what she knew would be a terrible punishment. She almost welcomed it. It might help to deflect her thoughts from the awful pain inflicted by Renard.

“Grand-mère, I'm back,” she called out. “And I'm sorry,” she said, hoping to smooth the way with an apology first. Her grand-mère was nowhere to be seen. She walked over to the pitcher on the kitchen table, took the corner of her apron, and dipped it in the water. She sat down at the table, lifted her skirt, and bent over to dab at her bleeding knees. Her eyes caught sight of a clog on the floor at the other end of the long kitchen table. Her grand-mère never went anywhere without her shoes. Berthe got up and walked to the end of the table. Her grand-mère hadn't
gone anywhere. She was lying flat on her back on the kitchen floor. Around her lay torn pieces of paper. They were the two pictures Millet had once given her.

“Grand-mère, what's wrong?” she cried, falling to her bruised knees. She quickly picked up the old woman's hand. It was quite cold. “Grand-mère, wake up, wake up.” She shook the old woman's shoulder gently at first and then with greater urgency. Her grand-mère's body moved back and forth as she pushed at it. Her face was a grayish white and her mouth was slack. Berthe realized with a sudden start that her grand-mère was dead. She thrust her hand in her mouth to stifle a cry of horror. Falling back on her heels, she shut her eyes as if that would block out the sight of the dead woman. She opened them again and began to sob. Her mother's death came back to her in one painful flash.

Emma Bovary's solution to the mess in which she'd found herself after a failed love affair and a mountain of debt turned out to be painfully simple. Sneaking into Homais's pharmacy, she managed to find and ingest a great quantity of arsenic.

And then she came home and began the long, agonizing process of dying.

Berthe stayed in her room alternately crying and praying. She desperately needed someone to come and comfort her but they were all too busy with her mother to bother about the girl. Her mother's dying went on for days. She prayed that her mother would recover, mouthing over and over the meaningless prayers she had heard her mother chant in the days after Boulanger abandoned her. When she paused for breath, she heard her mother's agonizing screams coming from the bedroom. Wild, gut-wrenching, ear-piercing cries of pain. She heard Félicité's steps rushing up and down the stairs. If she could have, she would have stolen her father's horse and the dogcart and
gone far, far away. No one would have missed her, and she wouldn't have had to hear those horrible screams.

After a night of howling, all was quiet. Morning came and Berthe thought her mother must have died. But no, she was still dying. Days passed. The screams continued, but each hour they grew weaker and weaker. Late one night Berthe heard a tap at her door. It was Félicité.

“Your mother has asked for you,” she said. The maid's eyes were red and her auburn hair had come undone. Her normally spotless apron had yellow stains all up and down the front.

Berthe huddled in the corner of her bed and shook her head.

“You must come,” she said, stretching out her hand. “She needs to see you.” Berthe pulled back farther into the corner. Félicité reached out and grabbed the girl's arm and dragged her off the bed and out of the room.

Berthe was not afraid that her mother would die, because she knew by then with great certainty that she would. What she feared was actually witnessing the agony she had only heard the past few days.

The door opened onto the bedroom, which was in a state of great disarray. There on the bed, her head thrown back, was Emma Bovary. It was a terrible sight. Gone was any trace of the beautiful woman she once was. Her skin was white and waxen, her black eyes sunk into her head like pits. Her lips were colorless, cracked, and covered with a strange thick coating. Even her black hair had lost its luster; it lay spread across the embroidered pillowcase like something that had been dead for many years.

The smell of vomit, of strong soap, and of lavender scent filled Berthe's nostrils. The room was ablaze from candles on the table, on the mantel, and at the bedside. It was like the beginnings of a ghastly celebration. Emma Bovary's head turned, and her eyes locked on to Berthe standing by the side of her bed.
Félicité leaned against the girl as if to prevent her escape. Charles Bovary stood at the head of the bed, his hands holding on to the bedpost as if to keep himself from falling over. The fearsome creature reached out her hand to grab at her daughter's. Berthe knew her mother wanted to kiss her farewell. She may have even wanted to show her daughter that she loved her. But it was too late for that. Far too late.

“Berthe, dear, here is your mother. Give her a kiss,” her father said softly. She did as she was told. Her mother's skin was dry as paper. The mother whose touch she had once craved, whose beauty had so enchanted her, whose love she had longed for was gone. Berthe opened her mouth to speak, yet nothing came out but the sobs of a grief-stricken child. Félicité led Berthe back to her room. She tried to comfort the distraught girl but nothing she said could stop her tears. Berthe never saw her mother again.

Berthe placed her grand-mère's cold hand on her unmoving chest. After smoothing her hair from her forehead, she stood up. Death had become a regular occurrence in her life. This was the third time she had lost someone in less than two years. She was now truly and totally an orphan.

A
S IT HAPPENED
B
ERTHE'S GRAND-MÈRE WAS BURIED ON THE
very day that Berthe turned thirteen. No one knew it was her birthday. So, of course, there was no celebration. There was no one left to celebrate. No one even looked her way. Berthe stood apart from the few mourners, hugging herself tightly. She felt that if she didn't hold on to herself she might evaporate into the air.

As she watched the last shovelful of earth fall on her grand-mère's simple pine coffin she allowed herself to hope that a new future lay before her, one with new possibilities, perhaps even a better life. That thought was her birthday gift to herself.

Berthe had always believed her grand-mère was exaggerating about the poor state of her finances. After all, Berthe reasoned, grand-mère had the farm. But, as it turned out, she hadn't overstated her money problems. She was hugely, hopelessly in debt. Financial ruin seemed to run in the Bovary family. Everything, even Céleste, was to be auctioned to pay off what she owed. Once again Berthe was going to be without a home.

Her first thought was to appeal to Monsieur Millet. Immediately after her grand-mère's small funeral, she begged a ride to his home in Barbizon. He was in his studio adding delicate dabs of paint to the sky of another haystack painting very much like the one that Monsieur Boulanger had purchased. His wife was busy cleaning his brushes.

“Ah, Berthe, my deepest condolences. Your grand-mère was a difficult woman, but still a loss is a loss.” He stepped back from the canvas, squinted his eyes, and tilted his head first to the left and then to the right. “What will you do now?” he asked, chewing on the end of his paintbrush as he scrutinized his work.

“That is what I have come to talk to you about, Monsieur Millet.”

“Yes, yes, I am happy to offer any advice,” he said. He took a step toward the painting and quickly added a few more strokes. “You must forgive me. Monsieur Boulanger is purchasing this painting for a friend. He is coming to pick it up this morning and I wanted to fix the sky.”

Boulanger! That hateful, horrible man!
Her skin crawled as she remembered the way he had looked at her. The hooded eyes, the full wet lips curled in a half smile as if he thought himself the most irresistible man in the world. A chill of fear and disgust ran through her. She had to ask Millet her question, but she must hurry so she could leave before Boulanger got there.

“This is what happens when you sell your soul.” Millet sighed and began adding dark gray tones to the clouds. “My good wife doesn't understand this. Before long, I will be turning out hundreds of haystack paintings and then they will want me to do haystack wallpaper, and then there will be a great demand for my peasant paintings, only they will request that I put happy smiles on the workers' faces. Trust me; this will be the ruination of my art.”

“Oh, hush up, Jean,” his wife said, placing the clean brushes back in a ceramic jar.

“What do you think, Mademoiselle Berthe, do they look like clouds to you?” he said, ignoring his wife as he studied the painting.

“Yes, monsieur, they are very cloudlike. It feels as if it is about to rain.”

“Ah, good, good.” He turned to his wife. “You see, Catherine, Mademoiselle Berthe appreciates my talent.” His wife snorted. “Now, my dear, how can I be of service?”