head on one side, and in his beak a nut which the naturalist, from
love of the sumptuous, had gilded. She put him in her room.

This place, to which only a chosen few were admitted, looked like
a chapel and a second-hand shop, so filled was it with devotional
and heterogeneous things. The door could not be opened easily on
account of the presence of a large wardrobe. Opposite the window
that looked out into the garden, a bull's-eye opened on the yard;
a table was placed by the cot and held a washbasin, two combs, and
a piece of blue soap in a broken saucer. On the walls were
rosaries, medals, a number of Holy Virgins, and a holy-water basin
made out of a cocoanut; on the bureau, which was covered with a
napkin like an altar, stood the box of shells that Victor had
given her; also a watering-can and a balloon, writing-books, the
engraved geography and a pair of shoes; on the nail which held the
mirror, hung Virginia's little plush hat! Félicité carried this
sort of respect so far that she even kept one of Monsieur's old
coats. All the things which Madame Aubain discarded, Félicité
begged for her own room. Thus, she had artificial flowers on the
edge of the bureau, and the picture of the Comte d'Artois in the
recess of the window. By means of a board, Loulou was set on a
portion of the chimney which advanced into the room. Every morning
when she awoke, she saw him in the dim light of dawn and recalled
bygone days and the smallest details of insignificant actions,
without any sense of bitterness or grief.

As she was unable to communicate with people, she lived in a sort
of somnambulistic torpor. The processions of Corpus-Christi Day
seemed to wake her up. She visited the neighbours to beg for
candlesticks and mats so as to adorn the temporary altars in the