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       She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; she would call him George; and this idea of having a male child was like an expected revenge for all her impotence in the past . . . She gave birth on a Sunday at about six o’clock, as the sun was rising.
       “It is a girl!” said Charles.
       She turned her head away and fainted.
-Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
       Was any daughter ever cursed with a mother such as hers? A self-centered, social-climbing, materialistic, cold-hearted, calculating adulteress. Oh, yes, and she disliked children.
       Everyone in the village of Yonville and the city of Rouen and all the towns in between knew the story of her mother’s disastrous affairs; her wastrel ways, her total disregard for her husband, his reputation and his finances. And her complete disinterest in Berthe, her only child. It was her mother’s friend, Madame Homais, who put it into simple words to Berthe on the day of her father’s funeral. Yes, even at her father’s funeral they were still gossiping about her mother who had poisoned herself almost a year before.
     "Your poor, dear mother. She always wanted what she couldn’t have,” Madame Homais said as she pulled an ivory comb through Berthe’s long snarled hair. Berthe hadn’t brushed her hair in weeks or possibly even months, ever since her father had fallen ill from his strenuous mourning. “And what she had, she didn’t want. As for your Papa, all he wanted was just a little of her love. Mon Dieu, what a rat’s nest,” She tried to untangle the comb from the girl’s hair. “Now go and put on your best dress,” she gave Berthe a gentle push. Did she know that Berthe only had two dresses to her name? Neither one could be described as “best.” All the pretty dresses that she had once owned had been sold months before. There was nothing left but the house and that was going to be auctioned off in an effort to make a small dent in her father’s enormous debt.
        … She waited with Madame Homais for the morning coach. She had no idea what lay in store for her. She had lived her entire life in one house, in one small town, with the same two people. And now she was moving to a whole new place. She felt as if she were falling off the edge of the earth and there was no one and nothing to catch her. She wanted to cry but crying seemed a feeble reaction to falling into an abyss. Screaming would have been more appropriate. But Berthe was not one to make a scene. That was more her mother’s domain.