beyondthebayou.docVIP

Beyond the Bayou A middle-aged black woman named?La Folle?lives in a cabin past an abandoned field next to the bayou, and she has never visited the woods beyond her home. Her name was once Jacqueline, but she gained her nickname because she went a little mad after a frightening experience in her childhood when the young master?Ptit Ma?tre?came bloodied into her mothers cabin after a skirmish in the woods. La Folle has never entirely returned to sanity, and she now lives alone, knowing nothing of life outside of the bayou besides what she imagines in her mind. La Folle has never crossed the bayou, even when the mistress of Bellissime died. Ptit Ma?tre now owns Bellissime and has multiple daughters and a son whom La Folle adores and calls Chéri. One summer, after Chéri has grown older and has gotten his own gun, the children and the cattle are able to cross the bayou on foot due to a mild drought and subsequent lowering of the water level. On Saturday afternoons, the fields are deserted while the men go to market and the women do domestic tasks. While La Folle does her Saturday chores, she often thinks of Chéri, and when Chéri returns, he comes to her before going into the wood to hunt. He has bragged to her before about the game that he will bring to her. Today, however, she hears a shot of the rifle accompanied by a cry of distress, and she runs toward the sound. She discovers Chéri on the ground, moaning that he had stumbled and accidentally shot himself in the leg. She wants to take him to Doctor Bonfils but is afraid to cross into the world of the bayou, so she shouts for help. Upon hearing no reply, she runs terrified into what is for her a new world. Other people notice with surprise that she has crossed the bayou with Chéri, but they do not approach her because of her mad expression. Someone alerts Ptit Ma?tre, and she dumps Chéri into his fathers arms before fainting. When she awakens, she is again in her cabin and peacefully goes back to sleep, alleviating e