Berthe Josserand

Berthe Josserand’s encounter with a suitor becomes a lesson in the marriage market: when she pushes away a man who grabs and kisses her, her mother treats the resistance as the reason another match has failed. The scene makes Berthe’s fear and shame visible, while showing how the pressure to secure a husband can recast a woman’s attempt to defend herself as a mistake to be corrected.

Identity and Circumstances

Berthe appears in a family where marriage is pursued as a practical necessity. Her mother, Mme Josserand, counts the suitor’s prospects and income: he is an assistant department head, not yet thirty, with what she calls a superb future, and money coming in every month. Against those tangible advantages, Berthe’s own wishes and sense of safety carry little weight.

The scene also marks a repeated pattern rather than an isolated disappointment. Mme Josserand complains that this is the fourth marriage to fall through, then asks Berthe how she spoiled this one too. Berthe realizes her turn has come and answers that she does not know. The framing places her within a succession of failed matches for which her mother holds her responsible.

The Failed Courtship

Berthe recounts what happened after she and the suitor were alone in a small parlor during dancing. He wanted to do what she calls disgraceful things, kissed her, and grabbed her. Frightened, she pushed him against the furniture. Her brief protest—that he was holding on to her—clarifies the circumstances of her action: she was resisting unwanted physical contact, not deliberately sabotaging the courtship.

Mme Josserand seizes on the push rather than the grabbing. She repeats the detail in dismay, calling Berthe foolish, and does not treat the suitor’s conduct as a reason to protect her daughter or end the match. The conflict is therefore not simply between a suitor and a prospective bride; it is also between Berthe’s immediate bodily refusal and her mother’s calculation of marriage as an economic necessity.

Her Mother’s Coaching

After declaring that she gives up on Berthe, Mme Josserand lays out a strategy for catching a husband. Because Berthe has no fortune, her mother says she must attract men by being pleasant, gazing tenderly, and allowing small indulgences while seeming not to. She demonstrates how Berthe should drop her fan so a man picking it up can touch her fingers, and tells her to bend her waist rather than appear stiff.

The sharpest reversal comes in the instruction about a man who goes too far: instead of recognizing such behavior as a boundary violated, Mme Josserand presents it as an opportunity to catch him. Her advice turns the very situation that frightened Berthe into a courtship tactic. The daughter is coached not to assert a clear refusal, but to manage the appearance of consent in a way that might secure marriage.

Submission and Significance

At two o’clock, after the long evening, Mme Josserand is still driven by the desire for an immediate marriage. She twists and turns Berthe like a paper doll as she thinks aloud; Berthe, docile and dispirited, gives in. Her compliance does not resolve the scene into agreement or relief: her heart is heavy, and fear and shame remain.

Berthe’s moment is presented as an instance of a broader gendered asymmetry. The discussion that follows contrasts men, for whom marriage is a freely assumed way of life, with women, who are trained into passivity and given in marriage by their parents. A wife may receive a protected place in the world, but that place also makes her a vassal within a husband’s economic and social universe. Berthe’s mother’s lesson dramatizes the entry point into that arrangement: a girl without a fortune is taught to turn vulnerability into a means of securing the very institution that will subordinate her.