THREE STORIES by Gustave Flaubert 

TROIS CONTES, which I title THREE STORIES, was Gustave Flaubert’s last book, begun and finished just before he terminated the work on BOUVARD ET PÉCUCHET.
The selection read here is composed of the first two sections of the first story, ‘A Simple Soul’ (‘Un coeur simple’, literally ‘A Simple Heart’), which recounts the life of a servant woman and her relationship with her mistress, Mme Aubaine, and Mme Aubaine’s two children, Paul and Virginie.
The other two stories are ‘The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaler’, a retelling of the traditional tale of the medieval figure, and ‘Herodias’, which takes place in the court of King Herod on a fateful day.
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