The Project Gutenberg Etext of A Simple Soul, by Gustave Flaubert
A SIMPLE SOUL
By Gustave Flaubert
CHAPTER I
For half a century the housewives of Pont-l''Eveque had envied Madame
Aubain her servant Felicite.
For a hundred francs a year, she cooked and did the housework, washed,
ironed, mended, harnessed the horse, fattened the poultry, made the
butter and remained faithful to her mistress--although the latter was
by no means an agreeable person.
Madame Aubain had married a comely youth without any money, who died
in the beginning of 1809, leaving her with two young children and a
number of debts. She sold all her property excepting the farm of
Toucques and the farm of Geffosses, the income of which barely
amounted to 5,000 francs; then she left her house in Saint-Melaine,
and moved into a less pretentious one which had belonged to her
ancestors and stood back of the market-place. This house, with its
slate-covered roof, was built between a passage-way and a narrow
street that led to the river. The interior was so unevenly graded that
it caused people to stumble. A narrow hall separated the kitchen from
the parlour, where Madame Aubain sat all day in a straw armchair near
the window. Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white
wainscoting. An old piano, standing beneath a barometer, was covered
with a pyramid of old books and boxes. On either side of the yellow
marble mantelpiece, in Louis XV. style, stood a tapestry armchair. The
clock represented a temple of Vesta; and the whole room smelled musty,
as it was on a lower level than the garden.
On the first floor was Madame''s bed-chamber, a large room papered in a
flowered design and containing the portrait of Monsieur dressed in the
costume of a dandy. It communicated with a smaller room, in which
there were two little cribs, without any mattresses. Next, came the
parlour (always closed), filled with furniture covered with sheets.
Then a hall, which led to the study, where books and papers were piled
on the shelves of a book-case that enclosed three quarters of the big
black desk. Two panels were entirely hidden under pen-and-ink
sketches, Gouache landscapes and Audran engravings, relics of better
times and vanished luxury. On the second floor, a garret-window
lighted Felicite''s room, which looked out upon the meadows.
She arose at daybreak, in order to attend mass, and she worked without
interruption until night; then, when dinner was over, the dishes
cleared away and the door securely locked, she would bury the log
under the ashes and fall asleep in front of the hearth with a rosary
in her hand. Nobody could bargain with greater obstinacy, and as for
cleanliness, the lustre on her brass sauce-pans was the envy and
despair of other servants. She was most economical, and when she ate
she would gather up crumbs with the tip of her finger, so that nothing
should be wasted of the loaf of bread weighing twelve pounds which was
baked especially for her and lasted three weeks.
Summer and winter she wore a dimity kerchief fastened in the back with
a pin, a cap which concealed her hair, a red skirt, grey stockings,
and an apron with a bib like those worn by hospital nurses.
Her face was thin and her voice shrill. When she was twenty-five, she
looked forty. After she had passed fifty, nobody could tell her age;
erect and silent always, she resembled a wooden figure working
automatically.
CHAPTER II
Like every other woman, she had had an affair of the heart. Her
father, who was a mason, was killed by falling from a scaffolding.
Then her mother died and her sisters went their different ways; a
farmer took her in, and while she was quite small, let her keep cows
in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the
slightest offence and finally dismissed for a theft of thirty sous
which she did not commit. She took service on another farm where she
tended the poultry; and as she was well thought of by her master, her
fellow-workers soon grew jealous.
One evening in August (she was then eighteen years old), they
persuaded her to accompany them to the fair at Colleville. She was
immediately dazzled by the noise, the lights in the trees, the
brightness of the dresses, the laces and gold crosses, and the crowd
of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a
distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had
been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached
her, and asked her for a dance. He treated her to cider and cake,
bought her a silk shawl, and then, thinking she had guessed his
purpose, offered to see her home. When they came to the end of a field
he threw her down brutally. But she grew frightened and screamed, and
he walked off.
One evening, on the road leading to Beaumont, she came upon a wagon
loaded with hay, and when she overtook it, she recognised Theodore. He
greeted her calmly, and asked her to forget what had happened between
them, as it "was all the fault of the drink."
She did not know what to reply and wished to run away.
Presently he began to speak of the harvest and of the notables of the
village; his father had left Colleville and bought the farm of Les
Ecots, so that now they would be neighbours. "Ah!" she exclaimed. He
then added that his parents were looking around for a wife for him,
but that he, himself, was not so anxious and preferred to wait for a
girl who suited him. She hung her head. He then asked her whether she
had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was
wrong of him to make fun of her. "Oh! no, I am in earnest," he said,
and put his left arm around her waist while they sauntered along. The
air was soft, the stars were bright, and the huge load of hay
oscillated in front of them, drawn by four horses whose ponderous
hoofs raised clouds of dust. Without a word from their driver they
turned to the right. He kissed her again and she went home. The
following week, Theodore obtained meetings.
They met in yards, behind walls or under isolated trees. She was not
ignorant, as girls of well-to-do families are--for the animals had
instructed her;--but her reason and her instinct of honour kept her
from falling. Her resistance exasperated Theodore''s love and so in
order to satisfy it (or perchance ingenuously), he offered to marry
her. She would not believe him at first, so he made solemn promises.
But, in a short time he mentioned a difficulty; the previous year, his
parents had purchased a substitute for him; but any day he might be
drafted and the prospect of serving in the army alarmed him greatly.
To Felicite his cowardice appeared a proof of his love for her, and
her devotion to him grew stronger. When she met him, he would torture
her with his fears and his entreaties. At last, he announced that he
was going to the prefect himself for information, and would let her
know everything on the following Sunday, between eleven o''clock and
midnight.
When the time grew near, she ran to meet her lover.
But instead of Theodore, one of his friends was at the meeting-place.
He informed her that she would never see her sweetheart again; for, in
order to escape the conscription, he had married a rich old woman,
Madame Lehoussais, of Toucques.
The poor girl''s sorrow was frightful. She threw herself on the ground,
she cried and called on the Lord, and wandered around desolately until
sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, declared her intention of
leaving, and at the end of the month, after she had received her
wages, she packed all her belongings in a handkerchief and started for
Pont-l''Eveque.
In front of the inn, she met a woman wearing widow''s weeds, and upon
questioning her, learned that she was looking for a cook. The girl did
not know very much, but appeared so willing and so modest in her
requirements, that Madame Aubain finally said:
"Very well, I will give you a trial."
And half an hour later Felicite was installed in her house.
At first she lived in a constant anxiety that was caused by "the style
of the household" and the memory of "Monsieur," that hovered over
everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the other
barely four, seemed made of some precious material; she carried them
pig-a-back, and was greatly mortified when Madame Aubain forbade her
to kiss them every other minute.
But ...
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