FÉLICITÉ


For half a century the housewives of Pont-l'Evêque had envied
Madame Aubain her servant Félicité.

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.