# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Gustave Flaubert.

- [Saint Julian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/saint_julian.md): Julian grows up adored as a child touched by heaven, his cradle lined with feathers and a dove-lamp burning above him, while his parents secretly treasure a prophecy of great bloodshed and great glory. Trained in horsema
- [Félicité](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/felicite.md): Félicité runs Madame Aubain's household with quiet authority, turning away importunate visitors and steering children past a fog-hidden bull with a murmured lament and a steady hand on an ox's back. Her only literary edu
- [Madame Aubain](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/madame_aubain.md): Madame Aubain receives her ruined uncle the Marquis and her lawyer Monsieur Bourais, oversees her children's lessons, and retreats to the crumbling Geffosses cottage where recollection makes her hang her head while the c
- [Herod Antipas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/herod_antipas.md): Antipas presides over a tense banquet where Sadducees, Pharisees, Galileans, and Roman officials jostle for advantage, presenting personages to Vitellius and kneeling before the proconsul with elaborate flattery. Bent be
- [Herodias](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/herodias.md): Herodias enters the banquet with eunuchs and perfumed torches, greeting the proconsul and pointedly remarking that Agrippa can no longer harm Tiberius, a remark Vitellius finds dangerous. Spurned by her husband's coldnes
- [Loulou](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/loulou.md): Loulou is the creature Félicité loves most purely, and in her solitude she hangs his image beside a picture of the baptism of Christ, where the parrot's likeness to the Holy Ghost strikes her as unmistakable. She turns t
- [Virginia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/virginia.md): Virginia is the cherished daughter whose slightest emotion exhausts her, forcing her to abandon piano lessons and depend on regular letters from the convent. Her mother's obsessive concern for Virginia's correspondence e
- [Mannaeus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/mannaeus.md): Mannaeus serves Antipas as jailer and confidant, a masseur-built sentinel whose cutlass and ape-like suppleness make him the tetrarch's instrument for keeping Iaokanann hidden. His Samaritan hatred of the Jews—rooted in 
- [Vitellius](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/vitellius.md): Vitellius never quite arrives in the early pages, but his anticipated presence looms over Antipas's birthday banquet like a verdict waiting to be read. The tetrarch's impatience and anxiety about the governor's arrival e
- [Iaokanann](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/iaokanann.md): Iaokanann—known to later ages as John the Baptist—sits in Herod's dungeon, sometimes raging to escape, sometimes quiet as a sick animal, always repeating his strange formula of self-abnegation. His voice, heard from the 
- [Aulus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/aulus.md): A young Roman officer accompanying Vitellius to the banquet.
- [Victor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/victor.md): Madame Aubain's son, who goes to sea and dies abroad.
- [Monsieur Bourais](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/monsieur_bourais.md): A lawyer and friend of Madame Aubain who manages her affairs.
- [Phanuel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/phanuel.md): A Pharisee and prophet who warns Herod about Iaokanann.
- [Paul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/paul.md): Madame Aubain's nephew, briefly mentioned in her household.
- [Jacim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/jacim.md): A servant in Herod's palace, involved in the plot against Iaokanann.
- [Colmiche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/colmiche.md): An old beggar woman cared for by Félicité in her final years.
- [Agrippa](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/agrippa.md): King Agrippa, a political figure mentioned in the Herodias story.
- [Fabu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_22_se/characters/fabu.md): A servant in Herod's household, involved in palace duties.

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