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turned. A boy carrying a huge bundle of hay on his shoulder stood in the doorway. He had shaggy sandy-colored hair and almost painfully bright blue eyes. He was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen.
    â€œShe won’t give me any of her cursed milk,” Berthe said. “I must be doing something wrong. Please, can you show me?”
    The boy took her place on the stool. Stroking Céleste’s flank, he began to talk to her in soft, soothing tones. “Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh,
ma jolie fille
. Do you have any milk for Renard?” After he had caressed and scratched her for a few minutes, he slowly, ever so slowly reached for her teat and the milk began to stream into the bucket.
    â€œNow you try,” he said. “Just be gentle. She is like all women. You must treat her with kindness.”
    â€œAnd what do you know of ‘all women’?” Berthe asked. He was just a boy. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old.
    â€œI have sisters,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Come. Even my littlest sister can do this.” Berthe took a deep breath and sat down. She gave Céleste a look.
Don’t you dare hold out on me again
. Then she followed Renard’s example. The milk flowed out smoothly until the bucket was almost half full.
    Forking hay into the hayloft, the boy looked down at Berthe and smiled. He had good teeth. Straight and white. She smiled back.
    â€œMy name is Renard Garnier. And yours?” he asked.
    â€œBerthe Bovary,” she said. He rested his chin on the handle of his pitchfork. The way he looked at her made her feel shy.
    â€œHow old are you?”
    â€œThirteen,” she lied. “And you?”
    â€œI will be sixteen on the last day of August,” he said, as if he expected her to mark it in her almanac.
    â€œGood for you.” She turned her back to him.
    â€œYou’re a sassy one.” He threw a handful of hay in her direction. “My sister Marie used to do the housework and make the cheese and butter, but Madame Bovary let her go. You are to take her place. Has she said how much she will pay you?” Berthe shook her head. “Of course not. You will do work out of love because you are her devoted granddaughter.” He laughed.
    â€œAnd how much does she pay you to throw her hay around?” she retorted, pouring the milk into the copper jug.
    â€œDon’t let your grand-mère hear that you have a tongue on you,” he said. “Or you will be one sorry milkmaid.”
    â€œI’m not a milkmaid.” She lifted the copper jug onto her shoulder and held it secure with the leather strap. Then holding both her head and the copper jug high, she turned and walked out of the barn, knowing that she must look every bit the milkmaid that Renard had declared her to be. The sound of hislaughter trailed after her. She made up her mind never to speak to him again.
    Early one morning, hours before her grand-mère woke, Berthe stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched as the sun came up. A mist lifted off the green fields. The geese emerged from the barn with an air of ownership. The chickens followed humbly behind, pecking at the ground in the unlikely event they would find leftover grain from the day before. From inside the barn she could hear Céleste mooing to be relieved of her burden of milk.
    In many ways the country life suited her. The food was good and plentiful. The air was clean and sweet. And even though she labored to exhaustion from morning to evening, she did not shirk the work. She’d settled in to living here, and was determined to make her life as beautiful as possible. While her grand-mère slept she took the homespun dress and dipped it in beet juice; the result was a pleasing pale rose color. Then she took out a small case of embroidery silks that she’d saved from the house in Yonville and embroidered a design of blue and red fleurs-de-lis