Madame Bovary's Daughter (2 page)

“Really!”

Several women gasped and covered their mouths with their black-gloved hands. Their eyes gleamed in anticipation of hearing more.

Because of the size of the mausoleum, Charles Bovary's coffin could not be placed directly next to his wife's but had to be wedged in at a perpendicular angle at the end of her triple-enclosed casket. The four men who had carried the coffin from the village struggled to fit it in. Thus, Madame Bovary's husband was laid to rest literally at her feet. And given the state of his estate, or the lack thereof, an expensive coffin for him was out of the question. He had been put in the plainest of pine boxes. It made a curious sight: the rough-hewn pine coffin lying at the foot of the lustrous rosewood casket like a humble servant at the feet of his beloved queen. The four pallbearers stepped out, rubbing their sore hands together. Then the Homaises and Berthe squeezed in what little space was left while the rest of the villagers had to make do with paying their respects from outside.

So, Berthe thought, her mother would be housed for eternity in the luxury she had always yearned for. How many years and how much money had she spent stuffing their humble home with the trappings of a much grander establishment? Silk damask armchairs, Chinese screens, crystal candelabras, brass andirons, heavy brocade curtains, a hand-carved prayer kneeler, a graceful four-poster bed. And when her husband occasionally protested, she explained: “We will need these things when we move to the new house.”

She held out this vision of a grand dwelling as though it were
a reality. Her dream house was based on her one visit as a young bride to the château at Vaubyessard. She described her visit often and in great detail to Berthe. It was her idea of a bedtime story.

“I walked up three flights of marble steps and into the great hall. As I looked up I saw a chandelier hanging from a glass dome. It was made of a million crystals that caught the light and glittered so brightly it hurt my eyes. There was a pink marbled staircase that circled around and up to a gallery. The walls were covered in silk. The air smelled of roses and lilacs.”

But in Emma Bovary's mind, it was the effect this splendid château had on its inhabitants that was so magical. The château seemed to transform every person in it.

“They were ordinary men and women but they looked like they were another species altogether. Their hair was more lustrous, their skin had a polish and glow, their smiles were more brilliant. Their happiness was unlike anything I had ever seen before or since. It was being in that house that made them so happy and so beautiful.”

Thus, Berthe had grown up with two homes, the slightly shabby lodging they lived in and the luxurious château of her mother's memory. The bills mounted and her mother began to sell off small decorative items before her husband discovered her secret debt. As little by little the house in Yonville grew shabbier, Berthe still had that other more enduring abode of her mother's fantasy. Where there would be no gossip, no suffering the opinion of others, no creditors, no shortage of love, no shortage of beautiful things to buy. And where her mother continued to live in this happy, happy home where no one and nothing could ever hurt her.

Berthe recognized a fairy tale for what it was. She knew her mother had lived much of the time in another world and that her fantasies had created an impenetrable wall around her. On
the one hand, Berthe deeply resented the stories that separated her mother from their real life. On the other hand, the fairy tales held a magic that was difficult for a little girl to resist.

Her mother's favorite stories came from her beloved books. She spent hours and hours reading, happily lost in the pages of her novels. Every once in a while, she would read aloud. Emma Bovary seemed to require an audience for these recitations. Their maid, Félicité, was of course too busy, and that left Berthe as the most likely candidate.

All of the books had to do with true love, tragic love, unrequited love, doomed lovers, beautiful maidens in distress, gallant heroes coming to their rescue, fainting ladies in perfumed gardens, magnificent mansions, glorious châteaux, bloody battles, hearts won and lost and won again, dastardly villains, and untimely deaths, always in lush surroundings with exquisitely dressed women showing much ivory skin and tall, handsome men on their equally tall and handsome horses. Much later, Emma Bovary acquired a taste for modern novels by the English author Jane Austen. She also adored the stories of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Joan of Arc. Sir Walter Scott was another of her preferred authors. When she read “The Lady of the Lake” aloud to Berthe, the rhyming sometimes put her young daughter to sleep.

“Berthe, wake up. I'm coming to the best part.”

“But, Maman, it is so long it makes me tired.”

“How anyone can sleep through such beauty is beyond me.” Her voice took on a faraway tone as she recited:

“Berthe, I'm not going to waste my breath if you're not going to pay attention. Go away and play with your dolls,” she said angrily.

Berthe's sleepy head filled with visions of golden brooches and satin snoods, and she too became entranced with the stories, the romance and the richness, the drama and damsels. But most of all she loved the words. Words read aloud. Words on paper like so many stitches of embroidery. She listened to the words, long and luxurious, perfect as silk thread. She marveled at how a collection of words could create a fantastic story out of nothing.

When her mother left her to play alone (more frequently than not) Berthe created her own fairy tales using herself as the fabled princess. One day she pulled down a lace curtain that was drying on the clothesline behind the cottage and wrapped herself in it. She began humming softly as she paraded up and down the small yard. The sun shone down on her lace-covered head as if bestowing a special blessing.
I am the queen of the world. The beautiful queen of the world
.

“What in heaven's name are you doing, you wicked girl?” Her mother snatched the curtain from her. “Now Félicité has to wash this all over again!”

It was cold and dark in the mausoleum. Berthe could barely make out the faces of Madame and Monsieur Homais. She could feel the chill of the cement floor through her thin boots. She stared at the two dramatically different caskets. Suddenly she could bear it no longer. She pulled the green velvet covering from her mother's casket and placed it on her father's. Monsieur Homais patted her shoulder.

“Poor fellow. He is the one who should have had the finer coffin. Perhaps we should switch the coffins as well,” he said, half in jest.

“Hush, you idiot!” Madame Homais said, hitting him on the arm. Berthe couldn't help but notice the amusement on her face. She was such a strong, warm, comforting woman. Berthe wondered what it would be like to be her daughter. In her mind, she wailed at her mother.
How could you do this to Papa? Didn't you know he would die without you? Didn't you care? You have killed everything
.

Before she could stop herself, Berthe kicked at the corner of her mother's casket so hard she felt a sharp flash of pain from her foot all the way up to her head. And then the tears came. Hot, angry tears.

“Berthe, shame!” exclaimed Madame Homais.

Her head began to pound and she gasped for breath. For a moment everything went dark and she thought,
I must be dying, too. I'm only twelve years old and I'm dying
. But she wasn't. She was alive and alone. She missed her parents terribly, for despite themselves they had been the center of her universe.

“Why are you staring at me?” her mother would say as Berthe watched her brush her long black hair. “Go out and play.”

“I have no one to play with, Maman.” It was true. Even though the Homais children allowed Berthe to tag along with them they never really included her in their secret games.

“Please, find something to amuse yourself. You're big enough to do that.”

The days were all the same. Her mother would read in the morning, visit the town square, the shops, and the market in the afternoon, and continue reading until dinner. Most days when her mother went out Berthe would stay home and study her
reading and writing with Félicité, or sit in front of the fire and sew. She would spend hours looking out the window, waiting for her father to return from his long days of visiting patients. But when he finally came home he was too tired to even speak to her.

Berthe stumbled forward and caught herself against the wall of the mausoleum. The cold marble was slick with dampness.

“Are you all right?” Monsieur Homais asked, grabbing her arm.

“Of course she's not all right. She's an orphan. She's lost everything,” said Madame Homais.

“Shhh,” he said to his wife.

“
Mon Dieu
, it's not as if she doesn't know.”

Berthe wished she had died first, a painless but pitiful death. She pictured her own funeral.
So young, so sad
. She imagined her parents sobbing, clinging to each other in their grief.
Our only daughter. Gone. If only we could have a second chance to show her how much we adored her. This is God's punishment for a life of selfishness. Oh, Berthe, our beloved baby girl
. And in this, her funeral fantasy, she would rise up from her coffin (exquisite but practical mahogany with solid gold fittings) and her parents would cry with joy and gratitude and vow never again to take their precious daughter for granted. And Berthe would forgive them everything.

Leaving the cemetery with the Homaises, Berthe looked up at the evening sky. Here she was the mourner, not the mourned. And because there was no one to cry for her, the tears she shed were for herself.

Monsieur Homais was a small, squat man who was many inches shorter than his wife. He had a trim little mustache, which he continually twirled into two fine points. He was forever imparting
information that no one but he was interested in, on every imaginable topic. On and on he would lecture about the effect of spinach on one's bowels, or the correct temperature at which to soak one's feet in order to reduce the pain of gout. Madame Homais listened to him without listening. Monsieur Homais was the master of the house, but it was Madame Homais who ruled the roost. An enormous woman with a bosom so vast it seemed as if she might tip forward from the weight of it, she smothered her family with kisses and hugs and cuffed them about whenever they even thought of disobeying her. She was the mother Berthe always wanted and theirs was the family she longed to be part of. But it was not to be. Apparently, it had all been decided. She was to live with her grand-mère Bovary.

“But why? Why can't I live with you?” She wrapped her arms around Madame Homais's ample hips as if she were about to be swept away by some unseen force. Her eyes flooded with tears and her nose began to run in sympathy.

“Dear child, she's your grand-mère,” said Madame Homais, wiping Berthe's face with her vast white apron. “You must go to her.”

“She has a farm. Just think of all the fruits and vegetables, the fresh milk and cheese. How healthy you will be,” said Homais, rubbing his stomach as if to demonstrate the good meals she would receive, which to him was equivalent to a perfect life.

“I hate fruits and I hate vegetables. And I hate cheese,” she said, more tears spilling onto her hot cheeks.

“She has no one to keep her company in her old age. You are her one and only granddaughter. She loves you with all her heart,” chimed in Madame Homais.

Who were they talking about? Berthe wondered. Her grand-mère was a woman who did not gladly suffer people, most especially granddaughters. In the few visits she had made to her son's
house she had said precious little to Berthe except to ask the same pointed questions:

“Are you doing well at your studies?”

“Do you say your catechism faithfully every day?”

“Do you remember to push back your cuticles?”

It seemed to Berthe that in her grand-mère's view of the world, catechism and cuticles carried the same import. The pain of a torn cuticle seemed equivalent to burning in hell.

“Your mother truly detests the idea of being a grand-mère,” Berthe once heard Emma Bovary say to her husband. “She likes to think of herself only as your mother.”

It was true. Berthe's grand-mère treated her son as if he were still a young boy.

“Charles, comb your hair. You look like a derelict,” she would say.

“Yes, Maman,” he answered, as if he were ten years old.

“Don't make such noises with your soup,” she would scold him at the table.

“Sorry, Maman,” he would reply.

The idea of living with this cold, critical woman filled Berthe with dread.

“Oh, please,” she begged Madame Homais, “let me stay with you. I won't be any trouble.”

“Dear child.” She laughed. “Where would I put you?” She gestured helplessly around the cluttered family room where indeed there were already two narrow beds set up for the youngest Homaises. The two bedrooms upstairs had long ago overflowed into the downstairs living quarters.

“Perhaps we could make her a bed on the roof,” joked Monsieur, dunking a piece of bread into his morning bowl of
café au lait
. “Sleeping outdoors can be very good for one's health. The fresh air is particularly beneficial for young developing lungs.”

“Don't tease the poor child. Can't you see she is serious?”

“Please,” Berthe renewed her entreaties. “Please, I'll work for my keep. I'll help Madame Homais in the kitchen. I'll mix medicine for Monsieur's customers. I'll watch the babies.”