A Simple Soul

Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. 1st World Library-Literary Society is a non-profit educational organization. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - 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 5000 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.