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A Simple Soul-Part3_Gustave Flaubert(1821-1880)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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The chemist informed her that Victor's vessel had reached Havana. He

had read the information in a newspaper.



Felicite imagined that Havana was a place where people did nothing but

smoke, and that Victor walked around among negroes in a cloud of



tobacco. Could a person, in case of need, return by land? How far was

it from Pont-l'Eveque? In order to learn these things, she questioned



Monsieur Bourais. He reached for his map and began some explanations

concerning longitudes, and smiled with superiority at Felicite's



bewilderment. At last, he took a pencil and pointed out an

imperceptible black point in the scallops of an oval blotch, adding:



"There it is." She bent over the map; the maze of coloured lines hurt

her eyes without enlightening her; and when Bourais asked her what



puzzled her, she requested him to show her the house Victor lived in.

Bourais threw up his hands, sneezed, and then laughed uproariously;



such ignorancedelighted his soul; but Felicite failed to understand

the cause of his mirth, she whose intelligence was so limited that she



perhaps expected to see even the picture of her nephew!

It was two weeks later that Liebard came into the kitchen at market-



time, and handed her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither of

them could read, she called upon her mistress.



Madame Aubain, who was counting the stitches of her knitting, laid her

work down beside her, opened the letter, started, and in a low tone



and with a searching look said: "They tell you of a--misfortune. Your

nephew--"



He had died. The letter told nothing more.

Felicite dropped on a chair, leaned her head against the back, and



closed her lids; presently they grew pink. Then, with drooping head,

inert hands and staring eyes she repeated at intervals:



"Poor little chap! poor little chap!"

Liebard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubain was trembling.



She proposed to the girl to go to see her sister in Trouville.

With a single motion, Felicite replied that it was not necessary.



There was a silence. Old Liebard thought it about time for him to take

leave.



Then Felicite uttered:

"They have no sympathy, they do not care!"



Her head fell forward again, and from time to time, mechanically, she

toyed with the long knitting-needles on the work-table.



Some women passed through the yard with a basket of wet clothes.

When she saw them through the window, she suddenly remembered her own



wash; as she had soaked it the day before, she must go and rinse it

now. So she arose and left the room.



Her tub and her board were on the bank of the Toucques. She threw a

heap of clothes on the ground, rolled up her sleeves and grasped her



bat; and her loud pounding could be heard in the neighbouring gardens.

The meadows were empty, the breeze wrinkled the stream, at the bottom



of which were long grasses that looked like the hair of corpses

floating in the water. She restrained her sorrow and was very brave



until night; but, when she had gone to her own room, she gave way to

it, burying her face in the pillow and pressing her two fists against



her temples.

A long while afterward, she learned through Victor's captain, the



circumstances which surrounded his death. At the hospital they had

bled him too much, treating him for yellow fever. Four doctors held



him at one time. He died almost instantly, and the chief surgeon had

said:



"Here goes another one!"

His parents had always treated him barbarously; she preferred not to



see them again, and they made no advances, either from forgetfulness

or out of innate hardness.



Virginia was growing weaker.

A cough, continual fever, oppressive breathing and spots on her cheeks



indicated some serious trouble. Monsieur Popart had advised a sojourn

in Provence. Madame Aubain decided that they would go, and she would



have had her daughter come home at once, had it not been for the

climate of Pont-l'Eveque.



She made an arrangement with a livery-stable man who drove her over to

the convent every Tuesday. In the garden there was a terrace, from



which the view extends to the Seine. Virginia walked in it, leaning on

her mother's arm and treading the dead vine leaves. Sometimes the sun,



shining through the clouds, made her blink her lids, when she gazed at

the sails in the distance, and let her eyes roam over the horizon from



the chateau of Tancarville to the lighthouses of Havre. Then they

rested on the arbour. Her mother had bought a little cask of fine






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