The two children were of equal importance; they were united in her heart and their fate was to be the same.

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 ignorance delighted 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.