A Simple Soul | Page 6

and the others followed. But when they
came to the next pasture, they heard frightful bellowing.

It was a bull which was hidden from them by the fog. He advanced
towards the two women, and Madame Aubain prepared to flee for her
life. "No, no! not so fast," warned Felicite. Still they hurried on, for
they could hear the noisy breathing of the bull behind them. His hoofs
pounded the grass like hammers, and presently he began to gallop!
Felicite turned around and threw patches of grass in his eyes. He hung
his head, shook his horns and bellowed with fury. Madame Aubain and
the children, huddled at the end of the field, were trying to jump over
the ditch. Felicite continued to back before the bull, blinding him with
dirt, while she shouted to them to make haste.
Madame Aubain finally slid into the ditch, after shoving first Virginia
and then Paul into it, and though she stumbled several times she
managed, by dint of courage, to climb the other side of it.
The bull had driven Felicite up against a fence; the foam from his
muzzle flew in her face and in another minute he would have
disembowelled her. She had just time to slip between two bars and the
huge animal, thwarted, paused.
For years, this occurrence was a topic of conversation in Pont- l'Eveque.
But Felicite took no credit to herself, and probably never knew that she
had been heroic.
Virginia occupied her thoughts solely, for the shock she had sustained
gave her a nervous affection, and the physician, M. Poupart, prescribed
the salt-water bathing at Trouville. In those days, Trouville was not
greatly patronised. Madame Aubain gathered information, consulted
Bourais, and made preparations as if they were going on an extended
trip.
The baggage was sent the day before on Liebard's cart. On the
following morning, he brought around two horses, one of which had a
woman's saddle with a velveteen 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 Liebard. Felicite took charge of the
little girl, and Paul rode M. Lechaptois' donkey, which had been lent
for the occasion on the condition that they should be careful of it.

The road was so bad that it took two hours to cover the eight miles. The
two horses sank knee-deep into the mud and stumbled into ditches;
sometimes they had to jump over them. In certain places, Liebard's
mare stopped abruptly. He waited patiently till she started again, and
talked 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 Lehoussais, who, instead of taking a young man--" Felicite
could not catch what followed; the horses began to trot, the donkey to
gallop, and they turned into a lane; then a gate swung open, two farm-
hands appeared and they all dismounted at the very threshold of the
farm-house.
Mother Liebard, when she caught sight of her mistress, was lavish with
joyful demonstrations. She got up a lunch which comprised a leg of
mutton, tripe, sausages, a chicken fricassee, sweet cider, 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," and Paul, who had
become singularly sturdy; she spoke also of their deceased
grandparents, whom the Liebards had known, for they had been in the
service of the family for several generations.
Like its owners, the farm had an ancient appearance. The beams of the
ceiling were mouldy, the walls black with smoke and the windows grey
with dust. The oak sideboard was filled with all sorts of utensils, plates,
pitchers, tin bowls, wolf-traps. The children laughed when 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 quantities of
apples. The thatched roofs, which were of unequal thickness, looked
like brown velvet and could resist the fiercest gales. But the
wagon-shed was fast crumbling to ruins. Madame Aubain said that she
would attend to it, and then gave orders to have the horses saddled.

It took another thirty minutes to reach Trouville. The little caravan
dismounted in order to pass Les Ecores, a cliff that overhangs the bay,
and a few minutes later, at the