# Bertha — Short Fiction character guide

> Bertha in Short Fiction by Guy de Maupassant.

**Role:** minor

**Also known as:** Madame Lelièvre, Madame Bertha Lelièvre

**First appearance:** 0003-short-fiction

## Who they are

A woman whose secret correspondence leads to a dramatic confrontation.

## In the story

### [A Grandmother's Advice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/a-grandmother-s-advice)

The young granddaughter, embroidering an altar-cloth, who reads newspaper accounts of love dramas and defends modern ideals of marriage and eternal love.

### [An Artifice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/an-artifice)

Madame Bertha Lelièvre, the young married woman whose lover dies in her bedroom; she seeks the doctor's help to conceal the affair from her husband.

### [The Pardon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/the-pardon)

The protagonist, a naive and upright woman who discovers her husband's infidelity and struggles with forgiveness.

### [The Child](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/the-child)

Jacques' former lover who dies in childbirth, imploring him to care for their child.

### [Berthe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/berthe)

The intellectually disabled young woman at the center of the story, who learns to associate clocks with mealtimes and later develops a consuming love for her husband.

### [Scene II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/scene-ii)

Now Madame de Chantever, she is caught off guard by De Garelle's approach and eventually agrees to meet him again.

### [Military Honors](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/military-honors)

Berthine, the forester's daughter, is the central figure who bravely confronts and outwits the Prussian soldiers.

### [Finis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/finis)

Lise de Vance, now the elderly Baroness de Vance, writes to Lormerin after twenty-five years, inviting him to meet her and her daughter.

### [The Sign](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/chapters/the-sign)

The little Baroness de Grangerie, who recounts her impulsive and disastrous imitation of a prostitute's signal from her window.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters/bertha
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_23_se/characters