A Simple Heart

A Simple Heart

The Story of a Simple Heart is quite simply the story of an obscure life, that of a poor country girl, devout but not mystical, devoted without exaltation and tender like fresh bread. She successively loves a man, her mistress’s children, a nephew, an old man whom she cares for, then her parrot […] This is in no way ironic as you suppose, but on the contrary very serious and very sad. I want to pity, to make sensitive souls cry – by being one myself.” Flaubert, Letter to Edma Roger des Genettes, June 19, 1876.