Showing results by author "Gustave Flaubert" in Short Stories

Published at the end of Flaubert’s career, Three Tales is a collection of three compelling short stories about faith, loneliness and love. In "A Simple Heart", a saint-like servant girl begins to experience religious visions of her pet parrot after enduring the loss of loved ones. "The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller" presents the origin story of Julian the Hospitaller, who renounces the violence of his past and cares for the indigent. "Herodias", the final story, retells the beheading of St. John the Baptist, and the seduction of Herod by Salome.

Gustave Flaubert is one of the major figures of French literature. He was known for his scrupulous devotion to his style, sometimes working for a whole week to achieve a single page; he was made famous by his first novel, Madame Bovary. "A Simple Soul", sometimes translated as "A Simple Heart", is a short story containing a lifetime of human emotions. After her one and only love purportedly marries a well-to-do woman to avoid conscription, the simple servant Félicité picks up work in a widow's house.

"Er hieß Loulou. Sein Leib war grün, die Spitzen seiner Flügel rosa..." 1877 veröffentlicht Gustave Flaubert sein letztes Buch, mit dem er sich drei Jahrzehnte beschäftigt hat, und für viele ist es sein vollkommenstes Werk. Félicité, die einfache Magd, die ihr "schlichtes Herz" voller Hingabe und Liebe verschenkt, getröstet nur von Flauberts berühmten Papagei; Julian, der seine Eltern ermordet und doch ein Heiliger wird; Salome, die tanzt, bis sie den Kopf Johannes des Täufers bekommt - drei unvergessliche Gestalten, drei ganze Leben.

Un corazón sencillo narra la vida de Félicité, una sirvienta que, a pesar de las adversidades, conserva una fe y devoción inquebrantables. A través de sus experiencias, desde pérdidas amorosas hasta su conexión profunda con un loro llamado Lulu, Flaubert retrata con maestría los altibajos del espíritu humano. En esta obra, la vida cotidiana de una mujer común se transforma en una reflexión profunda sobre la soledad, la dedicación y el poder del amor incondicional.

She lived in the shadow of others—quietly, dutifully, without question. Her world was small: a kitchen hearth, the rhythm of chores, a parrot who would outlive most dreams. But in that stillness, something vast took root. A devotion so complete, it blurred the line between the sacred and the simple. This story doesn't shout. It listens. It watches. It waits. And by the time it's done, you'll understand how the softest hearts carry the heaviest truths.