Characters of the story

      The main character of the story is Mamzelle Aurélie, her direct characterization is provided at the very beginning: “MAMZELLE Aurélie possessed a good strong figure, ruddy cheeks, hair that was changing from brown to gray, and a determined eye. She wore a man's hat about the farm, and an old  blue army overcoat when it was cold, and sometimes topboots.” Judging by such appearance, she is rather manlike and brutal, even her gestures are of mannish nature: she holds her hands “akimbo”. She is rather well-off and she’s made fortune by her own hands, as she has never had a husband: she has a cook and negroes, who are working for her in the field; her household is very rich in different animals: “and the fowls, a few cows, a couple of mules.”

She is extremely reserved and misanthropic: “Mamzelle Aurélie had never thought of marrying. She had never been in love. At the age of twenty she had received a proposal, which she had promptly declined, and at the age of fifty she had not yet lived to regret it.” She is a kind of a feminist, because she refuses to accept the proposal and even doesn’t regret about it. She is alone in the world, her nearest neighbour is not a friend of hers: “so unexpected and bewildering was their coming, and so unwelcome”; “her nearest neighbor, Odile, who was not such a near neighbor”. She is disgusted by a bunch of childer, whom she treats as something more of little dirty animals: “She began by feeding them.”; “But little children are not little pigs.” She begins to complain about her accidental burden to her cook: "I tell you, Aunt Ruby," Mamzelle Aurélie informed her cook in confidence; "me, I'd rather manage a dozen plantation' than fo' chil'ren. It's terrassent! Bonté! Don't talk to me about chil'ren!" But the character of Mamzelle Aurélie is not static, she develops her  personality throughout the story. If in the beginning the children simply irritate and bother her , she considers them a burden; shortly afterwards the children’s unconditional love and warmness melt her stone mannish heart: “Ti Nomme's sticky fingers compelled her to unearth white aprons that she had not worn for years, and she had to accustom herself to his moist kisses-the expressions of an affectionate and exuberant nature.” She tries to make comfort for them, to win their favour: “She got down her sewing-basket, which she seldom used, from the top shelf of the armoire, and placed it within the ready and easy reach which torn slips and buttonless waists demanded.” Even her temperament changes: “It took her some days to become accustomed to the laughing, the crying, the chattering that echoed through the house and around it all day long.” Two weeks has taken her to enter the children completely upon her heart: “But at the end of two weeks Mamzelle Aurélie had grown quite used to these things, and she no longer complained.” The arrival of Odile, her “closest” neighbour wasn’t happy for her: “But this coming, unannounced and unexpected, threw Mamzelle Aurélie into a flutter that was almost agitation.” That was the moment when Mamzelle Aurélie realizes the real value in her life: she becomes so stuck to the children, that the fact of their departure shocks her. Her life becomes even emptier then it was before: “She let her head fall down upon her bended arm, and began to cry. Oh, but she cried!” She abandons herself to tears, but her manlike character is still evident:  “Not softly, as women often do. She cr ied like a man, with sobs that seemed to tear her very soul.” The last sentence indicates that her dog is licking her hand, but she doesn’t notice it. This moment is notional, because the image of the dog is symbolic in the story: the dog is the symbol of the woman’s solitude, she has had the dog before and the state of things remains the same at the end of the story. 

         Another protagonist in the story is Mamzelle Aurélie, who is characterized as “her nearest neighbor, Odile, who was not such a near neighbor, after all.” The woman is a complete opposite to Mamzelle Aurélie. She is young, but she already has four children, and in contrary to Mamzelle Aurélie, she realizes the main value in life  – children: “As they drew near,the young woman's beaming face indicated  that her homecoming was a happy one.”