Three Tales - Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert

THREE TALES

Original Title:

Trois contes

First Edition

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Gustave Flaubert

1821-1880

Gustave Flaubert is a legend, one of the great innovators of the realistic novel, but also somewhat of a contradiction. The son of a wealthy doctor, young Flaubert rebelled against the comfortable life he led: he was expelled from school at 18 for his misbehavior and scorned the bourgeoisie. He wrote the novel Madame Bovary, which led him to court. He was accused of offending morality and religion. He was acquitted by the Sixth Correctional Court of the Seine Tribunal and condemned by the puritans due to the theme of adultery, criticism of the clergy, and the bourgeoisie. Flaubert is one of the most important representatives of French realism.

Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, on December 21, 1821. He was the son of the surgeon Achille-Cléophas Flaubert and Justine Caroline Fleuriot. In 1832, he entered the Royal College. Distracted and disinterested, he disliked studying and preferred devouring novels. He edited the school newspaper Art and Progress. At 15, he was drawn to the works of Shakespeare, Dumas, and Victor Hugo.

In his adolescence, he fell in love with Elisa Schlesinger, a married woman eleven years his senior. Between 1837 and 1845, he wrote the drama Louis XI and the novels Hell's Fantasy, Passion and Virtue. This impossible love inspired him to write the books Memoirs of a Madman, November, and Sentimental Education.

Gustave Flaubert studied Law in Paris to fulfill his father's wishes. In 1844, after failing exams, he experienced his first epileptic attack. He abandoned his studies and moved with his family to the new property in Croisset, on the banks of the Seine, near Rouen. In 1846, his father and his sister Caroline died. He met Louise Colet, a separated woman and mother of a 16-year-old, with whom he had a love affair.

In 1848, he ended his romance with Louise. That same year, his childhood friend Alfred Le Poittevin died. His health deteriorated. Following medical advice, he went to the Orient, intending to stay for two or three years. However, after a few months, he decided to return to Croisset.

In 1851, after a long period of non-production, he began writing Madame Bovary, the most famous work of his career. It took him five years of incessant work. He wrote and rewrote the same page dozens of times. In 1856, the novel began to be published in the Revue de Paris, with some censorship due to the austerity of the time. The book tells the story of Emma Bovary, who engages in a series of adulteries to escape the mediocre life she believes she leads with her husband, a provincial doctor. The novel, which ends with Bovary's suicide, caused a scandal in France. Flaubert was accused of immorality and brought to trial.

In January 1857, he sat in the dock alongside Laurent Pichat, the magazine's editor. Eight days later, the author was acquitted, and the book was published in a complete edition that quickly sold out.

Gustave Flaubert passed away in Croisset, France, on May 8, 1880.

Regarding the work Three Tales:

Around 1875, the writer Gustave Flaubert had been struggling to write Bouvard and Pécuchet for some time, but he couldn't finish it and fell into a creative crisis that troubled him deeply. It wasn't just a creative crisis; there were also serious financial difficulties, the process of creating the work Madame Bovary, and the relative failure of some titles and works released, which surely undermined his self-esteem and creativity.

In a letter written to Mrs. Des Genettes, the author said: Bouvard and Pécuchet is too difficult, I give up; I search for another novel without finding anything. In the meantime, I am going to write 'The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller,' just to occupy my mind with something, to see if I still know how to construct a sentence, which I doubt. From this tale emerged two others that completed the trilogy: A Simple Heart and Herodias. The narratives gathered in Three Tales were written with such mastery that it is difficult to believe Gustave Flaubert was going through a crisis when he created them. It's something the reader will discover for themselves.

Other Works by Gustave Flaubert include:

Rêve d'enfer (Passion and Virtue) 1837

Mémoires d'un fou (Memoirs of a Madman) 1838

Novembre (November) 1842

Madame Bovary (Madame Bovary) 1857

Salammbô (Salammbo) 1862

L'Éducation Sentimentale (Sentimental Education) 1869

Lettres à la municipalité de Rouen (Letters to the Municipality of Rouen) 1872

Le Candidat (play) 1874

La Tentation de Saint Antoine (The Temptation of Saint Anthony) 1874

Le Château des cœurs (play) 1880

Bouvard et Pécuchet (unfinished) 1881

À bord de la Cange 1904

Par les champs et les grèves 1910

Oeuvres de jeunesse inédites (Unpublished Early Works)

THREE TALES

THE LEGEND OF SAINT-JULIAN THE HOSPITALLER

CHAPTER I - THE CURSE

Julian's father and mother dwelt in a castle built on the slope of a hill, in the heart of the woods. The towers at its four corners had pointed roofs covered with leaden tiles, and the foundation rested upon solid rocks, which descended abruptly to the bottom of the moat. In the courtyard, the stone flagging was as immaculate as the floor of a church. Long rain-spouts, representing dragons with yawning jaws, directed the water towards the cistern, and on each window-sill of the castle a basil or a heliotrope bush bloomed, in painted flower-pots

A second enclosure, surrounded by a fence, comprised a fruit-orchard, a garden decorated with figures wrought in bright-hued flowers, an arbor with several bowers, and a mall for the diversion of the pages. On the other side were the kennel, the stables, the bakery, the winepress and the barns. Around these spread a pasture, also enclosed by a strong hedge.

Peace had reigned so long that the portcullis was never lowered; the moats were filled with water; swallows built their nests in the cracks of the battlements, and as soon as the sun shone too strongly, the archer who all day long paced to and fro on the curtain, withdrew to the watchtower and slept soundly.

Inside the castle, the locks on the doors shone brightly; costly tapestries hung in the apartments to keep out the cold; the closets overflowed with linen, the cellar was filled with casks of wine, and the oak chests fairly groaned under the weight of moneybags.

In the armory could be seen, between banners and the heads of wild beasts, weapons of all nations and of all ages, from the slings of the Amalekites and the javelins of the Garamantes, to the broad swords of the Saracens and the coats of mail of the Normans.

The largest spit in the kitchen could hold an ox; the chapel was as gorgeous as a king's oratory. There was even a Roman bath in a secluded part of the castle, though the good lord of the manor refrained from using it, as he deemed it a heathenish practice.

Wrapped always in a cape made of fox-skins, he wandered about the castle, rendered justice among his vassals and settled his neighbors ‘quarrels. In the winter, he gazed dreamily at the falling snow, or had stories read aloud to him. But as soon as the fine weather returned, he would mount his mule and sally forth into the country roads, edged with ripening wheat, to talk with the peasants, to whom he distributed advice. After a number of adventures he took unto himself a wife of high lineage.

She was pale and serious, and a trifle haughty. The horns of her head-dress touched the top of the doors and the hem of her gown trailed far behind her. She conducted her household like a cloister. Every morning she distributed work to the maids, supervised the making of preserves and unguents, and afterwards passed her time in spinning, or in embroidering altar-cloths. In response to her fervent prayers, God granted her a son!

Then there was great rejoicing; and they gave a feast which lasted three days and four nights, with illuminations and soft music. Chickens as large as sheep, and the rarest spices were served; for the entertainment of the guests, a dwarf crept out of a pie; and when the bowls were too few, for the crowd swelled continuously, the wine was drunk from helmets and hunting-horns.

The young mother did not appear at the feast. She was quietly resting in bed. One night she awoke and beheld in a moonbeam that crept through the window something that looked like a moving shadow. It was an old man clad in sackcloth, who resembled a hermit. A rosary dangled at his side and he carried a beggar's sack on his shoulder. He approached the foot of the bed, and without opening his lips said: Rejoice, O mother! Thy son shall be a saint.

She would have cried out, but the old man, gliding along the moonbeam, rose through the air and disappeared. The songs of the banqueters grew louder. She could hear angels' voices, and her head sank back on the pillow, which was surmounted by the bone of a martyr, framed in precious stones.

The following day, the servants, upon being questioned, declared, to a man, that they had seen no hermit. Then, whether dream or fact, this must certainly have been a communication from heaven; but she took care not to speak of it, lest she should be accused of presumption.

The guests departed at daybreak, and Julian's father stood at the castle gate, where he had just bidden farewell to the last one, when a beggar suddenly emerged from the mist and confronted him.

He was a gipsy—for he had a braided beard and wore silver bracelets on each arm. His eyes burned and, in an inspired way, he muttered some disconnected words: Ah! Ah! thy son! — great bloodshed--great glory—happy always — an emperor's family.

Then he stooped to pick up the alms thrown to him and disappeared in the tall grass.

The lord of the manor looked up and down the road and called as loudly as he could. But no one answered him! The wind only howled and the morning mists were fast dissolving.

He attributed his vision to a dullness of the brain resulting from too much sleep. If I should speak of it, quote he, people would laugh at me. Still, the glory that was to be his son's dazzled him, albeit the meaning of the prophecy was not clear