"A Simple Heart" : "A Simple Heart" is Gustave Flaubert’s first short story published in the book Three Tales, published in 1877.The story of "A Simple Heart" is simply the story of an obscure life, that of a poor country girl, devout but mystical, devoted without exaltation and tender as fresh bread.She loves successively a man, the children of her mistress, a nephew, an old man whom she cares for and then her parrot; when the parrot is dead, she has it stuffed and, dying in turn, she confuses the parrot with the Holy Spirit."This is by no means ironic as you suppose, but on the contrary, very serious and very sad. I want to pity and make sensitive souls cry, by being one myself." Gustave Flaubert.