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.