Félicité Barette Quotes

“Her sadness had melted away in the warmth of her surroundings.”

“Her father, a mason, had died in a fall from some scaffolding. Then her mother died, her sisters scattered, and a farmer took her in and employed her, small as she was, to look after the cows in the fields. She would shiver in her rags, drink pond water lying flat on her stomach, and be beaten for the slightest reason, and was finally thrown out over a theft of thirty sols which she had not committed.”

“Her sorrow was extreme. She threw herself on the ground, screamed, appealed to God, and wept all alone in the fields until the sunrise. Then she returned to the farm and announced that she wanted to leave.”

“Walking back past the roadside cross, Félicité decided to commend to God what she cherished the most. She stood there for a long time, looking up at the sky and praying, her face bathed in tears.”

“This place, where few were admitted, was like a mixture of a chapel and a bazaar, full of religious objects and the most varied assortment of things.”

“All the old things which Madame Aubain no longer wanted, she took for her room.”

“What especially upset her was having to abandon her room – so ideal for poor Loulou.”

“All at once she felt weak, and the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first love, her nephew’s departure, the death of Virginie, all swept over her like a wave, rising into her throat, choking her.”

“For a hundred francs a year, she did the cooking and the housework, she sewed, washed and ironed, she could bridle a horse, fatten the poultry and churn the butter, and she was unfailingly loyal to her mistress, even though the latter was not a pleasant person.”

“By the time she reached her fifties, she was ageless—and, with her constant silence, her upright figure and her measured gestures, she seemed like a woman made out of wood, a kind of automaton that moved without thinking. ”

″[. . . H]e proposed marriage. She did not believe him at first, but he swore solemnly that he meant it.”

“His white cravat, his bald head, the jabot of his shirt, his roomy brown frock coat, the way he bent his arm when he took snuff – everything about him produced in her the kind of agitation we feel in the presence of extraordinary men. ”

“Paul explained these engravings to Félicité. It was the only book learning she had ever received. ”

“For many years, this episode was a topic of conversation in Pont-l’Évêque. But Félicité, unaware that she had done anything heroic, took no pride in it.”

“Félicité was as grateful as if her mistress had done her a good deed, and from this point on cherished her with an animal-like devotion, a religious veneration. ”

“It was clear that they were exploiting her—much to the annoyance of Madame Aubain, who in any case did not like the fact that Félicité‘s nephew was so familiar towards her son.”

″‘Oh, your nephew!’ Shrugging her shoulders, Madame Aubain resumed her pacing, as if to say, ‘I’d forgotten all about him! And why should I care anyway? A ship’s boy, a rogue, so what? Whereas my daughter… Think of that!’ ”