Three short works / The Dance of Death, the Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, a Simple Soul.

ways; a farmer took her in, and while she was quite small, let her keep cows in the fields. She was clad in miserable rags, beaten for the slightest offence and finally dismissed for a thef

he crowd of people all hopping at the same time. She was standing modestly at a distance, when presently a young man of well-to-do appearance, who had been leaning on the pole of a wagon and smoking his pipe, approached her, and asked her for a dance.

and when she overtook it, she recognised Théodore. He greeted her calmly, and asked

hat to reply and w

anxious and preferred to wait for a girl who suited him. She hung her head. He then asked her whether she had ever thought of marrying. She replied, smilingly, that it was wrong of him to make fun of her. "Oh! no, I am in earnest," he said, and put his left arm around her waist while they sauntered along.

fered to marry her. She would not believe him at first, so he made solemn promises. But, in a short time he mentioned a difficulty; the previous year, his parents had purchased a substitute for him; but any day he might be drafted and the prospect of serving in the army alarmed him greatly. To Félicité his cowardice appe

w near, she ran t

, one of his friends wa

again; for, in order to escape the conscription, he had

round desolately until sunrise. Then she went back to the farm, declared her intention of leaving, and at the end of th

r, learned that she was looking for a cook. The girl did not know very much, but ap

I will give

ter Félicité was in

hovered over everything. Paul and Virginia, the one aged seven, and the other barely four, seemed made of some precious mate

appy. The comfort of her new surrou

, and it was Félicité's duty to prepare the table and heat the foot-war

f lambs, the grunting of pigs, could be distinguished, mingled with the sharp sound of wheels on the cobble-stones. About twelve o'clock, when the market was in full swing, there appeared at the front door a tall, middle-aged

s or cheese. Félicité would invariably thwart

e with him, whose paws soiled the furniture. In spite of his efforts to appear a man of breeding (he even went so far as to raise his hat every time he said "My deceased father"), his habits got the better of him, and he woul

ch he took his snuff, his whole person, in fact, produced in her the kind of awe which we feel when we see extraordinary persons. As he managed Madame's estates,

aphy which represented various scenes of the world: cannibals with feather head-dresses

Félicité. And, in fact, this

r devil employed at the town-hall, who sharpened his poc

m the lunch basket and they would sit down and eat in a room next to the dairy. This room was all that remained of a cottage that had been torn down. The dilapidated wall-paper trembled in the drafts. M

oidered pantalettes. One autumn evening, they struck out for home through the meadows. The new moon illumined part of the sky and a mist hovered like a veil over the sinuosities of the river. Oxen, lying in the pastures, gazed mildly at the passing persons. In the third field, ho

oisy breathing of the bull close behind them. His hoofs pounded the grass like hammers, and presently he began to gallop! Félicité turned around and threw patches of grass in his eyes. He hung his head, shook his horns and be

rginia and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several tim

lew in her face and in another minute he would have disembowelled her. She

in Pont-l'Ev?que. But Félicité took no credit to hers

n, M. Poupart, prescribed the saltwater bathing at Trouville. In those days, Trouville was not greatly patronised. Ma

n back to it, while on the crupper of the other was a rolled shawl that was to be used for a seat. Madame Aubain mounted the second horse, behind Liébard. Félic

alked of the people whose estates bordered the road, adding his own moral reflections to the outline of their histories. Thus, when they were passing through Toucques, and came to some windows draped with nasturtiums, he shrugged his shoulders and said: "There's a woman, Madame

der, a fruit tart and some preserved prunes; then to all this the good woman added polite remarks about Madame, who appeared to be in better health, Mademoiselle, who had grown to be "superb,"

they saw a huge syringe. There was not a tree in the yard that did not have mushrooms growing around its foot, or a bunch of mistletoe hanging in its branches. Several of the trees had been blown down, but they had started to grow in the middle and all were laden with quant

er to pass Les écores, a cliff that overhangs the bay, and a few minutes later, at the

sea-baths. She took them in her little chemise, as she had no bathing suit, and afterwards her nur

ndulating grounds, and thence to a plateau, where pastures and tilled fields alternated. At the edge of the road, mingling wi

mooth as a mirror, and so calm that they could scarcely distinguish its murmur; sparrows chirped joyfully and the immense canopy of heaven spread over it all.

aves lapping the sand unfurled themselves along the shore that extended as far as the eye could see, but where land began, it was limited by the downs which separated it from the "Swamp," a large meadow shaped like a hippod

ters. Not a sound in the village, not a soul on the sidewalk. This silence intensified the tranquillity of everything. In

the masts, and with their foresails swelled up like balloons they glided over the waves and anchored in the middle of the harbour. Then they crept up alongside of the dock and the sail

of her sisters, and presently Nastasie Barette, wife of Léroux, made her appearance, holding an infant in her arms, an

en minutes, Madame

d Félicité when she and the children were out wal

they exploited her. Her foolishness annoyed Madame Aubain, who, moreover did not like the nephew's familiarity, for he

considered the best. So Paul was sent away and bravely said good-bye to them a

ooded less and less over it. Félicité regretted the noise he made, but soon a new occupation diverted