A green and yellow
parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over:
"Allez vous-en!
Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!"
He could speak a little
Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood, unless it was the
mocking-bird that hung on the other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes
out upon the breeze with maddening persistence.
Mr. Pontellier, unable
to read his newspaper with any degree of comfort, arose with an expression and
an exclamation of disgust. He walked down the gallery and across the narrow
"bridges" which connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He
had been seated before the door of the main house. The parrot and the
mockingbird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the right to make
all the noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their
society when they ceased to be entertaining.
He stopped before the
door of his own cottage, which was the fourth one from the main building and
next to the last. Seating himself in a wicker rocker which was there, he once
more applied himself to the task of reading the newspaper. The day was Sunday;
the paper was a day old. The Sunday papers had not yet reached Grand Isle. He
was already acquainted with the market reports, and he glanced restlessly over
the editorials and bits of news which he had not had time to read before
quitting New Orleans the day before.
Mr. Pontellier wore
eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build;
he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His
beard was neatly and closely trimmed.
Once in a while he
withdrew his glance from the newspaper and looked about him. There was more
noise than ever over at the house. The main building was called "the
house," to distinguish it from the cottages. The chattering and whistling
birds were still at it. Two young girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet
from "Zampa" upon the piano. Madame Lebrun was bustling in and out,
giving orders in a high key to a yard-boy whenever she got inside the house,
and directions in an equally high voice to a dining-room servant whenever she
got outside. She was a fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow
sleeves. Her starched skirts crinkled as she came and went. Farther down,
before one of the cottages, a lady in black was walking demurely up and down,
telling her beads. A good many persons of the pensionhad gone over to the
Cheniere Caminada in Beaudelet's lugger to hear mass. Some young people were
out under the water- oaks playing croquet. Mr. Pontellier's two children were
there sturdy little fellows of four and five. A quadroon nurse followed them
about with a faraway, meditative air.
Mr. Pontellier finally
lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper drag idly from his hand. He
fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that was advancing at snail's pace from
the beach. He could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks
and across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting
hazily into the blue of the horizon. The sunshade continued to approach slowly.
Beneath its pink-lined shelter were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert
Lebrun. When they reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with some
appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each other, each
leaning against a supporting post.
"What folly! to
bathe at such an hour in such heat!" exclaimed Mr. Pontellier. He himself
had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why the morning seemed long to him.
"You are burnt
beyond recognition," he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a
valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage. She held up
her hands, strong, shapely hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her
fawn sleeves above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which
she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached
out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and
dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then
clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings
sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile.
"What is it?"
asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to the other. It was some
utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the water, and they both tried to
relate it at once. It did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized
this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got
up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein's hotel and play a game of
billiards.
"Come go along,
Lebrun," he proposed to Robert. But Robert admitted quite frankly that he
preferred to stay where he was and talk to Mrs. Pontellier.
"Well, send him
about his business when he bores you, Edna," instructed her husband as he
prepared to leave.
"Here, take the
umbrella," she exclaimed, holding it out to him. He accepted the sunshade,
and lifting it over his head descended the steps and walked away.
"Coming back to dinner?"
his wife called after him. He halted a moment and shrugged his shoulders. He
felt in his vest pocket; there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know;
perhaps he would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all
depended upon the company which he found over at Klein's and the size of
"the game." He did not say this, but she understood it, and laughed,
nodding good-by to him.
Both children wanted to
follow their father when they saw him starting out. He kissed them and promised
to bring them back bonbons and peanuts.
Mrs. Pontellier's eyes
were quick and bright; they were a yellowish brown, about the color of her
hair. She had a way of turning them swiftly upon an object and holding them
there as if lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought.
Her eyebrows were a
shade darker than her hair. They were thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing
the depth of her eyes. She was rather handsome than beautiful. Her face was
captivating by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory
subtle play of features. Her manner was engaging.
Robert rolled a
cigarette. He smoked cigarettes because he could not afford cigars, he said. He
had a cigar in his pocket which Mr. Pontellier had presented him with, and he was
saving it for his after-dinner smoke.
This seemed quite
proper and natural on his part. In coloring he was not unlike his companion. A
clean-shaved face made the resemblance more pronounced than it would otherwise
have been. There rested no shadow of care upon his open countenance. His eyes
gathered in and reflected the light and languor of the summer day.
Mrs. Pontellier reached
over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch and began to fan herself, while
Robert sent between his lips light puffs from his cigarette. They chatted
incessantly: about the things around them; their amusing adventure out in the
water--it had again assumed its entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees,
the people who had gone to the Cheniere; about the children playing croquet
under the oaks, and the Farival twins, who were now performing the overture to
"The Poet and the Peasant."
Robert talked a good
deal about himself. He was very young, and did not know any better. Mrs.
Pontellier talked a little about herself for the same reason. Each was
interested in what the other said. Robert spoke of his intention to go to
Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him. He was always intending to go
to Mexico, but some way never got there. Meanwhile he held on to his modest position
in a mercantile house in New Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English,
French and Spanish gave him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.
He was spending his
summer vacation, as he always did, with his mother at Grand Isle. In former
times, before Robert could remember, "the house" had been a summer
luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its dozen or more cottages, which were
always filled with exclusive visitors from the "Quartier Francais,"
it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the easy and comfortable existence which
appeared to be her birthright.
Mrs. Pontellier talked
about her father's Mississippi plantation and her girlhood home in the old
Kentucky bluegrass country. She was an American woman, with a small infusion of
French which seemed to have been lost in dilution. She read a letter from her
sister, who was away in the East, and who had engaged herself to be married.
Robert was interested, and wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters
were, what the father was like, and how long the mother had been dead.
When Mrs. Pontellier
folded the letter it was time for her to dress for the early dinner.
"I see Léonce
isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in the direction whence her
husband had disappeared. Robert supposed he was not, as there were a good many
New Orleans club men over at Klein's.
When Mrs. Pontellier
left him to enter her room, the young man descended the steps and strolled over
toward the croquet players, where, during the half-hour before dinner, he amused
himself with the little Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.
It was eleven o'clock
that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from Klein's hotel. He was in an
excellent humor, in high spirits, and very talkative. His entrance awoke his
wife, who was in bed and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he
undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had
gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took a fistful of
crumpled bank notes and a good deal of silver coin, which he piled on the
bureau indiscriminately with keys, knife, handkerchief, and whatever else
happened to be in his pockets. She was overcome with sleep, and answered him
with little half utterances.
He thought it very
discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object of his existence, evinced
so little interest in things which concerned him, and valued so little his
conversation.
Mr. Pontellier had
forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys. Notwithstanding he loved them very
much, and went into the adjoining room where they slept to take a look at them
and make sure that they were resting comfortably. The result of his
investigation was far from satisfactory. He turned and shifted the youngsters
about in bed. One of them began to kick and talk about a basket full of crabs.
Mr. Pontellier returned
to his wife with the information that Raoul had a high fever and needed looking
after. Then he lit a cigar and went and sat near the open door to smoke it.
Mrs. Pontellier was quite
sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to bed perfectly well, she said, and
nothing had ailed him all day. Mr. Pontellier was too well acquainted with
fever symptoms to be mistaken. He assured her the child was consuming at that
moment in the next room.
He reproached his wife
with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a
mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it? He him self had
his hands full with his brokerage business. He could not be in two places at
once; making a living for his family on the street, and staying at home to see
that no harm befell them. He talked in a monotonous, insistent way.
Mrs. Pontellier sprang
out of bed and went into the next room. She soon came back and sat on the edge
of the bed, leaning her head down on the pillow. She said nothing, and refused
to answer her husband when he questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he
went to bed, and in half a minute he was fast asleep.
Mrs. Pontellier was by
that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a little, and wiped her eyes on
the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out the candle, which her husband had left
burning, she slipped her bare feet into a pair of satin mules at the foot of the
bed and went out on the porch, where she sat down in the wicker chair and began
to rock gently to and fro.
It was then past
midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint light gleamed out from the
hallway of the house. There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old
owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was
not uplifted at that soft hour. It broke like a mournful lullaby upon the
night.
The tears came so fast
to Mrs. Pontellier's eyes that the damp sleeve of her peignoirno longer served
to dry them. She was holding the back of her chair with one hand; her loose
sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she
thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on
crying there, not caring any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She
could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were
not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much
against the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which
had come to be tacit and self-understood.
An indescribable
oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her
consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a
shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day. It was strange and
unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly upbraiding her
husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which
they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes
made merry over her, biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her bare
insteps.
The little stinging,
buzzing imps succeeded in dispelling a mood which might have held her there in
the darkness half a night longer.
The following morning
Mr. Pontellier was up in good time to take the rockaway which was to convey him
to the steamer at the wharf. He was returning to the city to his business, and
they would not see him again at the Island till the coming Saturday. He had
regained his composure, which seemed to have been somewhat impaired the night
before. He was eager to be gone, as he looked forward to a lively week in
Carondelet Street.
Mr. Pontellier gave his
wife half of the money which he had brought away from Klein's hotel the evening
before. She liked money as well as most women, and, accepted it with no little
satisfaction.
"It will buy a
handsome wedding present for Sister Janet!" she exclaimed, smoothing out
the bills as she counted them one by one.
"Oh! we'll treat
Sister Janet better than that, my dear," he laughed, as he prepared to
kiss her good-by.
The boys were tumbling
about, clinging to his legs, imploring that numerous things be brought back to
them. Mr. Pontellier was a great favorite, and ladies, men, children, even
nurses, were always on hand to say goodby to him. His wife stood smiling and
waving, the boys shouting, as he disappeared in the old rockaway down the sandy
road.
A few days later a box
arrived for Mrs. Pontellier from New Orleans. It was from her husband. It was
filled with friandises,with luscious and toothsome bits--the finest of fruits,
pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious syrups, and bonbons in abundance.
Mrs. Pontellier was
always very generous with the contents of such a box; she was quite used to
receiving them when away from home. The patesand fruit were brought to the
dining-room; the bonbons were passed around. And the ladies, selecting with
dainty and discriminating fingers and a little greedily, all declared that Mr.
Pontellier was the best husband in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to
admit that she knew of none better.
It would have been a
difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his own satisfaction or any
one else's wherein his wife failed in her duty toward their children. It was
something which he felt rather than perceived, and he never voiced the feeling
without subsequent regret and ample atonement.
If one of the little
Pontellier boys took a tumble whilst at play, he was not apt to rush crying to
his mother's arms for comfort; he would more likely pick himself up, wipe the
water out of his eves and the sand out of his mouth, and go on playing. Tots as
they were, they pulled together and stood their ground in childish battles with
doubled fists and uplifted voices, which usually prevailed against the other
mother-tots. The quadroon nurse was looked upon as a huge encumbrance, only
good to button up waists and panties and to brush and part hair; since it
seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed.
In short, Mrs.
Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The mother- women seemed to prevail that
summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended,
protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious
brood. They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands,
and esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow
wings as ministering angels.
Many of them were
delicious in the role; one of them was the embodiment of every womanly grace
and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a brute, deserving of death
by slow torture. Her name was Adèle Ratignolle. There are no words to describe
her save the old ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine
of romance and the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing subtle or hidden
about her charms; her beauty was all there, flaming and apparent: the spun-gold
hair that comb nor confining pin could restrain; the blue eyes that were like
nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted, that were so red one could only
think of cherries or some other delicious crimson fruit in looking at them. She
was growing a little stout, but it did not seem to detract an iota from the
grace of every step, pose, gesture. One would not have wanted her white neck a
mite less full or her beautiful arms more slender. Never were hands more
exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to look at them when she threaded her
needle or adjusted her gold thimble to her taper middle finger as she sewed
away on the little night-drawers or fashioned a bodice or a bib.
Madame Ratignolle was
very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she took her sewing and went over to
sit with her in the afternoons. She was sitting there the afternoon of the day
the box arrived from New Orleans. She had possession of the rocker, and she was
busily engaged in sewing upon a diminutive pair of night- drawers.
She had brought the
pattern of the draw ers for Mrs. Pontellier to cut out--a marvel of
construction, fashioned to enclose a baby's body so effectually that only two
small eyes might look out from the garment, like an Eskimo's. They were
designed for winter wear, when treacherous drafts came down chimneys and
insidious currents of deadly cold found their way through key-holes.
Mrs. Pontellier's mind
was quite at rest concerning the present material needs of her children, and
she could not see the use of anticipating and making winter night garments the
subject of her summer meditations. But she did not want to appear unamiable and
uninterested, so she had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the
floor of the gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle's directions she had cut a
pattern of the impervious garment.
Robert was there,
seated as he had been the Sunday before, and Mrs. Pontellier also occupied her
former position on the upper step, leaning listlessly against the post. Beside
her was a box of bonbons, which she held out at intervals to Madame Ratignolle.
That lady seemed at a
loss to make a selection, but finally settled upon a stick of nougat, wondering
if it were not too rich; whether it could possibly hurt her. Madame Ratignolle
had been married seven years. About every two years she had a baby. At that
time she had three babies, and was beginning to think of a fourth one. She was
always talking about her "condition." Her "condition" was
in no way apparent, and no one would have known a thing about it but for her
persistence in making it the subject of conversation.
Robert started to
reassure her, asserting that he had known a lady who had subsisted upon nougat
during the entire--but seeing the color mount into Mrs. Pontellier's face he
checked himself and changed the subject.
Mrs. Pontellier, though
she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the society of Creoles;
never before had she been thrown so intimately among them. There were only
Creoles that summer at Lebrun's. They all knew each other, and felt like one
large family, among whom existed the most amicable relations. A characteristic
which distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly was
their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was at first
incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in reconciling it with a
lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to be inborn and unmistakable.
Never would Edna
Pontellier forget the shock with which she heard Madame Ratignolle relating to
old Monsieur Farival the harrowing story of one of her accouchements,
withholding no intimate detail. She was growing accustomed to like shocks, but
she could not keep the mounting color back from her cheeks. Oftener than once
her coming had interrupted the droll story with which Robert was entertaining
some amused group of married women.
A book had gone the
rounds of the pension. When it came her turn to read it, she did so with
profound astonishment. She felt moved to read the book in secret and solitude,
though none of the others had done so,--to hide it from view at the sound of
approaching footsteps. It was openly criticised and freely discussed at table.
Mrs. Pontellier gave over being astonished, and concluded that wonders would
never cease.
They formed a congenial
group sitting there that summer afternoon--Madame Ratignolle sewing away, often
stopping to relate a story or incident with much expressive gesture of her
perfect hands; Robert and Mrs. Pontellier sitting idle, exchanging occasional
words, glances or smiles which indicated a certain advanced stage of intimacy
and camaraderie.
He had lived in her
shadow during the past month. No one thought anything of it. Many had predicted
that Robert would devote himself to Mrs. Pontellier when he arrived. Since the
age of fifteen, which was eleven years before, Robert each summer at Grand Isle
had constituted himself the devoted attendant of some fair dame or damsel.
Sometimes it was a young girl, again a widow; but as often as not it was some interesting
married woman.
For two consecutive
seasons he lived in the sunlight of Mademoiselle Duvigne's presence. But she
died between summers; then Robert posed as an inconsolable, prostrating himself
at the feet of Madame Ratignolle for whatever crumbs of sympathy and comfort
she might be pleased to vouchsafe.
Mrs. Pontellier liked
to sit and gaze at her fair companion as she might look upon a faultless
Madonna.
"Could any one
fathom the cruelty beneath that fair exterior?" murmured Robert. "She
knew that I adored her once, and she let me adore her. It was 'Robert, come;
go; stand up; sit down; do this; do that; see if the baby sleeps; my thimble,
please, that I left God knows where. Come and read Daudet to me while I
sew.'"
"Par exemple!I
never had to ask. You were always there under my feet, like a troublesome
cat."
"You mean like an
adoring dog. And just as soon as Ratignolle appeared on the scene, then it
waslike a dog. 'Passez! Adieu! Allez vous-en!'" "Perhaps I feared to
make Alphonse jealous," she interjoined, with excessive naivete. That made
them all laugh. The right hand jealous of the left! The heart jealous of the
soul! But for that matter, the Creole husband is never jealous; with him the
gangrene passion is one which has become dwarfed by disuse.
Meanwhile Robert,
addressing Mrs Pontellier, continued to tell of his one time hopeless passion
for Madame Ratignolle; of sleepless nights, of consuming flames till the very
sea sizzled when he took his daily plunge. While the lady at the needle kept up
a little running, contemptuous comment:
"Blagueur--farceur--gros
bete, va!"
He never assumed this
seriocomic tone when alone with Mrs. Pontellier. She never knew precisely what
to make of it; at that moment it was impossible for her to guess how much of it
was jest and what proportion was earnest. It was understood that he had often
spoken words of love to Madame Ratignolle, without any thought of being taken
seriously. Mrs. Pontellier was glad he had not assumed a similar role toward
herself. It would have been unacceptable and annoying.
Mrs. Pontellier had
brought her sketching materials, which she sometimes dabbled with in an
unprofessional way. She liked the dabbling. She felt in it satisfaction of a
kind which no other employment afforded her.
She had long wished to
try herself on Madame Ratignolle. Never had that lady seemed a more tempting
subject than at that moment, seated there like some sensuous Madonna, with the
gleam of the fading day enriching her splendid color.
Robert crossed over and
seated himself upon the step below Mrs. Pontellier, that he might watch her
work. She handled her brushes with a certain ease and freedom which came, not
from long and close acquaintance with them, but from a natural aptitude. Robert
followed her work with close attention, giving forth little ejaculatory
expressions of appreciation in French, which he addressed to Madame Ratignolle.
"Mais ce n'est pas
mal! Elle s'y connait, elle a de la force, oui."
During his oblivious
attention he once quietly rested his head against Mrs. Pontellier's arm. As
gently she repulsed him. Once again he repeated the offense. She could not but
believe it to be thoughtlessness on his part; yet that was no reason she should
submit to it. She did not remonstrate, except again to repulse him quietly but
firmly. He offered no apology. The picture completed bore no resemblance to
Madame Ratignolle. She was greatly disappointed to find that it did not look
like her. But it was a fair enough piece of work, and in many respects
satisfying.
Mrs. Pontellier
evidently did not think so. After surveying the sketch critically she drew a
broad smudge of paint across its surface, and crumpled the paper between her
hands.
The youngsters came
tumbling up the steps, the quadroon following at the respectful distance which
they required her to observe. Mrs. Pontellier made them carry her paints and
things into the house. She sought to detain them for a little talk and some
pleasantry. But they were greatly in earnest. They had only come to investigate
the contents of the bonbon box. They accepted without murmuring what she chose
to give them, each holding out two chubby hands scoop-like, in the vain hope
that they might be filled; and then away they went.
The sun was low in the
west, and the breeze soft and languorous that came up from the south, charged
with the seductive odor of the sea. Children freshly befurbelowed, were
gathering for their games under the oaks. Their voices were high and
penetrating.
Madame Ratignolle
folded her sewing, placing thimble, scissors, and thread all neatly together in
the roll, which she pinned securely. She complained of faintness. Mrs.
Pontellier flew for the cologne water and a fan. She bathed Madame Ratignolle's
face with cologne, while Robert plied the fan with unnecessary vigor.
The spell was soon
over, and Mrs. Pontellier could not help wondering if there were not a little
imagination responsible for its origin, for the rose tint had never faded from
her friend's face.
She stood watching the
fair woman walk down the long line of galleries with the grace and majesty
which queens are sometimes supposed to possess. Her little ones ran to meet
her. Two of them clung about her white skirts, the third she took from its
nurse and with a thousand endearments bore it along in her own fond, encircling
arms. Though, as everybody well knew, the doctor had forbidden her to lift so
much as a pin!
"Are you going
bathing?" asked Robert of Mrs. Pontellier. It was not so much a question
as a reminder.
"Oh, no," she
answered, with a tone of indecision. "I'm tired; I think not." Her
glance wandered from his face away toward the Gulf, whose sonorous murmur
reached her like a loving but imperative entreaty.
"Oh, come!"
he insisted. "You mustn't miss your bath. Come on. The water must be
delicious; it will not hurt you. Come."
He reached up for her
big, rough straw hat that hung on a peg outside the door, and put it on her
head. They descended the steps, and walked away together toward the beach. The
sun was low in the west and the breeze was soft and warm.
Edna Pontellier could
not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with Robert, she should in the
first place have declined, and in the second place have followed in obedience
to one of the two contradictory impulses which impelled her.
A certain light was
beginning to dawn dimly within her,--the light which, showing the way, forbids
it.
At that early period it
served but to bewilder her. It moved her to dreams, to thoughtfulness, to the
shadowy anguish which had overcome her the midnight when she had abandoned
herself to tears.
In short, Mrs.
Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human
being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and
about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the
soul of a young woman of twenty-eight-- perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost
is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman.
But the beginning of
things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and
exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many
souls perish in its tumult!
The voice of the sea is
seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul
to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward
contemplation.
The voice of the sea
speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its
soft, close embrace.
Mrs. Pontellier was not
a woman given to confidences, a characteristic hitherto contrary to her nature.
Even as a child she had lived her own small life all within herself. At a very
early period she had apprehended instinctively the dual life--that outward
existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.
That summer at Grand Isle
she began to loosen a little the mantle of reserve that had always enveloped
her. There may have been--there must have been--influences, both subtle and
apparent, working in their several ways to induce her to do this; but the most
obvious was the influence of Adèle Ratignolle. The excessive physical charm of
the Creole had first attracted her, for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility to
beauty. Then the candor of the woman's whole existence, which every one might
read, and which formed so striking a con trast to her own habitual
reserve--this might have furnished a link. Who can tell what metals the gods
use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy, which we might as well
call love.
The two women went away
one morning to the beach together, arm in arm, under the huge white sunshade.
Edna had prevailed upon Madame Ratignolle to leave the children behind, though
she could not induce her to relinquish a diminutive roll of needlework, which
Adèle begged to be allowed to slip into the depths of her pocket. In some
unaccountable way they had escaped from Robert.
The walk to the beach
was no inconsiderable one, consisting as it did of a long, sandy path, upon
which a sporadic and tangled growth that bordered it on either side made
frequent and unexpected inroads. There were acres of yellow camomile reaching
out on either hand. Further away still, vegetable gardens abounded, with
frequent small plantations of orange or lemon trees intervening. The dark green
clusters glistened from afar in the sun.
The women were both of
goodly height, Madame Ratignolle possessing the more feminine and matronly
figure. The charm of Edna Pontellier's physique stole insensibly upon you. The
lines of her body were long, clean and symmetrical; it was a body which occasionally
fell into splendid poses; there was no suggestion of the trim, stereotyped
fashion-plate about it. A casual and indiscriminating observer, in passing,
might not cast a second glance upon the figure. But with more feeling and
discernment he would have recognized the noble beauty of its modeling, and the
graceful severity of poise and movement, which made Edna Pontellier different
from the crowd.
She wore a cool muslin
that morning--white, with a waving vertical line of brown running through it;
also a white linen collar and the big straw hat which she had taken from the
peg outside the door. The hat rested any way on her yellow-brown hair, that
waved a little, was heavy, and clung close to her head.
Madame Ratignolle, more
careful of her complexion, had twined a gauze veil about her head. She wore
dogskin gloves, with gauntlets that protected her wrists. She was dressed in
pure white, with a fluffiness of ruffles that became her. The draperies and
fluttering things which she wore suited her rich, luxuriant beauty as a greater
severity of line could not have done.
There were a number of
bath-houses along the beach, of rough but solid construction, built with small,
protecting galleries facing the water. Each house consisted of two
compartments, and each family at Lebrun's possessed a compartment for itself,
fitted out with all the essential paraphernalia of the bath and whatever other
conveniences the owners might desire. The two women had no intention of
bathing; they had just strolled down to the beach for a walk and to be alone
and near the water. The Pontellier and Ratignolle compartments adjoined one
another under the same roof.
Mrs. Pontellier had
brought down her key through force of habit. Unlocking the door of her
bath-room she went inside, and soon emerged, bringing a rug, which she spread
upon the floor of the gallery, and two huge hair pillows covered with crash,
which she placed against the front of the building.
The two seated
themselves there in the shade of the porch, side by side, with their backs
against the pillows and their feet extended. Madame Ratignolle removed her
veil, wiped her face with a rather delicate handkerchief, and fanned herself
with the fan which she always carried suspended somewhere about her person by a
long, narrow ribbon. Edna removed her collar and opened her dress at the
throat. She took the fan from Madame Ratignolle and began to fan both herself
and her companion. It was very warm, and for a while they did nothing but
exchange remarks about the heat, the sun, the glare. But there was a breeze
blowing, a choppy, stiff wind that whipped the water into froth. It fluttered
the skirts of the two women and kept them for a while engaged in adjusting,
readjusting, tucking in, securing hair-pins and hat-pins. A few persons were
sport ing some distance away in the water. The beach was very still of human
sound at that hour. The lady in black was reading her morning devotions on the
porch of a neighboring bath- house. Two young lovers were exchanging their
hearts' yearnings beneath the children's tent, which they had found unoccupied.
Edna Pontellier,
casting her eyes about, had finally kept them at rest upon the sea. The day was
clear and carried the gaze out as far as the blue sky went; there were a few
white clouds suspended idly over the horizon. A lateen sail was visible in the
direction of Cat Island, and others to the south seemed almost motionless in
the far distance.
"Of whom--of what
are you thinking?" asked Adèle of her companion, whose countenance she had
been watching with a little amused attention, arrested by the absorbed
expression which seemed to have seized and fixed every feature into a
statuesque repose.
"Nothing,"
returned Mrs. Pontellier, with a start, adding at once: "How stupid! But
it seems to me it is the reply we make instinctively to such a question. Let me
see," she went on, throwing back her head and narrowing her fine eyes till
they shone like two vivid points of light. "Let me see. I was really not
conscious of thinking of anything; but perhaps I can retrace my thoughts."
"Oh! never
mind!" laughed Madame Ratignolle. "I am not quite so exacting. I will
let you off this time. It is really too hot to think, especially to think about
thinking."
"But for the fun
of it," persisted Edna. "First of all, the sight of the water
stretching so far away, those motionless sails against the blue sky, made a
delicious picture that I just wanted to sit and look at. The hot wind beating
in my face made me think- -without any connection that I can trace of a summer
day in Kentucky, of a meadow that seemed as big as the ocean to the very little
girl walking through the grass, which was higher than her waist. She threw out
her arms as if swimming when she walked, beating the tall grass as one strikes
out in the water. Oh, I see the connection now!"
"Where were you
going that day in Kentucky, walking through the grass?"
"I don't remember
now. I was just walking diagonally across a big field. My sun-bonnet obstructed
the view. I could see only the stretch of green before me, and I felt as if I
must walk on forever, without coming to the end of it. I don't remember whether
I was frightened or pleased. I must have been entertained.
"Likely as not it
was Sunday," she laughed; "and I was running away from prayers, from
the Presbyterian service, read in a spirit of gloom by my father that chills me
yet to think of."
"And have you been
running away from prayers ever since, ma chere?"asked Madame Ratignolle,
amused.
"No! oh, no!"
Edna hastened to say. "I was a little unthinking child in those days, just
following a misleading impulse without question. On the contrary, during one
period of my life religion took a firm hold upon me; after I was twelve and
until-- until--why, I suppose until now, though I never thought much about
it--just driven along by habit. But do you know," she broke off, turning
her quick eyes upon Madame Ratignolle and leaning forward a little so as to
bring her face quite close to that of her companion, "sometimes I feel
this summer as if I were walking through the green meadow again; idly,
aimlessly, unthinking and unguided."
Madame Ratignolle laid
her hand over that of Mrs. Pontellier, which was near her. Seeing that the hand
was not withdrawn, she clasped it firmly and warmly. She even stroked it a
little, fondly, with the other hand, murmuring in an undertone, "Pauvre
cherie."
The action was at first
a little confusing to Edna, but she soon lent herself readily to the Creole's
gentle caress. She was not accustomed to an outward and spoken expression of
affection, either in herself or in others. She and her younger sister, Janet,
had quarreled a good deal through force of unfortunate habit. Her older sister,
Margaret, was matronly and dignified, probably from having assumed matronly and
housewifely responsibilities too early in life, their mother having died when
they were quite young, Margaret was not effusive; she was practical. Edna had
had an occasional girl friend, but whether accidentally or not, they seemed to
have been all of one type--the self-contained. She never realized that the
reserve of her own character had much, perhaps everything, to do with this. Her
most intimate friend at school had been one of rather exceptional intellectual
gifts, who wrote fine-sounding essays, which Edna admired and strove to
imitate; and with her she talked and glowed over the English classics, and
sometimes held religious and political controversies.
Edna often wondered at
one propensity which sometimes had inwardly disturbed her without causing any
outward show or manifestation on her part. At a very early age--perhaps it was
when she traversed the ocean of waving grass-she remembered that she had been
passionately enamored of a dignified and sad-eyed cavalry officer who visited
her father in Kentucky. She could not leave his presence when he was there, nor
remove her eyes from his face, which was something like Napoleon's, with a lock
of black hair failing across the forehead. But the cavalry officer melted
imperceptibly out of her existence.
At another time her
affections were deeply engaged by a young gentleman who visited a lady on a
neighboring plantation. It was after they went to Mississippi to live. The
young man was engaged to be married to the young lady, and they sometimes
called upon Margaret, driving over of afternoons in a buggy. Edna was a little
miss, just merging into her teens; and the realization that she herself was
nothing, nothing, nothing to the engaged young man was a bitter affliction to
her. But he, too, went the way of dreams.
She was a grown young
woman when she was overtaken by what she supposed to be the climax of her fate.
It was when the face and figure of a great tragedian began to haunt her
imagination and stir her senses. The persistence of the infatuation lent it an
aspect of genuineness. The hopelessness of it colored it with the lofty tones
of a great passion.
The picture of the
tragedian stood enframed upon her desk. Any one may possess the portrait of a
tragedian without exciting suspicion or comment. (This was a sinister
reflection which she cherished.) In the presence of others she expressed
admiration for his exalted gifts, as she handed the photograph around and dwelt
upon the fidelity of the likeness. When alone she sometimes picked it up and
kissed the cold glass passionately.
Her marriage to Léonce
Pontellier was purely an accident, in this respect resembling many other
marriages which masquerade as the decrees of Fate. It was in the midst of her
secret great passion that she met him. He fell in love, as men are in the habit
of doing, and pressed his suit with an earnestness and an ardor which left
nothing to be desired. He pleased her; his absolute devotion flattered her. She
fancied there was a sympathy of thought and taste between them, in which fancy
she was mistaken. Add to this the violent opposition of her father and her
sister Margaret to her marriage with a Catholic, and we need seek no further
for the motives which led her to accept Monsieur Pontellier. for her husband.
The acme. of bliss,
which would have been a marriage with the tragedian, was not for her in this
world. As the devoted wife of a man who worshiped her, she felt she would take
her place with a certain dignity in the world of reality, closing the portals
forever behind her upon the realm of romance and dreams.
But it was not long
before the tragedian had gone to join the cavalry officer and the engaged young
man and a few others; and Edna found herself face to face with the realities.
She grew fond of her husband, realizing with some unaccountable satisfaction
that no trace of passion or excessive and fictitious warmth colored her
affection, thereby threatening its dissolution.
She was fond of her
children in an uneven, impulsive way. She would sometimes gather them
passionately to her heart; she would sometimes forget them. The year before
they had spent part of the summer with their grandmother Pontellier in
Iberville. Feeling secure regarding their happiness and welfare, she did not
miss them except with an occasional intense longing. Their absence was a sort
of relief, though she did not admit this, even to herself. It seemed to free
her of a responsibility which she had blindly assumed and for which Fate had
not fitted her.
Edna did not reveal so
much as all this to Madame Ratignolle that summer day when they sat with faces
turned to the sea. But a good part of it escaped her. She had put her head down
on Madame Ratignolle's shoulder. She was flushed and felt intoxicated with the
sound of her own voice and the unaccustomed taste of candor. It muddled her
like wine, or like a first breath of freedom.
There was the sound of
approaching voices. It was Robert, surrounded by a troop of children, searching
for them. The two little Pontelliers were with him, and he carried Madame
Ratignolle's little girl in his arms. There were other children beside, and two
nurse-maids followed, looking disagreeable and resigned.
The women at once rose
and began to shake out their draperies and relax their muscles. Mrs. Pontellier
threw the cushions and rug into the bath-house. The children all scampered off
to the awning, and they stood there in a line, gazing upon the intruding
lovers, still exchanging their vows and sighs. The lovers got up, with only a
silent protest, and walked slowly away somewhere else.
The children possessed
themselves of the tent, and Mrs. Pontellier went over to join them.
Madame Ratignolle
begged Robert to accompany her to the house; she complained of cramp in her limbs
and stiffness of the joints. She leaned draggingly upon his arm as they walked.
"Do me a favor,
Robert," spoke the pretty woman at his side, almost as soon as she and
Robert had started their slow, homeward way. She looked up in his face, leaning
on his arm beneath the encircling shadow of the umbrella which he had lifted.
"Granted; as many
as you like," he returned, glancing down into her eyes that were full of
thoughtfulness and some speculation.
"I only ask for
one; let Mrs. Pontellier alone."
"Tiens!"he
exclaimed, with a sudden, boyish laugh. "Voila que Madame Ratignolle est
jalouse!"
"Nonsense! I'm in
earnest; I mean what I say. Let Mrs. Pontellier alone."
"Why?" he
asked; himself growing serious at his companion's solicitation.
"She is not one of
us; she is not like us. She might make the unfortunate blunder of taking you
seriously."
His face flushed with
annoyance, and taking off his soft hat he began to beat it impatiently against
his leg as he walked. "Why shouldn't she take me seriously?" he
demanded sharply. "Am I a comedian, a clown, a jack-in-the-box? Why
shouldn't she? You Creoles! I have no patience with you! Am I always to be
regarded as a feature of an amusing programme? I hope Mrs. Pontellier does take
me seriously. I hope she has discernment enough to find in me something besides
the blagueur. If I thought there was any doubt--"
"Oh, enough,
Robert!" she broke into his heated outburst. "You are not thinking of
what you are saying. You speak with about as little reflection as we might
expect from one of those children down there playing in the sand. If your
attentions to any married women here were ever offered with any intention of
being convincing, you would not be the gentleman we all know you to be, and you
would be unfit to associate with the wives and daughters of the people who
trust you."
Madame Ratignolle had
spoken what she believed to be the law and the gospel. The young man shrugged
his shoulders impatiently.
"Oh! well! That
isn't it," slamming his hat down vehemently upon his head. "You ought
to feel that such things are not flattering to say to a fellow."
"Should our whole
intercourse consist of an exchange of compliments? Ma foi!"
"It isn't pleasant
to have a woman tell you--" he went on, unheedingly, but breaking off
suddenly: "Now if I were like Arobin- -you remember Alcée Arobin and that
story of the consul's wife at Biloxi?" And he related the story of Alcée
Arobin and the consul's wife; and another about the tenor of the French Opera,
who received letters which should never have been written; and still other
stories, grave and gay, till Mrs. Pontellier and her possible propensity for
taking young men seriously was apparently forgotten.
Madame Ratignolle, when
they had re gained her cottage, went in to take the hour's rest which she
considered helpful. Before leaving her, Robert begged her pardon for the
impatience--he called it rudeness--with which he had received her well-meant
caution.
"You made one
mistake, Adèle," he said, with a light smile; "there is no earthly
possibility of Mrs. Pontellier ever taking me seriously. You should have warned
me against taking myself seriously. Your advice might then have carried some
weight and given me subject for some reflection. Au revoir. But you look
tired," he added, solicitously. "Would you like a cup of bouillon?
Shall I stir you a toddy? Let me mix you a toddy with a drop of
Angostura."
She acceded to the
suggestion of bouillon, which was grateful and acceptable. He went himself to
the kitchen, which was a building apart from the cottages and lying to the rear
of the house. And he himself brought her the golden-brown bouillon, in a dainty
Sevres cup, with a flaky cracker or two on the saucer.
She thrust a bare,
white arm from the curtain which shielded her open door, and received the cup
from his hands. She told him he was a bon garcon,and she meant it. Robert
thanked her and turned away toward "the house."
The lovers were just
entering the grounds of the pension. They were leaning toward each other as the
wateroaks bent from the sea. There was not a particle of earth beneath their
feet. Their heads might have been turned upside-down, so absolutely did they
tread upon blue ether. The lady in black, creeping behind them, looked a trifle
paler and more jaded than usual. There was no sign of Mrs. Pontellier and the
children. Robert scanned the distance for any such apparition. They would
doubtless remain away till the dinner hour. The young man ascended to his
mother's room. It was situated at the top of the house, made up of odd angles
and a queer, sloping ceiling. Two broad dormer windows looked out toward the
Gulf, and as far across it as a man's eye might reach. The furnishings of the
room were light, cool, and practical.
Madame Lebrun was
busily engaged at the sewing-machine. A little black girl sat on the floor, and
with her hands worked the treadle of the machine. The Creole woman does not
take any chances which may be avoided of imperiling her health.
Robert went over and
seated himself on the broad sill of one of the dormer windows. He took a book
from his pocket and began energetically to read it, judging by the precision
and frequency with which he turned the leaves. The sewing-machine made a resounding
clatter in the room; it was of a ponderous, by-gone make. In the lulls, Robert
and his mother exchanged bits of desultory conversation.
"Where is Mrs.
Pontellier?"
"Down at the beach
with the children."
"I promised to
lend her the Goncourt. Don't forget to take it down when you go; it's there on
the bookshelf over the small table." Clatter, clatter, clatter, bang! for
the next five or eight minutes.
"Where is Victor
going with the rockaway?"
"The rockaway?
Victor?"
"Yes; down there
in front. He seems to be getting ready to drive away somewhere."
"Call him."
Clatter, clatter!
Robert uttered a
shrill, piercing whistle which might have been heard back at the wharf.
"He won't look
up."
Madame Lebrun flew to
the window. She called "Victor!" She waved a handkerchief and called
again. The young fellow below got into the vehicle and started the horse off at
a gallop.
Madame Lebrun went back
to the machine, crimson with annoyance. Victor was the younger son and
brother-a tete montee,with a temper which invited violence and a will which no
ax could break.
"Whenever you say
the word I'm ready to thrash any amount of reason into him that he's able to
hold."
"If your father
had only lived!" Clatter, clatter, clatter, clatter, bang! It was a fixed
belief with Madame Lebrun that the conduct of the universe and all things
pertaining thereto would have been manifestly of a more intelligent and higher
order had not Monsieur Lebrun been removed to other spheres during the early
years of their married life.
"What do you hear
from Montel?" Montel was a middleaged gentleman whose vain ambition and
desire for the past twenty years had been to fill the void which Monsieur
Lebrun's taking off had left in the Lebrun household. Clatter, clatter, bang,
clatter!
"I have a letter
somewhere," looking in the machine drawer and finding the letter in the
bottom of the workbasket. "He says to tell you he will be in Vera Cruz the
beginning of next month,"-- clatter, clatter!--"and if you still have
the intention of joining him"--bang! clatter, clatter, bang!
"Why didn't you
tell me so before, mother? You know I wanted-- "Clatter, clatter, clatter!
"Do you see Mrs.
Pontellier starting back with the children? She will be in late to luncheon
again. She never starts to get ready for luncheon till the last minute."
Clatter, clatter! "Where are you going?"
"Where did you say
the Goncourt was?"
Every light in the hall
was ablaze; every lamp turned as high as it could be without smoking the
chimney or threatening explosion. The lamps were fixed at intervals against the
wall, encircling the whole room. Some one had gathered orange and lemon branches,
and with these fashioned graceful festoons between. The dark green of the
branches stood out and glistened against the white muslin curtains which draped
the windows, and which puffed, floated, and flapped at the capricious will of a
stiff breeze that swept up from the Gulf.
It was Saturday night a
few weeks after the intimate conversation held between Robert and Madame
Ratignolle on their way from the beach. An unusual number of husbands, fathers,
and friends had come down to stay over Sunday; and they were being suitably
entertained by their families, with the material help of Madame Lebrun. The
dining tables had all been removed to one end of the hall, and the chairs
ranged about in rows and in clusters. Each little family group had had its say
and exchanged its domestic gossip earlier in the evening. There was now an
apparent disposition to relax; to widen the circle of confidences and give a
more general tone to the conversation.
Many of the children
had been permitted to sit up beyond their usual bedtime. A small band of them
were lying on their stomachs on the floor looking at the colored sheets of the
comic papers which Mr. Pontellier had brought down. The little Pontellier boys
were permitting them to do so, and making their authority felt.
Music, dancing, and a
recitation or two were the entertainments furnished, or rather, offered. But
there was nothing systematic about the programme, no appearance of
prearrangement nor even premeditation.
At an early hour in the
evening the Farival twins were prevailed upon to play the piano. They were
girls of fourteen, always clad in the Virgin's colors, blue and white, having
been dedicated to the Blessed Virgin at their baptism. They played a duet from
"Zampa," and at the earnest solicitation of every one present
followed it with the overture to "The Poet and the Peasant."
"Allez vous-en!
Sapristi!"shrieked the parrot outside the door. He was the only being
present who possessed sufficient candor to admit that he was not listening to
these gracious performances for the first time that summer Old Monsieur
Farival, grandfather of the twins, grew indignant over the interruption, and
insisted upon having the bird removed and consigned to regions of darkness.
Victor Lebrun objected; and his decrees were as immutable as those of Fate. The
parrot fortunately offered no further interruption to the entertainment, the
whole venom of his nature apparently having been cherished up and hurled
against the twins in that one impetuous outburst.
Later a young brother and
sister gave recitations, which every one present had heard many times at winter
evening entertainments in the city.
A little girl performed
a skirt dance in the center of the floor. The mother played her accompaniments
and at the same time watched her daughter with greedy admiration and nervous
apprehension. She need have had no apprehension. The child was mistress of the
situation. She had been properly dressed for the occasion in black tulle and
black silk tights. Her little neck and arms were bare, and her hair,
artificially crimped, stood out like fluffy black plumes over her head. Her
poses were full of grace, and her little black-shod toes twinkled as they shot
out and upward with a rapidity and suddenness which were bewildering.
But there was no reason
why every one should not dance. Madame Ratignolle could not, so it was she who
gaily consented to play for the others. She played very well, keeping excellent
waltz time and infusing an expression into the strains which was indeed
inspiring. She was keeping up her music on account of the children, she said;
because she and her husband both considered it a means of brightening the home
and making it attractive.
Almost every one danced
but the twins, who could not be induced to separate during the brief period
when one or the other should be whirling around the room in the arms of a man.
They might have danced together, but they did not think of it.
The children were sent
to bed. Some went submissively; others with shrieks and protests as they were
dragged away. They had been permitted to sit up till after the ice-cream, which
naturally marked the limit of human indulgence.
The ice-cream was
passed around with cake--gold and silver cake arranged on platters in alternate
slices; it had been made and frozen during the afternoon back of the kitchen by
two black women, under the supervision of Victor. It was pronounced a great
success--excellent if it had only contained a little less vanilla or a little
more sugar, if it had been frozen a degree harder, and if the salt might have
been kept out of portions of it. Victor was proud of his achievement, and went
about recommending it and urging every one to partake of it to excess.
After Mrs. Pontellier
had danced twice with her husband, once with Robert, and once with Monsieur
Ratignolle, who was thin and tall and swayed like a reed in the wind when he
danced, she went out on the gallery and seated herself on the low window-sill,
where she commanded a view of all that went on in the hall and could look out
toward the Gulf. There was a soft effulgence in the east. The moon was coming
up, and its mystic shimmer was casting a million lights across the distant,
restless water.
"Would you like to
hear Mademoiselle Reisz play?" asked Robert, coming out on the porch where
she was. Of course Edna would like to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play; but she
feared it would be useless to entreat her.
"I'll ask
her," he said. "I'll tell her that you want to hear her. She likes
you. She will come." He turned and hurried away to one of the far
cottages, where Mademoiselle Reisz was shuffling away. She was dragging a chair
in and out of her room, and at intervals objecting to the cry ing of a baby,
which a nurse in the adjoining cottage was endeavoring to put to sleep. She was
a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled with almost
every one, owing to a temper which was self-assertive and a disposition to
trample upon the rights of others. Robert prevailed upon her without any too
great difficulty.
She entered the hall
with him during a lull in the dance. She made an awkward, imperious little bow
as she went in. She was a homely woman, with a small weazened face and body and
eyes that glowed. She had absolutely no taste in dress, and wore a batch of
rusty black lace with a bunch of artificial violets pinned to the side of her
hair.
"Ask Mrs.
Pontellier what she would like to hear me play," she requested of Robert.
She sat perfectly still before the piano, not touching the keys, while Robert
carried her message to Edna at the window. A general air of surprise and
genuine satisfaction fell upon every one as they saw the pianist enter. There
was a settling down, and a prevailing air of expectancy everywhere. Edna was a
trifle embarrassed at being thus signaled out for the imperious little woman's
favor. She would not dare to choose, and begged that Mademoiselle Reisz would
please herself in her selections.
Edna was what she
herself called very fond of music. Musical strains, well rendered, had a way of
evoking pictures in her mind. She sometimes liked to sit in the room of
mornings when Madame Ratignolle played or practiced. One piece which that lady
played Edna had entitled "Solitude." It was a short, plaintive, minor
strain. The name of the piece was something else, but she called it
"Solitude." When she heard it there came before her imagination the
figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked.
His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird
winging its flight away from him.
Another piece called to
her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire gown, taking mincing dancing
steps as she came down a long avenue between tall hedges. Again, another
reminded her of children at play, and still another of nothing on earth but a
demure lady stroking a cat.
The very first chords
which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs.
Pontellier's spinal column. It was not the first time she had heard an artist
at the piano. Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first
time her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth.
She waited for the
material pictures which she thought would gather and blaze before her
imagination. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of
longing, or of despair. But the very passions themselves were aroused within
her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid
body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.
Mademoiselle had
finished. She arose, and bowing her stiff, lofty bow, she went away, stopping
for neither, thanks nor applause. As she passed along the gallery she patted
Edna upon the shoulder.
"Well, how did you
like my music?" she asked. The young woman was unable to answer; she
pressed the hand of the pianist convulsively. Mademoiselle Reisz perceived her
agitation and even her tears. She patted her again upon the shoulder as she
said:
"You are the only
one worth playing for. Those others? Bah!" and she went shuffling and
sidling on down the gallery toward her room.
But she was mistaken
about "those others." Her playing had aroused a fever of enthusiasm.
"What passion!" "What an artist!" "I have always said
no one could play Chopin like Mademoiselle Reisz!" "That last
prelude! Bon Dieu! It shakes a man!"
It was growing late,
and there was a general disposition to disband. But some one, perhaps it was
Robert, thought of a bath at that mystic hour and under that mystic moon.
At all events Robert
proposed it, and there was not a dissenting voice. There was not one but was
ready to follow when he led the way. He did not lead the way, however, he
directed the way; and he himself loitered behind with the lovers, who had
betrayed a disposition to linger and hold themselves apart. He walked between
them, whether with malicious or mischievous intent was not wholly clear, even
to himself.
The Pontelliers and
Ratignolles walked ahead; the women leaning upon the arms of their husbands.
Edna could hear Robert's voice behind them, and could sometimes hear what he
said. She wondered why he did not join them. It was unlike him not to. Of late
he had sometimes held away from her for an entire day, redoubling his devotion
upon the next and the next, as though to make up for hours that had been lost.
She missed him the days when some pretext served to take him away from her,
just as one misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about
the sun when it was shining.
The people walked in
little groups toward the beach. They talked and laughed; some of them sang.
There was a band playing down at Klein's hotel, and the strains reached them
faintly, tempered by the distance. There were strange, rare odors abroad-a
tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with
the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night
sat lightly upon the sea and the land. There was no weight of darkness; there
were no shadows. The white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the
mystery and the softness of sleep.
Most of them walked
into the water as though into a native element. The sea was quiet now, and
swelled lazily in broad billows that melted into one another and did not break
except upon the beach in little foamy crests that coiled back like slow, white
serpents.
Edna had attempted all
summer to learn to swim. She had received instructions from both the men and
women; in some instances from the children. Robert had pursued a system of
lessons almost daily; and he was nearly at the point of discouragement in
realizing the futility of his efforts. A certain ungovernable dread hung about
her when in the water, unless there was a hand near by that might reach out and
reassure her.
But that night she was
like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching child, who of a sudden realizes
its powers, and walks for the first time alone, boldly and with
over-confidence. She could have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with
a sweeping stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface of the water.
A feeling of exultation
overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to
control the working of her body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless,
overestimating her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had
swum before.
Her unlooked-for
achievement was the subject of wonder, applause, and admiration. Each one
congratulated himself that his special teachings had accomplished this desired
end.
"How easy it
is!" she thought. "It is nothing," she said aloud; "why did
I not discover before that it was nothing. Think of the time I have lost
splashing about like a baby!" She would not join the groups in their
sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she swam out
alone.
She turned her face
seaward to gather in an impression of space and solitude, which the vast
expanse of water, meeting and melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her
excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in
which to lose herself.
Once she turned and
looked toward the shore, toward the people she had left there. She had not gone
any great distance that is, what would have been a great distance for an
experienced swimmer. But to her unaccustomed vision the stretch of water behind
her assumed the aspect of a barrier which her unaided strength would never be
able to overcome.
A quick vision of death
smote her soul, and for a second of time appalled and enfeebled her senses. But
by an effort she rallied her staggering faculties and managed to regain the
land.
She made no mention of
her encounter with death and her flash of terror, except to say to her husband,
"I thought I should have perished out there alone."
"You were not so
very far, my dear; I was watching you", he told her.
Edna went at once to
the bath-house, and she had put on her dry clothes and was ready to return home
before the others had left the water. She started to walk away alone. They all
called to her and shouted to her. She waved a dissenting hand, and went on,
paying no further heed to their renewed cries which sought to detain her.
"Sometimes I am
tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is capricious," said Madame Lebrun,
who was amusing herself immensely and feared that Edna's abrupt departure might
put an end to the pleasure.
"I know she
is," assented Mr. Pontellier; "sometimes, not often."
Edna had not traversed
a quarter of the distance on her way home before she was overtaken by Robert.
"Did you think I
was afraid?" she asked him, without a shade of annoyance.
"No; I knew you
weren't afraid."
"Then why did you
come? Why didn't you stay out there with the others?"
"I never thought
of it."
"Thought of
what?"
"Of anything. What
difference does it make?"
"I'm very
tired," she uttered, complainingly.
"I know you
are."
"You don't know
anything about it. Why should you know? I never was so exhausted in my life.
But it isn't unpleasant. A thousand emotions have swept through me to-night. I don't
comprehend half of them. Don't mind what I'm saying; I am just thinking aloud.
I wonder if I shall ever be stirred again as Mademoiselle Reisz's playing moved
me to-night. I wonder if any night on earth will ever again be like this one.
It is like a night in a dream. The people about me are like some uncanny, half-
human beings. There must be spirits abroad to-night."
"There are,"
whispered Robert, "Didn't you know this was the twenty-eighth of
August?"
"The twenty-eighth
of August?"
"Yes. On the
twenty-eighth of August, at the hour of midnight, and if the moon is
shining--the moon must be shining--a spirit that has haunted these shores for
ages rises up from the Gulf. With its own penetrating vision the spirit seeks
some one mortal worthy to hold him company, worthy of being exalted for a few
hours into realms of the semi-celestials. His search has always hitherto been
fruitless, and he has sunk back, disheartened, into the sea. But to-night he
found Mrs. Pontellier. Perhaps he will never wholly release her from the spell.
Perhaps she will never again suffer a poor, unworthy earthling to walk in the
shadow of her divine presence."
"Don't banter
me," she said, wounded at what appeared to be his flippancy. He did not
mind the entreaty, but the tone with its delicate note of pathos was like a
reproach. He could not explain; he could not tell her that he had penetrated
her mood and understood. He said nothing except to offer her his arm, for, by
her own admission, she was exhausted. She had been walking alone with her arms
hanging limp, letting her white skirts trail along the dewy path. She took his
arm, but she did not lean upon it. She let her hand lie listlessly, as though
her thoughts were elsewhere--somewhere in advance of her body, and she was
striving to overtake them.
Robert assisted her
into the hammock which swung from the post before her door out to the trunk of
a tree.
"Will you stay out
here and wait for Mr. Pontellier?" he asked.
"I'll stay out
here. Good-night."
"Shall I get you a
pillow?"
"There's one
here," she said, feeling about, for they were in the shadow.
"It must be
soiled; the children have been tumbling it about."
"No matter."
And having discovered the pillow, she adjusted it beneath her head. She extended
herself in the hammock with a deep breath of relief. She was not a supercilious
or an over-dainty woman. She was not much given to reclining in the hammock,
and when she did so it was with no cat-like suggestion of voluptuous ease, but
with a beneficent repose which seemed to invade her whole body.
"Shall I stay with
you till Mr. Pontellier comes?" asked Robert, seating himself on the outer
edge of one of the steps and taking hold of the hammock rope which was fastened
to the post.
"If you wish. Don't
swing the hammock. Will you get my white shawl which I left on the window-sill
over at the house?"
"Are you
chilly?"
"No; but I shall
be presently."
"Presently?"
he laughed. "Do you know what time it is? How long are you going to stay
out here?"
"I don't know.
Will you get the shawl?"
"Of course I
will," he said, rising. He went over to the house, walking along the
grass. She watched his figure pass in and out of the strips of moonlight. It
was past midnight. It was very quiet.
When he returned with
the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her.
"Did you say I
should stay till Mr. Pontellier came back?"
"I said you might
if you wished to."
He seated himself again
and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier
speak. No multitude of words could have been more significant than those
moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.
When the voices of the
bathers were heard approaching, Robert said good-night. She did not answer him.
He thought she was asleep. Again she watched his figure pass in and out of the
strips of moonlight as he walked away.
"What are you
doing out here, Edna? I thought I should find you in bed," said her
husband, when he discovered her lying there. He had walked up with Madame
Lebrun and left her at the house. His wife did not reply.
"Are you
asleep?" he asked, bending down close to look at her.
"No." Her
eyes gleamed bright and intense, with no sleepy shadows, as they looked into
his.
"Do you know it is
past one o'clock? Come on," and he mounted the steps and went into their
room.
"Edna!"
called Mr. Pontellier from within, after a few moments had gone by.
"Don't wait for
me," she answered. He thrust his head through the door.
"You will take
cold out there," he said, irritably. "What folly is this? Why don't
you come in?"
"It isn't cold; I
have my shawl."
"The mosquitoes
will devour you."
"There are no
mosquitoes."
She heard him moving
about the room; every sound indicating impatience and irritation. Another time
she would have gone in at his request. She would, through habit, have yielded
to his desire; not with any sense of submission or obedience to his compelling
wishes, but unthinkingly, as we walk, move, sit, stand, go through the daily
treadmill of the life which has been portioned out to us.
"Edna, dear, are
you not coming in soon?" he asked again, this time fondly, with a note of
entreaty.
"No; I am going to
stay out here."
"This is more than
folly," he blurted out. "I can't permit you to stay out there all
night. You must come in the house instantly."
With a writhing motion
she settled herself more securely in the hammock. She perceived that her will
had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She could not at that moment have done
other than denied and resisted. She wondered if her husband had ever spoken to
her like that before, and if she had submitted to his command. Of course she had;
she remembered that she had. But she could not realize why or how she should
have yielded, feeling as she then did.
"Léonce, go to
bed, " she said I mean to stay out here. I don't wish to go in, and I
don't intend to. Don't speak to me like that again; I shall not answer
you."
Mr. Pontellier had
prepared for bed, but he slipped on an extra garment. He opened a bottle of
wine, of which he kept a small and select supply in a buffet of his own. He
drank a glass of the wine and went out on the gallery and offered a glass to
his wife. She did not wish any. He drew up the rocker, hoisted his slippered
feet on the rail, and proceeded to smoke a cigar. He smoked two cigars; then he
went inside and drank another glass of wine. Mrs. Pontellier again declined to
accept a glass when it was offered to her. Mr. Pontellier once more seated
himself with ele vated feet, and after a reasonable interval of time smoked
some more cigars.
Edna began to feel like
one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible
dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul. The physical need
for sleep began to overtake her; the exuberance which had sustained and exalted
her spirit left her helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her
in.
The stillest hour of
the night had come, the hour before dawn, when the world seems to hold its
breath. The moon hung low, and had turned from silver to copper in the sleeping
sky. The old owl no longer hooted, and the water-oaks had ceased to moan as they
bent their heads.
Edna arose, cramped
from lying so long and still in the hammock. She tottered up the steps,
clutching feebly at the post before passing into the house.
"Are you coming
in, Léonce?" she asked, turning her face toward her husband.
"Yes, dear,"
he answered, with a glance following a misty puff of smoke. "Just as soon
as I have finished my cigar.
She slept but a few
hours. They were troubled and feverish hours, disturbed with dreams that were
intangible, that eluded her, leaving only an impression upon her half-awakened
senses of something unattainable. She was up and dressed in the cool of the
early morning. The air was invigorating and steadied somewhat her faculties.
However, she was not seeking refreshment or help from any source, either
external or from within. She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her,
as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her soul
of responsibility.
Most of the people at
that early hour were still in bed and asleep. A few, who intended to go over to
the Chenierefor mass, were moving about. The lovers, who had laid their plans
the night before, were already strolling toward the wharf. The lady in black,
with her Sunday prayer-book, velvet and gold-clasped, and her Sunday silver
beads, was following them at no great distance. Old Monsieur Farival was up,
and was more than half inclined to do anything that suggested itself. He put on
his big straw hat, and taking his umbrella from the stand in the hall, followed
the lady in black, never overtaking her.
The little negro girl
who worked Madame Lebrun's sewing- machine was sweeping the galleries with
long, absent-minded strokes of the broom. Edna sent her up into the house to
awaken Robert.
"Tell him I am
going to the Cheniere. The boat is ready; tell him to hurry."
He had soon joined her.
She had never sent for him before. She had never asked for him. She had never
seemed to want him before. She did not appear conscious that she had done
anything unusual in commanding his presence. He was apparently equally
unconscious of anything extraordinary in the situation. But his face was
suffused with a quiet glow when he met her.
They went together back
to the kitchen to drink coffee. There was no time to wait for any nicety of
service. They stood outside the window and the cook passed them their coffee
and a roll, which they drank and ate from the window-sill. Edna said it tasted
good. She had not thought of coffee nor of anything. He told her he had often
noticed that she lacked forethought.
"Wasn't it enough
to think of going to the Cheniereand waking you up?" she laughed. "Do
I have to think of everything?-- as Léonce says when he's in a bad humor. I
don't blame him; he'd never be in a bad humor if it weren't for me."
They took a short cut
across the sands. At a distance they could see the curious procession moving
toward the wharf--the lovers, shoulder to shoulder, creeping; the lady in
black, gaining steadily upon them; old Monsieur Farival, losing ground inch by
inch, and a young barefooted Spanish girl, with a red kerchief on her head and
a basket on her arm, bringing up the rear.
Robert knew the girl,
and he talked to her a little in the boat. No one present understood what they
said. Her name was Mariequita. She had a round, sly, piquant face and pretty
black eyes. Her hands were small, and she kept them folded over the handle of
her basket. Her feet were broad and coarse. She did not strive to hide them.
Edna looked at her feet, and noticed the sand and slime between her brown toes.
Beaudelet grumbled
because Mariequita was there, taking up so much room. In reality he was-annoyed
at having old Monsieur Farival, who considered himself the better sailor of the
two. But he would not quarrel with so old a man as Monsieur Farival, so he
quarreled with Mariequita. The girl was deprecatory at one moment, appealing to
Robert. She was saucy the next, moving her head up and down, making
"eyes" at Robert and making "mouths" at Beaudelet.
The lovers were all
alone. They saw nothing, they heard nothing. The lady in black was counting her
beads for the third time. Old Monsieur Farival talked incessantly of what he
knew about handling a boat, and of what Beaudelet did not know on the same
subject.
Edna liked it all. She
looked Mariequita up and down, from her ugly brown toes to her pretty black
eyes, and back again.
"Why does she look
at me like that?" inquired the girl of Robert.
"Maybe she thinks
you are pretty. Shall I ask her?"
"No. Is she your
sweetheart?"
"She's a married
lady, and has two children."
"Oh! well!
Francisco ran away with Sylvano's wife, who had four children. They took all
his money and one of the children and stole his boat."
"Shut up!"
"Does she
understand?"
"Oh, hush!"
"Are those two married
over there--leaning on each other?"
"Of course
not," laughed Robert.
"Of course
not," echoed Mariequita, with a serious, confirmatory bob of the head.
The sun was high up and
beginning to bite. The swift breeze seemed to Edna to bury the sting of it into
the pores of her face and hands. Robert held his umbrella over her. As they
went cutting sidewise through the water, the sails bellied taut, with the wind
filling and overflowing them. Old Monsieur Farival laughed sardonically at
something as he looked at the sails, and Beaudelet swore at the old man under
his breath.
Sailing across the bay
to the Cheniere Caminada,Edna felt as if she were being borne away from some
anchorage which had held her fast, whose chains had been loosening--had snapped
the night before when the mystic spirit was abroad, leaving her free to drift
whithersoever she chose to set her sails. Robert spoke to her incessantly; he
no longer noticed Mariequita. The girl had shrimps in her bamboo basket. They
were covered with Spanish moss. She beat the moss down impatiently, and
muttered to herself sullenly.
"Let us go to
Grande Terre to-morrow?" said Robert in a low voice.
"What shall we do
there?"
"Climb up the hill
to the old fort and look at the little wriggling gold snakes, and watch the
lizards sun themselves."
She gazed away toward
Grande Terre and thought she would like to be alone there with Robert, in the
sun, listening to the ocean's roar and watching the slimy lizards writhe in and
out among the ruins of the old fort.
"And the next day
or the next we can sail to the Bayou Brulow," he went on.
"What shall we do
there?"
"Anything--cast
bait for fish."
"No; we'll go back
to Grande Terre. Let the fish alone."
"We'll go wherever
you like," he said. "I'll have Tonie come over and help me patch and
trim my boat. We shall not need Beaudelet nor any one. Are you afraid of the
pirogue?"
"Oh, no."
"Then I'll take
you some night in the pirogue when the moon shines. Maybe your Gulf spirit will
whisper to you in which of these islands the treasures are hidden--direct you
to the very spot, perhaps."
"And in a day we
should be rich!" she laughed. "I'd give it all to you, the pirate
gold and every bit of treasure we could dig up. I think you would know how to
spend it. Pirate gold isn't a thing to be hoarded or utilized. It is something
to squander and throw to the four winds, for the fun of seeing the golden
specks fly."
"We'd share it,
and scatter it together," he said. His face flushed.
They all went together
up to the quaint little Gothic church of Our Lady of Lourdes, gleaming all
brown and yellow with paint in the sun's glare.
Only Beaudelet remained
behind, tinkering at his boat, and Mariequita walked away with her basket of
shrimps, casting a look of childish ill humor and reproach at Robert from the
corner of her eye.
A feeling of oppression
and drowsiness overcame Edna during the service. Her head began to ache, and
the lights on the altar swayed before her eyes. Another time she might have
made an effort to regain her composure; but her one thought was to quit the
stifling atmosphere of the church and reach the open air. She arose, climbing
over Robert's feet with a muttered apology. Old Monsieur Farival, flurried,
curious, stood up, but upon seeing that Robert had followed Mrs. Pontellier, he
sank back into his seat. He whispered an anxious inquiry of the lady in black,
who did not notice him or reply, but kept her eyes fastened upon the pages of
her velvet prayer-book.
"I felt giddy and
almost overcome," Edna said, lifting her hands instinctively to her head
and pushing her straw hat up from her forehead. "I couldn't have stayed
through the service." They were outside in the shadow of the church.
Robert was full of solicitude.
"It was folly to
have thought of going in the first place, let alone staying. Come over to
Madame Antoine's; you can rest there." He took her arm and led her away,
looking anxiously and continuously down into her face.
How still it was, with
only the voice of the sea whispering through the reeds that grew in the
salt-water pools! The long line of little gray, weather-beaten houses nestled
peacefully among the orange trees. It must always have been God's day on that
low, drowsy island, Edna thought. They stopped, leaning over a jagged fence
made of sea-drift, to ask for water. A youth, a mild-faced Acadian, was drawing
water from the cistern, which was nothing more than a rusty buoy, with an
opening on one side, sunk in the ground. The water which the youth handed to
them in a tin pail was not cold to taste, but it was cool to her heated face,
and it greatly revived and refreshed her.
Madame Antoine's cot
was at the far end of the village. She welcomed them with all the native
hospitality, as she would have opened her door to let the sunlight in. She was
fat, and walked heavily and clumsily across the floor. She could speak no
English, but when Robert made her understand that the lady who accompanied him
was ill and desired to rest, she was all eagerness to make Edna feel at home
and to dispose of her comfortably.
The whole place was
immaculately clean, and the big, four- posted bed, snow-white, invited one to
repose. It stood in a small side room which looked out across a narrow grass
plot toward the shed, where there was a disabled boat lying keel upward.
Madame Antoine had not
gone to mass. Her son Tonie had, but she supposed he would soon be back, and
she invited Robert to be seated and wait for him. But he went and sat outside
the door and smoked. Madame Antoine busied herself in the large front room
preparing dinner. She was boiling mullets over a few red coals in the huge
fireplace.
Edna, left alone in the
little side room, loosened her clothes, removing the greater part of them. She
bathed her face, her neck and arms in the basin that stood between the windows.
She took off her shoes and stockings and stretched herself in the very center
of the high, white bed. How luxurious it felt to rest thus in a strange, quaint
bed, with its sweet country odor of laurel lingering about the sheets and
mattress! She stretched her strong limbs that ached a little. She ran her
fingers through her loosened hair for a while. She looked at her round arms as
she held them straight up and rubbed them one after the other, observing
closely, as if it were something she saw for the first time, the fine, firm
quality and texture of her flesh. She clasped her hands easily above her head,
and it was thus she fell asleep.
She slept lightly at
first, half awake and drowsily attentive to the things about her. She could
hear Madame Antoine's heavy, scraping tread as she walked back and forth on the
sanded floor. Some chickens were clucking outside the windows, scratching for
bits of gravel in the grass. Later she half heard the voices of Robert and
Tonie talking under the shed. She did not stir. Even her eyelids rested numb
and heavily over her sleepy eyes. The voices went on--Tonie's slow, Acadian
drawl, Robert's quick, soft, smooth French. She understood French imperfectly
unless directly addressed, and the voices were only part of the other drowsy,
muffled sounds lulling her senses.
When Edna awoke it was
with the conviction that she had slept long and soundly. The voices were hushed
under the shed. Madame Antoine's step was no longer to be heard in the
adjoining room. Even the chickens had gone elsewhere to scratch and cluck. The
mosquito bar was drawn over her; the old woman had come in while she slept and
let down the bar. Edna arose quietly from the bed, and looking between the
curtains of the window, she saw by the slanting rays of the sun that the
afternoon was far advanced. Robert was out there under the shed, reclining in
the shade against the sloping keel of the overturned boat. He was reading from
a book. Tonie was no longer with him. She wondered what had become of the rest
of the party. She peeped out at him two or three times as she stood washing
herself in the little basin between the windows.
Madame Antoine had laid
some coarse, clean towels upon a chair, and had placed a box of poudre de
rizwithin easy reach. Edna dabbed the powder upon her nose and cheeks as she
looked at herself closely in the little distorted mirror which hung on the wall
above the basin. Her eyes were bright and wide awake and her face glowed.
When she had completed
her toilet she walked into the adjoining room. She was very hungry. No one was
there. But there was a cloth spread upon the table that stood against the wall,
and a cover was laid for one, with a crusty brown loaf and a bottle of wine
beside the plate. Edna bit a piece from the brown loaf, tearing it with her
strong, white teeth. She poured some of the wine into the glass and drank it
down. Then she went softly out of doors, and plucking an orange from the
low-hang ing bough of a tree, threw it at Robert, who did not know she was
awake and up.
An illumination broke
over his whole face when he saw her and joined her under the orange tree.
"How many years
have I slept?" she inquired. "The whole island seems changed. A new
race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only you and me as past relics. How
many ages ago did Madame Antoine and Tonie die? and when did our people from
Grand Isle disappear from the earth?"
He familiarly adjusted
a ruffle upon her shoulder.
"You have slept
precisely one hundred years. I was left here to guard your slumbers; and for
one hundred years I have been out under the shed reading a book. The only evil
I couldn't prevent was to keep a broiled fowl from drying up."
"If it has turned
to stone, still will I eat it," said Edna, moving with him into the house.
"But really, what has become of Monsieur Farival and the others?"
"Gone hours ago.
When they found that you were sleeping they thought it best not to awake you.
Any way, I wouldn't have let them. What was I here for?"
"I wonder if Léonce
will be uneasy!" she speculated, as she seated herself at table.
"Of course not; he
knows you are with me," Robert replied, as he busied himself among sundry
pans and covered dishes which had been left standing on the hearth.
"Where are Madame
Antoine and her son?" asked Edna.
"Gone to Vespers,
and to visit some friends, I believe. I am to take you back in Tonie's boat
whenever you are ready to go."
He stirred the
smoldering ashes till the broiled fowl began to sizzle afresh. He served her
with no mean repast, dripping the coffee anew and sharing it with her. Madame
Antoine had cooked little else than the mullets, but while Edna slept Robert
had foraged the island. He was childishly gratified to discover her appetite,
and to see the relish with which she ate the food which he had procured for
her.
"Shall we go right
away?" she asked, after draining her glass and brushing together the
crumbs of the crusty loaf.
"The sun isn't as
low as it will be in two hours," he answered.
"The sun will be
gone in two hours."
"Well, let it go;
who cares!"
They waited a good
while under the orange trees, till Madame Antoine came back, panting, waddling,
with a thousand apologies to explain her absence. Tonie did not dare to return.
He was shy, and would not willingly face any woman except his mother.
It was very pleasant to
stay there under the orange trees, while the sun dipped lower and lower,
turning the western sky to flaming copper and gold. The shadows lengthened and
crept out like stealthy, grotesque monsters across the grass.
Edna and Robert both
sat upon the ground--that is, he lay upon the ground beside her, occasionally
picking at the hem of her muslin gown.
Madame Antoine seated
her fat body, broad and squat, upon a bench beside the door. She had been
talking all the afternoon, and had wound herself up to the storytelling pitch.
And what stories she
told them! But twice in her life she had left the Cheniere Caminada,and then
for the briefest span. All her years she had squatted and waddled there upon
the island, gathering legends of the Baratarians and the sea. The night came
on, with the moon to lighten it. Edna could hear the whispering voices of dead
men and the click of muffled gold.
When she and Robert
stepped into Tonie's boat, with the red lateen sail, misty spirit forms were
prowling in the shadows and among the reeds, and upon the water were phantom
ships, speeding to cover.
The youngest boy,
Etienne, had been very naughty, Madame Ratignolle said, as she delivered him
into the hands of his mother. He had been unwilling to go to bed and had made a
scene; whereupon she had taken charge of him and pacified him as well as she
could. Raoul had been in bed and asleep for two hours.
The youngster was in
his long white nightgown, that kept tripping him up as Madame Ratignolle led
him along by the hand. With the other chubby fist he rubbed his eyes, which
were heavy with sleep and ill humor. Edna took him in her arms, and seating
herself in the rocker, began to coddle and caress him, calling him all manner
of tender names, soothing him to sleep.
It was not more than
nine o'clock. No one had yet gone to bed but the children.
Léonce had been very
uneasy at first, Madame Ratignolle said, and had wanted to start at once for
the Cheniere. But Monsieur Farival had assured him that his wife was only
overcome with sleep and fatigue, that Tonie would bring her safely back later
in the day; and he had thus been dissuaded from crossing the bay. He had gone
over to Klein's, looking up some cotton broker whom he wished to see in regard
to securities, exchanges, stocks, bonds, or something of the sort, Madame
Ratignolle did not remember what. He said he would not remain away late. She
herself was suffering from heat and oppression, she said. She carried a bottle
of salts and a large fan. She would not consent to remain with Edna, for
Monsieur Ratignolle was alone, and he detested above all things to be left
alone.
When Etienne had fallen
asleep Edna bore him into the back room, and Robert went and lifted the
mosquito bar that she might lay the child comfortably in his bed. The quadroon
had vanished. When they emerged from the cottage Robert bade Edna good-night.
"Do you know we
have been together the whole livelong day, Robert--since early this
morning?" she said at parting.
"All but the
hundred years when you were sleeping. Good- night."
He pressed her hand and
went away in the direction of the beach. He did not join any of the others, but
walked alone toward the Gulf.
Edna stayed outside,
awaiting her husband's return. She had no desire to sleep or to retire; nor did
she feel like going over to sit with the Ratignolles, or to join Madame Lebrun
and a group whose animated voices reached her as they sat in conversation
before the house. She let her mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and
she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every
other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself--her present
self-was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with
different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that
colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect.
She wondered why Robert
had gone away and left her. It did not occur to her to think he might have
grown tired of being with her the livelong day. She was not tired, and she felt
that he was not. She regretted that he had gone. It was so much more natural to
have him stay when he was not absolutely required to leave her.
As Edna waited for her
husband she sang low a little song that Robert had sung as they crossed the
bay. It began with "Ah! si tu savais,"and every verse ended with
"si tu savais."
Robert's voice was not
pretentious. It was musical and true. The voice, the notes, the whole refrain
haunted her memory.
When Edna entered the
dining-room one evening a little late, as was her habit, an unusually animated
conversation seemed to be going on. Several persons were talking at once, and
Victor's voice was predominating, even over that of his mother. Edna had
returned late from her bath, had dressed in some haste, and her face was
flushed. Her head, set off by her dainty white gown, suggested a rich, rare
blossom. She took her seat at table between old Monsieur Farival and Madame
Ratignolle.
As she seated herself
and was about to begin to eat her soup, which had been served when she entered
the room, several persons informed her simultaneously that Robert was going to
Mexico. She laid her spoon down and looked about her bewildered. He had been
with her, reading to her all the morning, and had never even mentioned such a place
as Mexico. She had not seen him during the afternoon; she had heard some one
say he was at the house, upstairs with his mother. This she had thought nothing
of, though she was surprised when he did not join her later in the afternoon,
when she went down to the beach.
She looked across at
him, where he sat beside Madame Lebrun, who presided. Edna's face was a blank
picture of bewilderment, which she never thought of disguising. He lifted his
eyebrows with the pretext of a smile as he returned her glance. He looked
embarrassed and uneasy. "When is he going?" she asked of everybody in
general, as if Robert were not there to answer for himself.
"To-night!"
"This very evening!" "Did you ever!" "What possesses
him!" were some of the replies she gathered, uttered simultaneously in
French and English.
"Impossible!"
she exclaimed. "How can a person start off from Grand Isle to Mexico at a
moment's notice, as if he were going over to Klein's or to the wharf or down to
the beach?"
"I said all along
I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so for years!" cried Robert, in an
excited and irritable tone, with the air of a man defending himself against a
swarm of stinging insects.
Madame Lebrun knocked
on the table with her knife handle.
"Please let Robert
explain why he is going, and why he is going to-night," she called out.
"Really, this table is getting to be more and more like Bedlam every day,
with everybody talking at once. Sometimes--I hope God will forgive me--but
positively, sometimes I wish Victor would lose the power of speech."
Victor laughed
sardonically as he thanked his mother for her holy wish, of which he failed to
see the benefit to anybody, except that it might afford her a more ample
opportunity and license to talk herself.
Monsieur Farival
thought that Victor should have been taken out in mid-ocean in his earliest
youth and drowned. Victor thought there would be more logic in thus disposing
of old people with an established claim for making themselves universally
obnoxious. Madame Lebrun grew a trifle hysterical; Robert called his brother
some sharp, hard names.
"There's nothing
much to explain, mother," he said; though he explained,
nevertheless--looking chiefly at Edna--that he could only meet the gentleman
whom he intended to join at Vera Cruz by taking such and such a steamer, which
left New Orleans on such a day; that Beaudelet was going out with his
lugger-load of vegetables that night, which gave him an opportunity of reaching
the city and making his vessel in time.
"But when did you
make up your mind to all this?" demanded Monsieur Farival.
"This
afternoon," returned Robert, with a shade of annoyance.
"At what time this
afternoon?" persisted the old gentleman, with nagging determination, as if
he were cross-questioning a criminal in a court of justice.
"At four o'clock
this afternoon, Monsieur Farival," Robert replied, in a high voice and
with a lofty air, which reminded Edna of some gentleman on the stage.
She had forced herself
to eat most of her soup, and now she was picking the flaky bits of a court
bouillonwith her fork.
The lovers were
profiting by the general conversation on Mexico to speak in whispers of matters
which they rightly considered were interesting to no one but themselves. The
lady in black had once received a pair of prayer-beads of curious workmanship
from Mexico, with very special indulgence attached to them, but she had never
been able to ascertain whether the indulgence extended outside the Mexican
border. Father Fochel of the Cathedral had attempted to explain it; but he had
not done so to her satisfaction. And she begged that Robert would interest
himself, and discover, if possible, whether she was entitled to the indulgence
accompanying the remarkably curious Mexican prayer-beads.
Madame Ratignolle hoped
that Robert would exercise extreme caution in dealing with the Mexicans, who,
she considered, were a treacherous people, unscrupulous and revengeful. She
trusted she did them no injustice in thus condemning them as a race. She had
known personally but one Mexican, who made and sold excellent tamales, and whom
she would have trusted implicitly, so softspoken was he. One day he was
arrested for stabbing his wife. She never knew whether he had been hanged or
not.
Victor had grown
hilarious, and was attempting to tell an anecdote about a Mexican girl who
served chocolate one winter in a restaurant in Dauphine Street. No one would
listen to him but old Monsieur Farival, who went into convulsions over the
droll story.
Edna wondered if they
had all gone mad, to be talking and clamoring at that rate. She herself could
think of nothing to say about Mexico or the Mexicans.
"At what time do
you leave?" she asked Robert.
"At ten," he
told her. "Beaudelet wants to wait for the moon."
"Are you all ready
to go?"
"Quite ready. I
shall only take a hand-bag, and shall pack my trunk in the city."
He turned to answer
some question put to him by his mother, and Edna, having finished her black
coffee, left the table.
She went directly to
her room. The little cottage was close and stuffy after leaving the outer air.
But she did not mind; there appeared to be a hundred different things demanding
her attention indoors. She began to set the toilet-stand to rights, grumbling
at the negligence of the quadroon, who was in the adjoining room putting the
children to bed. She gathered together stray garments that were hanging on the
backs of chairs, and put each where it belonged in closet or bureau drawer. She
changed her gown for a more comfortable and commodious wrapper. She rearranged
her hair, combing and brushing it with unusual energy. Then she went in and
assisted the quadroon in getting the boys to bed.
They were very playful
and inclined to talk--to do anything but lie quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent
the quadroon away to her supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat
and told the children a story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added
to their wakefulness. She left them in heated argument, speculating about the
conclusion of the tale which their mother promised to finish the following
night.
The little black girl
came in to say that Madame Lebrun would like to have Mrs. Pontellier go and sit
with them over at the house till Mr. Robert went away. Edna returned answer
that she had already undressed, that she did not feel quite well, but perhaps
she would go over to the house later. She started to dress again, and got as
far advanced as to remove her peignoir. But changing her mind once more she
resumed the peignoir,and went outside and sat down before her door. She was
overheated and irritable, and fanned herself energetically for a while. Madame
Ratignolle came down to discover what was the matter.
"All that noise
and confusion at the table must have upset me," replied Edna, "and
moreover, I hate shocks and surprises. The idea of Robert starting off in such
a ridiculously sudden and dramatic way! As if it were a matter of life and
death! Never saying a word about it all morning when he was with me."
"Yes," agreed
Madame Ratignolle. "I think it was showing us all--you especially--very
little consideration. It wouldn't have surprised me in any of the others; those
Lebruns are all given to heroics. But I must say I should never have expected
such a thing from Robert. Are you not coming down? Come on, dear; it doesn't
look friendly."
"No," said
Edna, a little sullenly. "I can't go to the trouble of dressing again; I
don't feel like it."
"You needn't
dress; you look all right; fasten a belt around your waist. Just look at
me!"
"No,"
persisted Edna; "but you go on. Madame Lebrun might be offended if we both
stayed away."
Madame Ratignolle
kissed Edna good-night, and went away, being in truth rather desirous of
joining in the general and animated conversation which was still in progress
concerning Mexico and the Mexicans.
Somewhat later Robert
came up, carrying his hand-bag.
"Aren't you
feeling well?" he asked.
"Oh, well enough.
Are you going right away?"
He lit a match and
looked at his watch. "In twenty minutes," he said. The sudden and
brief flare of the match emphasized the darkness for a while. He sat down upon
a stool which the children had left out on the porch.
"Get a
chair," said Edna.
"This will
do," he replied. He put on his soft hat and nervously took it off again,
and wiping his face with his handkerchief, complained of the heat.
"Take the
fan," said Edna, offering it to him.
"Oh, no! Thank
you. It does no good; you have to stop fanning some time, and feel all the more
uncomfortable afterward."
"That's one of the
ridiculous things which men always say. I have never known one to speak
otherwise of fanning. How long will you be gone?"
"Forever, perhaps.
I don't know. It depends upon a good many things."
"Well, in case it
shouldn't be forever, how long will it be?"
"I don't
know."
"This seems to me
perfectly preposterous and uncalled for. I don't like it. I don't understand
your motive for silence and mystery, never saying a word to me about it this
morning." He remained silent, not offering to defend himself. He only
said, after a moment:
"Don't part from
me in any ill humor. I never knew you to be out of patience with me
before."
"I don't want to
part in any ill humor," she said. "But can't you understand? I've
grown used to seeing you, to having you with me all the time, and your action
seems unfriendly, even unkind. You don't even offer an excuse for it. Why, I
was planning to be together, thinking of how pleasant it would be to see you in
the city next winter."
"So was I,"
he blurted. "Perhaps that's the--" He stood up suddenly and held out
his hand. "Good-by, my dear Mrs. Pontellier; good-by. You won't--I hope
you won't completely forget me." She clung to his hand, striving to detain
him.
"Write to me when
you get there, won't you, Robert?" she entreated.
"I will, thank
you. Good-by."
How unlike Robert! The
merest acquaintance would have said something more emphatic than "I will,
thank you; good-by," to such a request.
He had evidently
already taken leave of the people over at the house, for he descended the steps
and went to join Beaudelet, who was out there with an oar across his shoulder
waiting for Robert. They walked away in the darkness. She could only hear
Beaudelet's voice; Robert had apparently not even spoken a word of greeting to
his companion.
Edna bit her
handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back and to hide, even from herself
as she would have hidden from an other, the emotion which was
troubling-tearing--her. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
For the first time she
recognized the symptoms of infatuation which she had felt incipiently as a
child, as a girl in her earliest teens, and later as a young woman. The
recognition did not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any
suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her; offered no
lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a mystery which she never
attempted to penetrate. The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture
her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that
which she had held, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly
awakened being demanded.
"Do you miss your
friend greatly?" asked Mademoiselle Reisz one morning as she came creeping
up behind Edna, who had just left her cottage on her way to the beach. She
spent much of her time in the water since she had acquired finally the art of
swimming. As their stay at Grand Isle drew near its close, she felt that she
could not give too much time to a diversion which afforded her the only real
pleasurable moments that she knew. When Mademoiselle Reisz came and touched her
upon the shoulder and spoke to her, the woman seemed to echo the thought which
was ever in Edna's mind; or, better, the feeling which constantly possessed
her.
Robert's going had some
way taken the brightness, the color, the meaning out of everything. The
conditions of her life were in no way changed, but her whole existence was
dulled, like a faded garment which seems to be no longer worth wearing. She
sought him everywhere--in others whom she induced to talk about him. She went
up in the mornings to Madame Lebrun's room, braving the clatter of the old
sewing-machine. She sat there and chatted at intervals as Robert had done. She
gazed around the room at the pictures and photographs hanging upon the wall,
and discovered in some corner an old family album, which she examined with the
keenest interest, appealing to Madame Lebrun for enlightenment concerning the
many figures and faces which she discovered between its pages.
There was a picture of
Madame Lebrun with Robert as a baby, seated in her lap, a round-faced infant
with a fist in his mouth. The eyes alone in the baby suggested the man. And
that was he also in kilts, at the age of five, wearing long curls and holding a
whip in his hand. It made Edna laugh, and she laughed, too, at the portrait in
his first long trousers; while another interested her, taken when he left for
college, looking thin, long-faced, with eyes full of fire, ambition and great
intentions. But there was no recent picture, none which suggested the Robert
who had gone away five days ago, leaving a void and wilderness behind him.
"Oh, Robert
stopped having his pictures taken when he had to pay for them himself! He found
wiser use for his money, he says," explained Madame Lebrun. She had a
letter from him, written before he left New Orleans. Edna wished to see the letter,
and Madame Lebrun told her to look for it either on the table or the dresser,
or perhaps it was on the mantelpiece.
The letter was on the
bookshelf. It possessed the greatest interest and attraction for Edna; the
envelope, its size and shape, the post-mark, the handwriting. She examined
every detail of the outside before opening it. There were only a few lines,
setting forth that he would leave the city that afternoon, that he had packed
his trunk in good shape, that he was well, and sent her his love and begged to
be affectionately remembered to all. There was no special message to Edna
except a postscript saying that if Mrs. Pontellier desired to finish the book
which he had been reading to her, his mother would find it in his room, among
other books there on the table. Edna experienced a pang of jealousy because he
had written to his mother rather than to her.
Every one seemed to
take for granted that she missed him. Even her husband, when he came down the
Saturday following Robert's departure, expressed regret that he had gone.
"How do you get on
without him, Edna?" he asked.
"It's very dull
without him," she admitted. Mr. Pontellier had seen Robert in the city,
and Edna asked him a dozen questions or more. Where had they met? On Carondelet
Street, in the morning. They had gone "in" and had a drink and a
cigar together. What had they talked about? Chiefly about his prospects in
Mexico, which Mr. Pontellier thought were promising. How did he look? How did
he seem--grave, or gay, or how? Quite cheerful, and wholly taken up with the
idea of his trip, which Mr. Pontellier found alto gether natural in a young
fellow about to seek fortune and adventure in a strange, queer country.
Edna tapped her foot
impatiently, and wondered why the children persisted in playing in the sun when
they might be under the trees. She went down and led them out of the sun,
scolding the quadroon for not being more attentive.
It did not strike her
as in the least grotesque that she should be making of Robert the object of
conversation and leading her husband to speak of him. The sentiment which she
entertained for Robert in no way resembled that which she felt for her husband,
or had ever felt, or ever expected to feel. She had all her life long been
accustomed to harbor thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They
had never taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own,
and she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that they
concerned no one but herself. Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle that she
would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one. Then had
followed a rather heated argument; the two women did not appear to understand
each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried to appease her
friend, to explain.
"I would give up
the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children;
but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something
which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me."
"I don't know what
you would call the essential, or what you mean by the unessential," said
Madame Ratignolle, cheerfully; "but a woman who would give her life for
her children could do no more than that--your Bible tells you so. I'm sure I couldn't
do more than that."
"Oh, yes you
could!" laughed Edna.
She was not surprised
at Mademoiselle Reisz's question the morning that lady, following her to the
beach, tapped her on the shoulder and asked if she did not greatly miss her
young friend.
"Oh, good morning,
Mademoiselle; is it you? Why, of course I miss Robert. Are you going down to
bathe?"
"Why should I go
down to bathe at the very end of the season when I haven't been in the surf all
summer," replied the woman, disagreeably.
"I beg your
pardon," offered Edna, in some embarrassment, for she should have
remembered that Mademoiselle Reisz's avoidance of the water had furnished a
theme for much pleasantry. Some among them thought it was on account of her
false hair, or the dread of getting the violets wet, while others attributed it
to the natural aversion for water sometimes believed to accompany the artistic
temperament. Mademoiselle offered Edna some chocolates in a paper bag, which
she took from her pocket, by way of showing that she bore no ill feeling. She
habitually ate chocolates for their sustaining quality; they contained much
nutriment in small compass, she said. They saved her from starvation, as Madame
Lebrun's table was utterly impossible; and no one save so impertinent a woman
as Madame Lebrun could think of offering such food to people and requiring them
to pay for it.
"She must feel
very lonely without her son," said Edna, desiring to change the subject.
"Her favorite son, too. It must have been quite hard to let him go."
Mademoiselle laughed
maliciously.
"Her favorite son!
Oh, dear! Who could have been imposing such a tale upon you? Aline Lebrun lives
for Victor, and for Victor alone. She has spoiled him into the worthless
creature he is. She worships him and the ground he walks on. Robert is very
well in a way, to give up all the money he can earn to the family, and keep the
barest pittance for himself. Favorite son, indeed! I miss the poor fellow
myself, my dear. I liked to see him and to hear him about the place the only
Lebrun who is worth a pinch of salt. He comes to see me often in the city. I
like to play to him. That Victor! hanging would be too good for him. It's a
wonder Robert hasn't beaten him to death long ago."
"I thought he had
great patience with his brother," offered Edna, glad to be talking about
Robert, no matter what was said.
"Oh! he thrashed
him well enough a year or two ago," said Mademoiselle. "It was about
a Spanish girl, whom Victor considered that he had some sort of claim upon. He
met Robert one day talking to the girl, or walking with her, or bathing with
her, or carrying her basket--I don't remember what;--and he became so insulting
and abusive that Robert gave him a thrashing on the spot that has kept him
comparatively in order for a good while. It's about time he was getting
another."
"Was her name
Mariequita?" asked Edna.
"Mariequita--yes,
that was it; Mariequita. I had forgotten. Oh, she's a sly one, and a bad one,
that Mariequita!"
Edna looked down at
Mademoiselle Reisz and wondered how she could have listened to her venom so
long. For some reason she felt depressed, almost unhappy. She had not intended
to go into the water; but she donned her bathing suit, and left Mademoiselle
alone, seated under the shade of the children's tent. The water was growing
cooler as the season advanced. Edna plunged and swam about with an abandon that
thrilled and invigorated her. She remained a long time in the water, half
hoping that Mademoiselle Reisz would not wait for her.
But Mademoiselle waited.
She was very amiable during the walk back, and raved much over Edna's
appearance in her bathing suit. She talked about music. She hoped that Edna
would go to see her in the city, and wrote her address with the stub of a
pencil on a piece of card which she found in her pocket.
"When do you
leave?" asked Edna.
"Next Monday; and
you?"
"The following
week," answered Edna, adding, "It has been a pleasant summer, hasn't
it, Mademoiselle?"
"Well,"
agreed Mademoiselle Reisz, with a shrug, "rather pleasant, if it hadn't
been for the mosquitoes and the Farival twins."
The Pontelliers
possessed a very charming home on Esplanade Street in New Orleans. It was a
large, double cottage, with a broad front veranda, whose round, fluted columns
supported the sloping roof. The house was painted a dazzling white; the outside
shutters, or jalousies, were green. In the yard, which was kept scrupulously
neat, were flowers and plants of every description which flourishes in South
Louisiana. Within doors the appointments were perfect after the conventional
type. The softest carpets and rugs covered the floors; rich and tasteful
draperies hung at doors and windows. There were paintings, selected with judgment
and discrimination, upon the walls. The cut glass, the silver, the heavy damask
which daily appeared upon the table were the envy of many women whose husbands
were less generous than Mr. Pontellier.
Mr. Pontellier was very
fond of walking about his house examining its various appointments and details,
to see that nothing was amiss. He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly
because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a
painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain--no matter what--after he had bought
it and placed it among his household gods.
On Tuesday
afternoons--Tuesday being Mrs. Pontellier's reception day--there was a constant
stream of callers-women who came in carriages or in the street cars, or walked
when the air was soft and distance permitted. A light-colored mulatto boy, in
dress coat and bearing a diminutive silver tray for the reception of cards,
admitted them. A maid, in white fluted cap, offered the callers liqueur,
coffee, or chocolate, as they might desire. Mrs. Pontellier, attired in a
handsome reception gown, remained in the drawing-room the entire afternoon
receiving her visitors. Men sometimes called in the evening with their wives.
This had been the
programme which Mrs. Pontellier had religiously followed since her marriage,
six years before. Certain evenings during the week she and her husband attended
the opera or sometimes the play.
Mr. Pontellier left his
home in the mornings between nine and ten o'clock, and rarely returned before
half-past six or seven in the evening--dinner being served at half-past seven.
He and his wife seated
themselves at table one Tuesday evening, a few weeks after their return from
Grand Isle. They were alone together. The boys were being put to bed; the
patter of their bare, escaping feet could be heard occasionally, as well as the
pursuing voice of the quadroon, lifted in mild protest and entreaty. Mrs.
Pontellier did not wear her usual Tuesday reception gown; she was in ordinary
house dress. Mr. Pontellier, who was observant about such things, noticed it,
as he served the soup and handed it to the boy in waiting.
"Tired out, Edna?
Whom did you have? Many callers?" he asked. He tasted his soup and began
to season it with pepper, salt, vinegar, mustard--everything within reach.
"There were a good
many," replied Edna, who was eating her soup with evident satisfaction.
"I found their cards when I got home; I was out."
"Out!"
exclaimed her husband, with something like genuine consternation in his voice
as he laid down the vinegar cruet and looked at her through his glasses.
"Why, what could have taken you out on Tuesday? What did you have to
do?"
"Nothing. I simply
felt like going out, and I went out."
"Well, I hope you
left some suitable excuse," said her husband, somewhat appeased, as he
added a dash of cayenne pepper to the soup.
"No, I left no
excuse. I told Joe to say I was out, that was all."
"Why, my dear, I
should think you'd understand by this time that people don't do such things;
we've got to observe les convenancesif we ever expect to get on and keep up
with the procession. If you felt that you had to leave home this afternoon, you
should have left some suitable explanation for your absence.
"This soup is
really impossible; it's strange that woman hasn't learned yet to make a decent
soup. Any free-lunch stand in town serves a better one. Was Mrs. Belthrop
here?"
"Bring the tray
with the cards, Joe. I don't remember who was here."
The boy retired and
returned after a moment, bringing the tiny silver tray, which was covered with
ladies' visiting cards. He handed it to Mrs. Pontellier.
"Give it to Mr.
Pontellier," she said.
Joe offered the tray to
Mr. Pontellier, and removed the soup.
Mr. Pontellier scanned
the names of his wife's callers, reading some of them aloud, with comments as
he read.
"'The Misses
Delasidas.' I worked a big deal in futures for their father this morning; nice
girls; it's time they were getting married. 'Mrs. Belthrop.' I tell you what it
is, Edna; you can't afford to snub Mrs. Belthrop. Why, Belthrop could buy and
sell us ten times over. His busi ness is worth a good, round sum to me. You'd
better write her a note. 'Mrs. James Highcamp.' Hugh! the less you have to do
with Mrs. Highcamp, the better. 'Madame Laforce.' Came all the way from
Carrolton, too, poor old soul. 'Miss Wiggs,' 'Mrs. Eleanor Boltons.'" He
pushed the cards aside.
"Mercy!"
exclaimed Edna, who had been fuming. "Why are you taking the thing so
seriously and making such a fuss over it?"
"I'm not making any
fuss over it. But it's just such seeming trifles that we've got to take
seriously; such things count."
The fish was scorched.
Mr. Pontellier would not touch it. Edna said she did not mind a little scorched
taste. The roast was in some way not to his fancy, and he did not like the
manner in which the vegetables were served.
"It seems to
me," he said, "we spend money enough in this house to procure at
least one meal a day which a man could eat and retain his self-respect."
"You used to think
the cook was a treasure," returned Edna, indifferently.
"Perhaps she was
when she first came; but cooks are only human. They need looking after, like
any other class of persons that you employ. Suppose I didn't look after the
clerks in my office, just let them run things their own way; they'd soon make a
nice mess of me and my business."
"Where are you
going?" asked Edna, seeing that her husband arose from table without
having eaten a morsel except a taste of the highly-seasoned soup.
"I'm going to get
my dinner at the club. Good night." He went into the hall, took his hat
and stick from the stand, and left the house.
She was somewhat
familiar with such scenes. They had often made her very unhappy. On a few
previous occasions she had been completely deprived of any desire to finish her
dinner. Sometimes she had gone into the kitchen to administer a tardy rebuke to
the cook. Once she went to her room and studied the cookbook during an entire
evening, finally writing out a menu for the week, which left her harassed with
a feeling that, after all, she had accomplished no good that was worth the
name.
But that evening Edna
finished her dinner alone, with forced deliberation. Her face was flushed and
her eyes flamed with some inward fire that lighted them. After finishing her
dinner she went to her room, having instructed the boy to tell any other
callers that she was indisposed.
It was a large,
beautiful room, rich and picturesque in the soft, dim light which the maid had
turned low. She went and stood at an open window and looked out upon the deep
tangle of the garden below. All the mystery and witchery of the night seemed to
have gathered there amid the perfumes and the dusky and tortuous outlines of
flowers and foliage. She was seeking herself and finding herself in just such
sweet, half-darkness which met her moods. But the voices were not soothing that
came to her from the darkness and the sky above and the stars. They jeered and
sounded mournful notes without promise, devoid even of hope. She turned back
into the room and began to walk to and fro down its whole length, without
stopping, without resting. She carried in her hands a thin handkerchief, which
she tore into ribbons, rolled into a ball, and flung from her. Once she stopped,
and taking off her wedding ring, flung it upon the carpet. When she saw it
lying there, she stamped her heel upon it, striving to crush it. But her small
boot heel did not make an indenture, not a mark upon the little glittering
circlet.
In a sweeping passion
she seized a glass vase from the table and flung it upon the tiles of the
hearth. She wanted to destroy something. The crash and clatter were what she
wanted to hear.
A maid, alarmed at the
din of breaking glass, entered the room to discover what was the matter.
"A vase fell upon
the hearth," said Edna. "Never mind; leave it till morning."
"Oh! you might get
some of the glass in your feet, ma'am," insisted the young woman, picking
up bits of the broken vase that were scattered upon the carpet. "And
here's your ring, ma'am, under the chair."
Edna held out her hand,
and taking the ring, slipped it upon her finger.
The following morning
Mr. Pontellier, upon leaving for his office, asked Edna if she would not meet
him in town in order to look at some new fixtures for the library.
"I hardly think we
need new fixtures, Léonce. Don't let us get anything new; you are too
extravagant. I don't believe you ever think of saving or putting by."
"The way to become
rich is to make money, my dear Edna, not to save it," he said. He
regretted that she did not feel inclined to go with him and select new
fixtures. He kissed her good-by, and told her she was not looking well and must
take care of herself. She was unusually pale and very quiet.
She stood on the front
veranda as he quitted the house, and absently picked a few sprays of jessamine
that grew upon a trellis near by. She inhaled the odor of the blossoms and
thrust them into the bosom of her white morning gown. The boys were dragging
along the banquette a small "express wagon," which they had filled
with blocks and sticks. The quadroon was following them with little quick
steps, having assumed a fictitious animation and alacrity for the occasion. A
fruit vender was crying his wares in the street.
Edna looked straight
before her with a self-absorbed expression upon her face. She felt no interest
in anything about her. The street, the children, the fruit vender, the flowers
growing there under her eyes, were all part and parcel of an alien world which
had suddenly become antagonistic.
She went back into the
house. She had thought of speaking to the cook concerning her blunders of the
previous night; but Mr. Pontellier had saved her that disagreeable mission, for
which she was so poorly fitted. Mr. Pontellier's arguments were usually
convincing with those whom he employed. He left home feeling quite sure that he
and Edna would sit down that evening, and possibly a few subsequent evenings,
to a dinner deserving of the name.
Edna spent an hour or
two in looking over some of her old sketches. She could see their shortcomings
and defects, which were glaring in her eyes. She tried to work a little, but
found she was not in the humor. Finally she gathered together a few of the
sketches--those which she considered the least discreditable; and she carried
them with her when, a little later, she dressed and left the house. She looked
handsome and distinguished in her street gown. The tan of the seashore had left
her face, and her forehead was smooth, white, and polished beneath her heavy,
yellow- brown hair. There were a few freckles on her face, and a small, dark
mole near the under lip and one on the temple, half-hidden in her hair.
As Edna walked along
the street she was thinking of Robert. She was still under the spell of her
infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of
remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself
upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled
in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his
existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt
into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled
her with an incomprehensible longing.
Edna was on her way to
Madame Ratignolle's. Their intimacy, begun at Grand Isle, had not declined, and
they had seen each other with some frequency since their return to the city.
The Ratignolles lived at no great distance from Edna's home, on the corner of a
side street, where Monsieur Ratignolle owned and conducted a drug store which
enjoyed a steady and prosperous trade. His father had been in the business
before him, and Monsieur Ratignolle stood well in the community and bore an
enviable reputation for integrity and clearheadedness. His family lived in
commodious apartments over the store, having an entrance on the side within the
porte cochere. There was something which Edna thought very French, very
foreign, about their whole manner of living. In the large and pleasant salon
which extended across the width of the house, the Ratignolles entertained their
friends once a fortnight with a soiree musicale,sometimes diversified by
card-playing. There was a friend who played upon the 'cello. One brought his
flute and another his violin, while there were some who sang and a number who
performed upon the piano with various degrees of taste and agility. The
Ratignolles' soirees musicaleswere widely known, and it was considered a
privilege to be invited to them.
Edna found her friend
engaged in assorting the clothes which had returned that morning from the
laundry. She at once abandoned her occupation upon seeing Edna, who had been
ushered without ceremony into her presence.
"'Cite can do it
as well as I; it is really her business," she explained to Edna, who
apologized for interrupting her. And she summoned a young black woman, whom she
instructed, in French, to be very careful in checking off the list which she
handed her. She told her to notice particularly if a fine linen handkerchief of
Monsieur Ratignolle's, which was missing last week, had been returned; and to
be sure to set to one side such pieces as required mending and darning.
Then placing an arm
around Edna's waist, she led her to the front of the house, to the salon, where
it was cool and sweet with the odor of great roses that stood upon the hearth
in jars.
Madame Ratignolle
looked more beautiful than ever there at home, in a neglige which left her arms
almost wholly bare and exposed the rich, melting curves of her white throat.
"Perhaps I shall
be able to paint your picture some day," said Edna with a smile when they
were seated. She produced the roll of sketches and started to unfold them.
"I believe I ought to work again. I feel as if I wanted to be doing
something. What do you think of them? Do you think it worth while to take it up
again and study some more? I might study for a while with Laidpore."
She knew that Madame
Ratignolle's opinion in such a matter would be next to valueless, that she
herself had not alone decided, but determined; but she sought the words of
praise and encouragement that would help her to put heart into her venture.
"Your talent is
immense, dear!"
"Nonsense!"
protested Edna, well pleased.
"Immense, I tell
you," persisted Madame Ratignolle, surveying the sketches one by one, at
close range, then holding them at arm's length, narrowing her eyes, and
dropping her head on one side. "Surely, this Bavarian peasant is worthy of
framing; and this basket of apples! never have I seen anything more lifelike.
One might almost be tempted to reach out a hand and take one."
Edna could not control
a feeling which bordered upon complacency at her friend's praise, even
realizing, as she did, its true worth. She retained a few of the sketches, and
gave all the rest to Madame Ratignolle, who appreciated the gift far beyond its
value and proudly exhibited the pictures to her husband when he came up from
the store a little later for his midday dinner.
Mr. Ratignolle was one
of those men who are called the salt of the earth. His cheer fulness was
unbounded, and it was matched by his goodness of heart, his broad charity, and
common sense. He and his wife spoke English with an accent which was only
discernible through its un-English emphasis and a certain carefulness and
deliberation. Edna's husband spoke English with no accent whatever. The
Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human
beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their
union.
As Edna seated herself
at table with them she thought, "Better a dinner of herbs," though it
did not take her long to discover that it was no dinner of herbs, but a
delicious repast, simple, choice, and in every way satisfying.
Monsieur Ratignolle was
delighted to see her, though he found her looking not so well as at Grand Isle,
and he advised a tonic. He talked a good deal on various topics, a little
politics, some city news and neighborhood gossip. He spoke with an animation
and earnestness that gave an exaggerated importance to every syllable he
uttered. His wife was keenly interested in everything he said, laying down her
fork the better to listen, chiming in, taking the words out of his mouth.
Edna felt depressed
rather than soothed after leaving them. The little glimpse of domestic harmony
which had been offered her, gave her no regret, no longing. It was not a
condition of life which fitted her, and she could see in it but an appalling
and hopeless ennui. She was moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame
Ratignolle,--a pity for that colorless existence which never uplifted its
possessor beyond the region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish
ever visited her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life's
delirium. Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by "life's delirium."
It had crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.
Edna could not help but
think that it was very foolish, very childish, to have stamped upon her wedding
ring and smashed the crystal vase upon the tiles. She was visited by no more
outbursts, moving her to such futile expedients. She began to do as she liked
and to feel as she liked. She completely abandoned her Tuesdays at home, and
did not return the visits of those who had called upon her. She made no
ineffectual efforts to conduct her household en bonne menagere,going and coming
as it suited her fancy, and, so far as she was able, lending herself to any
passing caprice.
Mr. Pontellier had been
a rather courteous husband so long as he met a certain tacit submissiveness in
his wife. But her new and unexpected line of conduct completely bewildered him.
It shocked him. Then her absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered
him. When Mr. Pontel lier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved
never to take another step backward.
"It seems to me
the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a household, and the mother of
children, to spend in an atelier days which would be better employed contriving
for the comfort of her family."
"I feel like
painting," answered Edna. "Perhaps I shan't always feel like
it."
"Then in God's
name paint! but don't let the family go to the devil. There's Madame
Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn't let everything else go
to chaos. And she's more of a musician than you are a painter."
"She isn't a
musician, and I'm not a painter. It isn't on account of painting that I let
things go."
"On account of
what, then?"
"Oh! I don't know.
Let me alone; you bother me."
It sometimes entered
Mr. Pontellier's mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little
unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he
could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that
fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the
world.
Her husband let her
alone as she requested, and went away to his office. Edna went up to her
atelier--a bright room in the top of the house. She was working with great
energy and interest, without accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied
her even in the smallest degree. For a time she had the whole household
enrolled in the service of art. The boys posed for her. They thought it amusing
at first, but the occupation soon lost its attractiveness when they discovered
that it was not a game arranged especially for their entertainment. The
quadroon sat for hours before Edna's palette, patient as a savage, while the
house-maid took charge of the children, and the drawing-room went undusted. But
the house- maid, too, served her term as model when Edna perceived that the
young woman's back and shoulders were molded on classic lines, and that her
hair, loosened from its confining cap, became an inspiration. While Edna worked
she sometimes sang low the little air, "Ah! si tu savais!"
It moved her with
recollections. She could hear again the ripple of the water, the flapping sail.
She could see the glint of the moon upon the bay, and could feel the soft,
gusty beating of the hot south wind. A subtle current of desire passed through
her body, weakening her hold upon the brushes and making her eyes burn.
There were days when
she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and
breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color,
the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day. She liked then to
wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny,
sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be
alone and unmolested.
There were days when
she was unhappy, she did not know why,-- when it did not seem worth while to be
glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when life appeared to her like a grotesque
pandemonium and humanity like worms struggling blindly toward inevitable
annihilation. She could not work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her
pulses and warm her blood.
It was during such a
mood that Edna hunted up Mademoiselle Reisz. She had not forgotten the rather
disagreeable impression left upon her by their last interview; but she
nevertheless felt a desire to see her--above all, to listen while she played
upon the piano. Quite early in the afternoon she started upon her quest for the
pianist. Unfortunately she had mislaid or lost Mademoiselle Reisz's card, and
looking up her address in the city directory, she found that the woman lived on
Bienville Street, some distance away. The directory which fell into her hands
was a year or more old, however, and upon reaching the number indicated, Edna
discovered that the house was occupied by a respectable family of mulattoes who
had chambres garniesto let. They had been living there for six months, and knew
absolutely nothing of a Mademoiselle Reisz. In fact, they knew nothing of any
of their neighbors; their lodgers were all people of the highest distinction,
they assured Edna. She did not linger to discuss class distinctions with Madame
Pouponne, but hastened to a neighboring grocery store, feeling sure that
Mademoiselle would have left her address with the proprietor.
He knew Mademoiselle
Reisz a good deal better than he wanted to know her, he informed his
questioner. In truth, he did not want to know her at all, or anything concerning
her--the most disagreeable and unpopular woman who ever lived in Bienville
Street. He thanked heaven she had left the neighborhood, and was equally
thankful that he did not know where she had gone.
Edna's desire to see
Mademoiselle Reisz had increased tenfold since these unlooked-for obstacles had
arisen to thwart it. She was wondering who could give her the information she
sought, when it suddenly occurred to her that Madame Lebrun would be the one most
likely to do so. She knew it was useless to ask Madame Ratignolle, who was on
the most distant terms with the musician, and preferred to know nothing
concerning her. She had once been almost as emphatic in expressing herself upon
the subject as the corner grocer.
Edna knew that Madame
Lebrun had returned to the city, for it was the middle of November. And she
also knew where the Lebruns lived, on Chartres Street.
Their home from the
outside looked like a prison, with iron bars before the door and lower windows.
The iron bars were a relic of the old regime,and no one had ever thought of
dislodging them. At the side was a high fence enclosing the garden. A gate or
door opening upon the street was locked. Edna rang the bell at this side garden
gate, and stood upon the banquette, waiting to be admitted.
It was Victor who
opened the gate for her. A black woman, wiping her hands upon her apron, was
close at his heels. Before she saw them Edna could hear them in altercation,
the woman-- plainly an anomaly--claiming the right to be allowed to perform her
duties, one of which was to answer the bell.
Victor was surprised
and delighted to see Mrs. Pontellier, and he made no attempt to conceal either
his astonishment or his delight. He was a dark-browed, good-looking youngster
of nineteen, greatly resembling his mother, but with ten times her impetuosity.
He instructed the black woman to go at once and inform Madame Lebrun that Mrs.
Pontellier desired to see her. The woman grumbled a refusal to do part of her duty
when she had not been permitted to do it all, and started back to her
interrupted task of weeding the garden. Whereupon Victor administered a rebuke
in the form of a volley of abuse, which, owing to its rapidity and incoherence,
was all but incomprehensible to Edna. Whatever it was, the rebuke was
convincing, for the woman dropped her hoe and went mumbling into the house.
Edna did not wish to
enter. It was very pleasant there on the side porch, where there were chairs, a
wicker lounge, and a small table. She seated herself, for she was tired from
her long tramp; and she began to rock gently and smooth out the folds of her
silk parasol. Victor drew up his chair beside her. He at once explained that
the black woman's offensive conduct was all due to imperfect training, as he
was not there to take her in hand. He had only come up from the island the
morning before, and expected to return next day. He stayed all winter at the
island; he lived there, and kept the place in order and got things ready for the
summer visitors.
But a man needed
occasional relaxation, he informed Mrs. Pontellier, and every now and again he
drummed up a pretext to bring him to the city. My! but he had had a time of it
the evening before! He wouldn't want his mother to know, and he began to talk
in a whisper. He was scintillant with recollections. Of course, he couldn't
think of telling Mrs. Pontellier all about it, she being a woman and not
comprehending such things. But it all began with a girl peeping and smiling at
him through the shutters as he passed by. Oh! but she was a beauty! Certainly
he smiled back, and went up and talked to her. Mrs. Pontellier did not know him
if she supposed he was one to let an opportunity like that escape him. Despite
herself, the youngster amused her. She must have betrayed in her look some
degree of interest or entertainment. The boy grew more daring, and Mrs.
Pontellier might have found herself, in a little while, listening to a highly
colored story but for the timely appearance of Madame Lebrun.
That lady was still
clad in white, according to her custom of the summer. Her eyes beamed an
effusive welcome. Would not Mrs. Pontellier go inside? Would she partake of
some refreshment? Why had she not been there before? How was that dear Mr.
Pontellier and how were those sweet children? Had Mrs. Pontellier ever known
such a warm November?
Victor went and
reclined on the wicker lounge behind his mother's chair, where he commanded a
view of Edna's face. He had taken her parasol from her hands while he spoke to
her, and he now lifted it and twirled it above him as he lay on his back. When
Madame Lebrun complained that it was so dull coming back to the city; that she
saw so few people now; that even Victor, when he came up from the island for a
day or two, had so much to occupy him and engage his time; then it was that the
youth went into contortions on the lounge and winked mischievously at Edna. She
somehow felt like a confederate in crime, and tried to look severe and
disapproving.
There had been but two
letters from Robert, with little in them, they told her. Victor said it was
really not worth while to go inside for the letters, when his mother entreated
him to go in search of them. He remembered the contents, which in truth he
rattled off very glibly when put to the test.
One letter was written
from Vera Cruz and the other from the City of Mexico. He had met Montel, who
was doing everything toward his advancement. So far, the financial situation
was no improvement over the one he had left in New Orleans, but of course the
prospects were vastly better. He wrote of the City of Mexico, the buildings,
the people and their habits, the conditions of life which he found there. He
sent his love to the family. He inclosed a check to his mother, and hoped she would
affectionately remember him to all his friends. That was about the substance of
the two letters. Edna felt that if there had been a message for her, she would
have received it. The despondent frame of mind in which she had left home began
again to overtake her, and she remembered that she wished to find Mademoiselle
Reisz.
Madame Lebrun knew
where Mademoiselle Reisz lived. She gave Edna the address, regretting that she
would not consent to stay and spend the remainder of the afternoon, and pay a
visit to Mademoiselle Reisz some other day. The afternoon was already well
advanced.
Victor escorted her out
upon the banquette, lifted her parasol, and held it over her while he walked to
the car with her. He entreated her to bear in mind that the disclosures of the
afternoon were strictly confidential. She laughed and bantered him a little,
remembering too late that she should have been dignified and reserved.
"How handsome Mrs.
Pontellier looked!" said Madame Lebrun to her son.
"Ravishing!"
he admitted. "The city atmosphere has improved her. Some way she doesn't
seem like the same woman."
Some people contended
that the reason Mademoiselle Reisz always chose apartments up under the roof
was to discourage the approach of beggars, peddlars and callers. There were
plenty of windows in her little front room. They were for the most part dingy,
but as they were nearly always open it did not make so much difference. They
often admitted into the room a good deal of smoke and soot; but at the same
time all the light and air that there was came through them. From her windows
could be seen the crescent of the river, the masts of ships and the big
chimneys of the Mississippi steamers. A magnificent piano crowded the
apartment. In the next room she slept, and in the third and last she harbored a
gasoline stove on which she cooked her meals when disinclined to descend to the
neighboring restaurant. It was there also that she ate, keeping her be longings
in a rare old buffet, dingy and battered from a hundred years of use.
When Edna knocked at
Mademoiselle Reisz's front room door and entered, she discovered that person
standing beside the window, engaged in mending or patching an old prunella
gaiter. The little musician laughed all over when she saw Edna. Her laugh
consisted of a contortion of the face and all the muscles of the body. She
seemed strikingly homely, standing there in the afternoon light. She still wore
the shabby lace and the artificial bunch of violets on the side of her head.
"So you remembered
me at last," said Mademoiselle. "I had said to myself, 'Ah, bah! she
will never come.'"
"Did you want me
to come?" asked Edna with a smile.
"I had not thought
much about it," answered Mademoiselle. The two had seated themselves on a
little bumpy sofa which stood against the wall. "I am glad, however, that
you came. I have the water boiling back there, and was just about to make some
coffee. You will drink a cup with me. And how is la belle dame? Always
handsome! always healthy! always contented!" She took Edna's hand between
her strong wiry fingers, holding it loosely without warmth, and executing a
sort of double theme upon the back and palm.
"Yes," she
went on; "I sometimes thought: 'She will never come. She promised as those
women in society always do, without meaning it. She will not come.' For I
really don't believe you like me, Mrs. Pontellier."
"I don't know
whether I like you or not," replied Edna, gazing down at the little woman
with a quizzical look.
The candor of Mrs.
Pontellier's admission greatly pleased Mademoiselle Reisz. She expressed her
gratification by repairing forthwith to the region of the gasoline stove and
rewarding her guest with the promised cup of coffee. The coffee and the biscuit
accompanying it proved very acceptable to Edna, who had declined refreshment at
Madame Lebrun's and was now beginning to feel hungry. Mademoiselle set the tray
which she brought in upon a small table near at hand, and seated herself once
again on the lumpy sofa.
"I have had a
letter from your friend," she remarked, as she poured a little cream into
Edna's cup and handed it to her.
"My friend?"
"Yes, your friend
Robert. He wrote to me from the City of Mexico."
"Wrote to
you?" repeated Edna in amazement, stirring her coffee absently.
"Yes, to me. Why
not? Don't stir all the warmth out of your coffee; drink it. Though the letter
might as well have been sent to you; it was nothing but Mrs. Pontellier from
beginning to end."
"Let me see
it," requested the young woman, entreatingly.
"No; a letter
concerns no one but the person who writes it and the one to whom it is
written."
"Haven't you just
said it concerned me from beginning to end?"
"It was written
about you, not to you. 'Have you seen Mrs. Pontellier? How is she looking?' he
asks. 'As Mrs. Pontellier says,' or 'as Mrs. Pontellier once said.' 'If Mrs.
Pontellier should call upon you, play for her that Impromptu of Chopin's, my
favorite. I heard it here a day or two ago, but not as you play it. I should
like to know how it affects her,' and so on, as if he supposed we were
constantly in each other's society."
"Let me see the
letter."
"Oh, no."
"Have you answered
it?"
"No."
"Let me see the
letter."
"No, and again,
no."
"Then play the
Impromptu for me."
"It is growing
late; what time do you have to be home?"
"Time doesn't
concern me. Your question seems a little rude. Play the Impromptu."
"But you have told
me nothing of yourself. What are you doing?"
"Painting!"
laughed Edna. "I am becoming an artist. Think of it!"
"Ah! an artist!
You have pretensions, Madame."
"Why pretensions?
Do you think I could not become an artist?"
"I do not know you
well enough to say. I do not know your talent or your temperament. To be an
artist includes much; one must possess many gifts--absolute gifts--which have
not been acquired by one's own effort. And, moreover, to succeed, the artist
must possess the courageous soul."
"What do you mean
by the courageous soul?"
"Courageous, ma
foi!The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
"Show me the
letter and play for me the Impromptu. You see that I have persistence. Does
that quality count for anything in art?"
"It counts with a
foolish old woman whom you have captivated," replied Mademoiselle, with
her wriggling laugh.
The letter was right
there at hand in the drawer of the little table upon which Edna had just placed
her coffee cup. Mademoiselle opened the drawer and drew forth the letter, the
topmost one. She placed it in Edna's hands, and without further comment arose
and went to the piano.
Mademoiselle played a
soft interlude. It was an improvisation. She sat low at the instrument, and the
lines of her body settled into ungraceful curves and angles that gave it an
appearance of deformity. Gradually and imperceptibly the interlude melted into
the soft opening minor chords of the Chopin Impromptu.
Edna did not know when
the Impromptu began or ended. She sat in the sofa corner reading Robert's
letter by the fading light. Mademoiselle had glided from the Chopin into the
quivering love- notes of Isolde's song, and back again to the Impromptu with
its soulful and poignant longing.
The shadows deepened in
the little room. The music grew strange and fantastic--turbulent, insistent,
plaintive and soft with entreaty. The shadows grew deeper. The music filled the
room. It floated out upon the night, over the housetops, the crescent of the
river, losing itself in the silence of the upper air.
Edna was sobbing, just
as she had wept one midnight at Grand Isle when strange, new voices awoke in
her. She arose in some agitation to take her departure. "May I come again,
Mademoiselle?" she asked at the threshold.
"Come whenever you
feel like it. Be careful; the stairs and landings are dark; don't
stumble."
Mademoiselle reentered
and lit a candle. Robert's letter was on the floor. She stooped and picked it
up. It was crumpled and damp with tears. Mademoiselle smoothed the letter out,
restored it to the envelope, and replaced it in the table drawer.
One morning on his way
into town Mr. Pontellier stopped at the house of his old friend and family
physician, Doctor Mandelet. The Doctor was a semi-retired physician, resting,
as the saying is, upon his laurels. He bore a reputation for wisdom rather than
skill--leaving the active practice of medicine to his assistants and younger
contemporaries--and was much sought for in matters of consultation. A few
families, united to him by bonds of friendship, he still attended when they
required the services of a physician. The Pontelliers were among these.
Mr. Pontellier found
the Doctor reading at the open window of his study. His house stood rather far
back from the street, in the center of a delightful garden, so that it was
quiet and peaceful at the old gentleman's study window. He was a great reader.
He stared up disapprovingly over his eye-glasses as Mr. Pontellier entered,
wondering who had the temerity to disturb him at that hour of the morning.
"Ah, Pontellier!
Not sick, I hope. Come and have a seat. What news do you bring this
morning?" He was quite portly, with a profusion of gray hair, and small
blue eyes which age had robbed of much of their brightness but none of their
penetration.
"Oh! I'm never
sick, Doctor. You know that I come of tough fiber--of that old Creole race of
Pontelliers that dry up and finally blow away. I came to consult--no, not
precisely to consult--to talk to you about Edna. I don't know what ails
her."
"Madame Pontellier
not well," marveled the Doctor. "Why, I saw her--I think it was a
week ago--walking along Canal Street, the picture of health, it seemed to
me."
"Yes, yes; she
seems quite well," said Mr. Pontellier, leaning forward and whirling his
stick between his two hands; "but she doesn't act well. She's odd, she's
not like herself. I can't make her out, and I thought perhaps you'd help
me."
"How does she
act?" inquired the Doctor.
"Well, it isn't
easy to explain," said Mr. Pontellier, throwing himself back in his chair.
"She lets the housekeeping go to the dickens."
"Well, well; women
are not all alike, my dear Pontellier. We've got to consider--"
"I know that; I
told you I couldn't explain. Her whole attitude--toward me and everybody and
everything--has changed. You know I have a quick temper, but I don't want to quarrel
or be rude to a woman, especially my wife; yet I'm driven to it, and feel like
ten thousand devils after I've made a fool of myself. She's making it
devilishly uncomfortable for me," he went on nervously. "She's got
some sort of notion in her head concerning the eternal rights of women;
and--you understand--we meet in the morning at the breakfast table."
The old gentleman
lifted his shaggy eyebrows, protruded his thick nether lip, and tapped the arms
of his chair with his cushioned fingertips.
"What have you
been doing to her, Pontellier?"
"Doing!
Parbleu!"
"Has she,"
asked the Doctor, with a smile, "has she been associating of late with a
circle of pseudo-intellectual women--super-spiritual superior beings? My wife
has been telling me about them."
"That's the
trouble," broke in Mr. Pontellier, "she hasn't been associating with
any one. She has abandoned her Tuesdays at home, has thrown over all her
acquaintances, and goes tramping about by herself, moping in the street-cars,
getting in after dark. I tell you she's peculiar. I don't like it; I feel a
little worried over it."
This was a new aspect
for the Doctor. "Nothing hereditary?" he asked, seriously.
"Nothing peculiar about her family antecedents, is there?"
"Oh, no, indeed!
She comes of sound old Presbyterian Kentucky stock. The old gentleman, her
father, I have heard, used to atone for his weekday sins with his Sunday
devotions. I know for a fact, that his race horses literally ran away with the
prettiest bit of Kentucky farming land I ever laid eyes upon. Margaret--you
know Margaret-she has all the Presbyterianism undiluted. And the youngest is
something of a vixen. By the way, she gets married in a couple of weeks from
now."
"Send your wife up
to the wedding," exclaimed the Doctor, foreseeing a happy solution.
"Let her stay among her own people for a while; it will do her good."
"That's what I
want her to do. She won't go to the marriage. She says a wedding is one of the
most lamentable spectacles on earth. Nice thing for a woman to say to her
husband!" exclaimed Mr. Pontellier, fuming anew at the recollection.
"Pontellier,"
said the Doctor, after a moment's reflection, "let your wife alone for a
while. Don't bother her, and don't let her bother you. Woman, my dear friend,
is a very peculiar and delicate organism--a sensitive and highly organized
woman, such as I know Mrs. Pontellier to be, is especially peculiar. It would
require an inspired psychologist to deal successfully with them. And when
ordinary fellows like you and me attempt to cope with their idiosyncrasies the
result is bungling. Most women are moody and whimsical. This is some passing
whim of your wife, due to some cause or causes which you and I needn't try to
fathom. But it will pass happily over, especially if you let her alone. Send
her around to see me."
"Oh! I couldn't do
that; there'd be no reason for it," objected Mr. Pontellier.
"Then I'll go
around and see her," said the Doctor. "I'll drop in to dinner some
evening en bon ami.
"Do! by all
means," urged Mr. Pontellier. "What evening will you come? Say
Thursday. Will you come Thursday?" he asked, rising to take his leave.
"Very well;
Thursday. My wife may possibly have some engagement for me Thursday. In case
she has, I shall let you know. Otherwise, you may expect me."
Mr. Pontellier turned
before leaving to say:
"I am going to New
York on business very soon. I have a big scheme on hand, and want to be on the
field proper to pull the ropes and handle the ribbons. We'll let you in on the
inside if you say so, Doctor," he laughed.
"No, I thank you,
my dear sir," returned the Doctor. "I leave such ventures to you
younger men with the fever of life still in your blood."
"What I wanted to
say," continued Mr. Pontellier, with his hand on the knob; "I may
have to be absent a good while. Would you advise me to take Edna along?"
"By all means, if
she wishes to go. If not, leave her here. Don't contradict her. The mood will
pass, I assure you. It may take a month, two, three months--possibly longer, but
it will pass; have patience."
"Well, good-by, a
jeudi," said Mr. Pontellier, as he let himself out.
The Doctor would have
liked during the course of conversation to ask, "Is there any man in the
case?" but he knew his Creole too well to make such a blunder as that.
He did not resume his
book immediately, but sat for a while meditatively looking out into the garden.
Edna's father was in
the city, and had been with them several days. She was not very warmly or
deeply attached to him, but they had certain tastes in common, and when
together they were companionable. His coming was in the nature of a welcome
disturbance; it seemed to furnish a new direction for her emotions.
He had come to purchase
a wedding gift for his daughter, Janet, and an outfit for himself in which he
might make a creditable appearance at her marriage. Mr. Pontellier had selected
the bridal gift, as every one immediately connected with him always deferred to
his taste in such matters. And his suggestions on the question of dress--which
too often assumes the nature of a problem-- were of inestimable value to his
father-in-law. But for the past few days the old gentleman had been upon Edna's
hands, and in his society she was becoming acquainted with a new set of
sensations. He had been a colonel in the Confederate army, and still
maintained, with the title, the military bearing which had always accompanied
it. His hair and mustache were white and silky, emphasizing the rugged bronze
of his face. He was tall and thin, and wore his coats padded, which gave a
fictitious breadth and depth to his shoulders and chest. Edna and her father
looked very distinguished together, and excited a good deal of notice during
their perambulations. Upon his arrival she began by introducing him to her
atelier and making a sketch of him. He took the whole matter very seriously. If
her talent had been ten-fold greater than it was, it would not have surprised
him, convinced as he was that he had bequeathed to all of his daughters the
germs of a masterful capability, which only depended upon their own efforts to
be directed toward successful achievement.
Before her pencil he
sat rigid and unflinching, as he had faced the cannon's mouth in days gone by.
He resented the intrusion of the children, who gaped with wondering eyes at
him, sitting so stiff up there in their mother's bright atelier. When they drew
near he motioned them away with an expressive action of the foot, loath to
disturb the fixed lines of his countenance, his arms, or his rigid shoulders.
Edna, anxious to
entertain him, invited Mademoiselle Reisz to meet him, having promised him a
treat in her piano playing; but Mademoiselle declined the invitation. So
together they attended a soiree musicaleat the Ratignolles'. Monsieur and
Madame Ratignolle made much of the Colonel, installing him as the guest of
honor and engaging him at once to dine with them the following Sunday, or any
day which he might select. Madame coquetted with him in the most captivating
and naive manner, with eyes, gestures, and a profusion of compliments, till the
Colonel's old head felt thirty years younger on his padded shoulders. Edna
marveled, not comprehending. She herself was almost devoid of coquetry.
There were one or two
men whom she observed at the soiree musicale;but she would never have felt
moved to any kittenish display to attract their notice--to any feline or
feminine wiles to express herself toward them. Their personality attracted her
in an agreeable way. Her fancy selected them, and she was glad when a lull in
the music gave them an opportunity to meet her and talk with her. Often on the
street the glance of strange eyes had lingered in her memory, and sometimes had
disturbed her.
Mr. Pontellier did not
attend these soirees musicales. He considered them bourgeois, and found more
diversion at the club. To Madame Ratignolle he said the music dispensed at her
soirees was too "heavy," too far beyond his untrained comprehension.
His excuse flattered her. But she disapproved of Mr. Pontellier's club, and she
was frank enough to tell Edna so.
"It's a pity Mr.
Pontellier doesn't stay home more in the evenings. I think you would be
more--well, if you don't mind my saying it--more united, if he did."
"Oh! dear
no!" said Edna, with a blank look in her eyes. "What should I do if
he stayed home? We wouldn't have anything to say to each other."
She had not much of
anything to say to her father, for that matter; but he did not antagonize her.
She discovered that he interested her, though she realized that he might not
interest her long; and for the first time in her life she felt as if she were
thoroughly acquainted with him. He kept her busy serving him and ministering to
his wants. It amused her to do so. She would not permit a servant or one of the
children to do anything for him which she might do herself. Her husband
noticed, and thought it was the expression of a deep filial attachment which he
had never suspected.
The Colonel drank
numerous "toddies" during the course of the day, which left him,
however, imperturbed. He was an expert at concocting strong drinks. He had even
invented some, to which he had given fantastic names, and for whose manufacture
he required diverse ingredients that it devolved upon Edna to procure for him.
When Doctor Mandelet
dined with the Pontelliers on Thursday he could discern in Mrs. Pontellier no
trace of that morbid condition which her husband had reported to him. She was
excited and in a manner radiant. She and her father had been to the race
course, and their thoughts when they seated themselves at table were still
occupied with the events of the afternoon, and their talk was still of the
track. The Doctor had not kept pace with turf affairs. He had certain
recollections of racing in what he called "the good old times" when
the Lecompte stables flourished, and he drew upon this fund of memories so that
he might not be left out and seem wholly devoid of the modern spirit. But he
failed to impose upon the Colonel, and was even far from impressing him with
this trumped-up knowledge of bygone days. Edna had staked her father on his
last venture, with the most gratifying results to both of them. Besides, they
had met some very charming people, according to the Colonel's impressions. Mrs.
Mortimer Merriman and Mrs. James Highcamp, who were there with Alcée Arobin,
had joined them and had enlivened the hours in a fashion that warmed him to
think of.
Mr. Pontellier himself
had no particular leaning toward horse- racing, and was even rather inclined to
discourage it as a pastime, especially when he considered the fate of that
blue-grass farm in Kentucky. He endeavored, in a general way, to express a
particular disapproval, and only succeeded in arousing the ire and opposition
of his father-in-law. A pretty dispute followed, in which Edna warmly espoused
her father's cause and the Doctor remained neutral.
He observed his hostess
attentively from under his shaggy brows, and noted a subtle change which had
transformed her from the listless woman he had known into a being who, for the
moment, seemed palpitant with the forces of life. Her speech was warm and
energetic. There was no repression in her glance or gesture. She reminded him
of some beautiful, sleek animal waking up in the sun.
The dinner was
excellent. The claret was warm and the champagne was cold, and under their
beneficent influence the threat ened unpleasantness melted and vanished with
the fumes of the wine.
Mr. Pontellier warmed
up and grew reminiscent. He told some amusing plantation experiences,
recollections of old Iberville and his youth, when he hunted 'possum in company
with some friendly darky; thrashed the pecan trees, shot the grosbec, and
roamed the woods and fields in mischievous idleness.
The Colonel, with
little sense of humor and of the fitness of things, related a somber episode of
those dark and bitter days, in which he had acted a conspicuous part and always
formed a central figure. Nor was the Doctor happier in his selection, when he
told the old, ever new and curious story of the waning of a woman's love,
seeking strange, new channels, only to return to its legitimate source after
days of fierce unrest. It was one of the many little human documents which had
been unfolded to him during his long career as a physician. The story did not
seem especially to impress Edna. She had one of her own to tell, of a woman who
paddled away with her lover one night in a pirogue and never came back. They
were lost amid the Baratarian Islands, and no one ever heard of them or found
trace of them from that day to this. It was a pure invention. She said that
Madame Antoine had related it to her. That, also, was an invention. Perhaps it
was a dream she had had. But every glowing word seemed real to those who
listened. They could feel the hot breath of the Southern night; they could hear
the long sweep of the pirogue through the glistening moonlit water, the beating
of birds' wings, rising startled from among the reeds in the salt-water pools;
they could see the faces of the lovers, pale, close together, rapt in oblivious
forgetfulness, drifting into the unknown.
The champagne was cold,
and its subtle fumes played fantastic tricks with Edna's memory that night.
Outside, away from the
glow of the fire and the soft lamplight, the night was chill and murky. The
Doctor doubled his old-fashioned cloak across his breast as he strode home
through the darkness. He knew his fellow-creatures better than most men; knew
that inner life which so seldom unfolds itself to unanointed* eyes. He was
sorry he had accepted Pontellier's invitation. He was growing old, and
beginning to need rest and an imperturbed spirit. He did not want the secrets
of other lives thrust upon him.
"I hope it isn't
Arobin," he muttered to himself as he walked. "I hope to heaven it
isn't Alcée Arobin."
Edna and her father had
a warm, and almost violent dispute upon the subject of her refusal to attend
her sister's wedding. Mr. Pontellier declined to interfere, to interpose either
his influence or his authority. He was following Doctor Mandelet's advice, and
letting her do as she liked. The Colonel reproached his daughter for her lack
of filial kindness and respect, her want of sisterly affection and womanly
consideration. His arguments were labored and unconvincing. He doubted if Janet
would accept any excuse--forgetting that Edna had offered none. He doubted if
Janet would ever speak to her again, and he was sure Margaret would not.
Edna was glad to be rid
of her father when he finally took himself off with his wedding garments and
his bridal gifts, with his padded shoulders, his Bible reading, his
"toddies" and ponderous oaths.
Mr. Pontellier followed
him closely. He meant to stop at the wedding on his way to New York and
endeavor by every means which money and love could devise to atone somewhat for
Edna's incomprehensible action.
"You are too
lenient, too lenient by far, Léonce," asserted the Colonel.
"Authority, coercion are what is needed. Put your foot down good and hard;
the only way to manage a wife. Take my word for it."
The Colonel was perhaps
unaware that he had coerced his own wife into her grave. Mr. Pontellier had a
vague suspicion of it which he thought it needless to mention at that late day.
Edna was not so
consciously gratified at her husband's leaving home as she had been over the
departure of her father. As the day approached when he was to leave her for a
comparatively long stay, she grew melting and affectionate, remembering his
many acts of consideration and his repeated expressions of an ardent
attachment. She was solicitous about his health and his welfare. She bustled
around, looking after his clothing, thinking about heavy underwear, quite as
Madame Ratignolle would have done under similar circumstances. She cried when
he went away, calling him her dear, good friend, and she was quite certain she
would grow lonely before very long and go to join him in New York.
But after all, a
radiant peace settled upon her when she at last found herself alone. Even the
children were gone. Old Madame Pontellier had come herself and carried them off
to Iberville with their quadroon. The old madame did not venture to say she was
afraid they would be neglected during Léonce's absence; she hardly ventured to
think so. She was hungry for them--even a little fierce in her attachment. She
did not want them to be wholly "children of the pavement," she always
said when begging to have them for a space. She wished them to know the
country, with its streams, its fields, its woods, its freedom, so delicious to
the young. She wished them to taste something of the life their father had
lived and known and loved when he, too, was a little child.
When Edna was at last
alone, she breathed a big, genuine sigh of relief. A feeling that was
unfamiliar but very delicious came over her. She walked all through the house,
from one room to another, as if inspecting it for the first time. She tried the
various chairs and lounges, as if she had never sat and reclined upon them
before. And she perambulated around the outside of the house, investigating,
looking to see if windows and shutters were secure and in order. The flowers
were like new acquaintances; she approached them in a familiar spirit, and made
herself at home among them. The garden walks were damp, and Edna called to the
maid to bring out her rubber sandals. And there she stayed, and stooped,
digging around the plants, trimming, picking dead, dry leaves. The children's
little dog came out, interfering, getting in her way. She scolded him, laughed
at him, played with him. The garden smelled so good and looked so pretty in the
afternoon sunlight. Edna plucked all the bright flowers she could find, and
went into the house with them, she and the little dog.
Even the kitchen
assumed a sudden interesting character which she had never before perceived.
She went in to give directions to the cook, to say that the butcher would have
to bring much less meat, that they would require only half their usual quantity
of bread, of milk and groceries. She told the cook that she herself would be
greatly occupied during Mr. Pontellier's absence, and she begged her to take
all thought and responsibility of the larder upon her own shoulders.
That night Edna dined
alone. The candelabra, with a few candies in the center of the table, gave all
the light she needed. Outside the circle of light in which she sat, the large
dining-room looked solemn and shadowy. The cook, placed upon her mettle, served
a delicious repast--a luscious tenderloin broiled a point. The wine tasted
good; the marron glace seemed to be just what she wanted. It was so pleasant,
too, to dine in a comfortable peignoir.
She thought a little
sentimentally about Léonce and the children, and wondered what they were doing.
As she gave a dainty scrap or two to the doggie, she talked intimately to him
about Etienne and Raoul. He was beside himself with astonishment and delight
over these companionable advances, and showed his appreciation by his little
quick, snappy barks and a lively agitation.
Then Edna sat in the
library after dinner and read Emerson until she grew sleepy. She realized that
she had neglected her reading, and determined to start anew upon a course of
improving studies, now that her time was completely her own to do with as she
liked.
After a refreshing
bath, Edna went to bed. And as she snuggled comfortably beneath the eiderdown a
sense of restfulness invaded her, such as she had not known before.
When the weather was
dark and cloudy Edna could not work. She needed the sun to mellow and temper
her mood to the sticking point. She had reached a stage when she seemed to be
no longer feeling her way, working, when in the humor, with sureness and ease.
And being devoid of ambition, and striving not toward accomplishment, she drew
satisfaction from the work in itself.
On rainy or melancholy
days Edna went out and sought the society of the friends she had made at Grand
Isle. Or else she stayed indoors and nursed a mood with which she was becoming
too familiar for her own comfort and peace of mind. It was not despair; but it
seemed to her as if life were passing by, leaving its promise broken and
unfulfilled. Yet there were other days when she listened, was led on and
deceived by fresh promises which her youth held out to her.
She went again to the
races, and again. Alcée Arobin and Mrs. Highcamp called for her one bright
afternoon in Arobin's drag. Mrs. Highcamp was a worldly but unaffected,
intelligent, slim, tall blonde woman in the forties, with an indifferent manner
and blue eyes that stared. She had a daughter who served her as a pretext for cultivating
the society of young men of fashion. Alcée Arobin was one of them. He was a
familiar figure at the race course, the opera, the fashionable clubs. There was
a perpetual smile in his eyes, which seldom failed to awaken a corresponding
cheerfulness in any one who looked into them and listened to his good-humored
voice. His manner was quiet, and at times a little insolent. He possessed a
good figure, a pleasing face, not overburdened with depth of thought or
feeling; and his dress was that of the conventional man of fashion.
He admired Edna
extravagantly, after meeting her at the races with her father. He had met her
before on other occasions, but she had seemed to him unapproachable until that
day. It was at his instigation that Mrs. Highcamp called to ask her to go with
them to the Jockey Club to witness the turf event of the season.
There were possibly a
few track men out there who knew the race horse as well as Edna, but there was
certainly none who knew it better. She sat between her two companions as one
having authority to speak. She laughed at Arobin's pretensions, and deplored
Mrs. Highcamp's ignorance. The race horse was a friend and intimate associate
of her childhood. The atmosphere of the stables and the breath of the blue
grass paddock revived in her memory and lingered in her nostrils. She did not
perceive that she was talking like her father as the sleek geldings ambled in
review before them. She played for very high stakes, and fortune favored her.
The fever of the game flamed in her cheeks and eves, and it got into her blood
and into her brain like an intoxicant. People turned their heads to look at
her, and more than one lent an attentive car to her utterances, hoping thereby
to secure the elusive but ever-desired "tip." Arobin caught the
contagion of excitement which drew him to Edna like a magnet. Mrs. Highcamp
remained, as usual, unmoved, with her indifferent stare and uplifted eyebrows.
Edna stayed and dined
with Mrs. Highcamp upon being urged to do so. Arobin also remained and sent
away his drag.
The dinner was quiet
and uninteresting, save for the cheerful efforts of Arobin to enliven things.
Mrs. Highcamp deplored the absence of her daughter from the races, and tried to
convey to her what she had missed by going to the "Dante reading"
instead of joining them. The girl held a geranium leaf up to her nose and said
nothing, but looked knowing and noncommittal. Mr. Highcamp was a plain,
bald-headed man, who only talked under compulsion. He was unresponsive. Mrs.
Highcamp was full of delicate courtesy and consideration toward her husband.
She addressed most of her conversation to him at table. They sat in the library
after dinner and read the evening papers together under the drop light; while
the younger people went into the drawing-room near by and talked. Miss Highcamp
played some selections from Grieg upon the piano. She seemed to have
apprehended all of the composer's coldness and none of his poetry. While Edna
listened she could not help wondering if she had lost her taste for music.
When the time came for
her to go home, Mr. Highcamp grunted a lame offer to escort her, looking down
at his slippered feet with tactless concern. It was Arobin who took her home.
The car ride was long, and it was late when they reached Esplanade Street.
Arobin asked permission to enter for a second to light his cigarette--his match
safe was empty. He filled his match safe, but did not light his cigarette until
he left her, after she had expressed her willingness to go to the races with
him again.
Edna was neither tired
nor sleepy. She was hungry again, for the Highcamp dinner, though of excellent
quality, had lacked abundance. She rummaged in the larder and brought forth a
slice of Gruyere and some crackers. She opened a bottle of beer which she found
in the icebox. Edna felt extremely restless and excited. She vacantly hummed a
fantastic tune as she poked at the wood embers on the hearth and munched a
cracker.
She wanted something to
happen--something, anything; she did not know what. She regretted that she had
not made Arobin stay a half hour to talk over the horses with her. She counted
the money she had won. But there was nothing else to do, so she went to bed,
and tossed there for hours in a sort of monotonous agitation.
In the middle of the
night she remembered that she had forgotten to write her regular letter to her
husband; and she decided to do so next day and tell him about her afternoon at
the Jockey Club. She lay wide awake composing a letter which was nothing like
the one which she wrote next day. When the maid awoke her in the morning Edna
was dreaming of Mr. Highcamp playing the piano at the entrance of a music store
on Canal Street, while his wife was saying to Alcée Arobin, as they boarded an
Esplanade Street car:
"What a pity that
so much talent has been neglected! but I must go."
When, a few days later,
Alcée Arobin again called for Edna in his drag, Mrs. Highcamp was not with him.
He said they would pick her up. But as that lady had not been apprised of his
intention of picking her up, she was not at home. The daughter was just leaving
the house to attend the meeting of a branch Folk Lore Society, and regretted
that she could not accompany them. Arobin appeared nonplused, and asked Edna if
there were any one else she cared to ask.
She did not deem it
worth while to go in search of any of the fashionable acquaintances from whom
she had withdrawn herself. She thought of Madame Ratignolle, but knew that her
fair friend did not leave the house, except to take a languid walk around the
block with her husband after nightfall. Mademoiselle Reisz would have laughed
at such a request from Edna. Madame Lebrun might have enjoyed the outing, but
for some reason Edna did not want her. So they went alone, she and Arobin.
The afternoon was
intensely interesting to her. The excitement came back upon her like a
remittent fever. Her talk grew familiar and confidential. It was no labor to
become intimate with Arobin. His manner invited easy confidence. The
preliminary stage of becoming acquainted was one which he always endeavored to
ignore when a pretty and engaging woman was concerned.
He stayed and dined
with Edna. He stayed and sat beside the wood fire. They laughed and talked; and
before it was time to go he was telling her how different life might have been
if he had known her years before. With ingenuous frankness he spoke of what a
wicked, ill-disciplined boy he had been, and impulsively drew up his cuff to
exhibit upon his wrist the scar from a saber cut which he had received in a
duel outside of Paris when he was nineteen. She touched his hand as she scanned
the red cicatrice on the inside of his white wrist. A quick impulse that was
somewhat spasmodic impelled her fingers to close in a sort of clutch upon his
hand. He felt the pressure of her pointed nails in the flesh of his palm.
She arose hastily and
walked toward the mantel.
"The sight of a
wound or scar always agitates and sickens me," she said. "I shouldn't
have looked at it."
"I beg your
pardon," he entreated, following her; "it never occurred to me that
it might be repulsive."
He stood close to her,
and the effrontery in his eyes repelled the old, vanishing self in her, yet
drew all her awakening sensuousness. He saw enough in her face to impel him to
take her hand and hold it while he said his lingering good night.
"Will you go to
the races again?" he asked.
"No," she
said. "I've had enough of the races. I don't want to lose all the money
I've won, and I've got to work when the weather is bright, instead of--"
"Yes; work; to be
sure. You promised to show me your work. What morning may I come up to your
atelier? To-morrow?"
"No!"
"Day after?"
"No, no."
"Oh, please don't
refuse me! I know something of such things. I might help you with a stray
suggestion or two."
"No. Good night.
Why don't you go after you have said good night? I don't like you," she
went on in a high, excited pitch, attempting to draw away her hand. She felt
that her words lacked dignity and sincerity, and she knew that he felt it.
"I'm sorry you
don't like me. I'm sorry I offended you. How have I offended you? What have I
done? Can't you forgive me?" And he bent and pressed his lips upon her
hand as if he wished never more to withdraw them.
"Mr. Arobin,"
she complained, "I'm greatly upset by the excitement of the afternoon; I'm
not myself. My manner must have misled you in some way. I wish you to go,
please." She spoke in a monotonous, dull tone. He took his hat from the
table, and stood with eyes turned from her, looking into the dying fire. For a
moment or two he kept an impressive silence.
"Your manner has
not misled me, Mrs. Pontellier," he said finally. "My own emotions
have done that. I couldn't help it. When I'm near you, how could I help it?
Don't think anything of it, don't bother, please. You see, I go when you
command me. If you wish me to stay away, I shall do so. If you let me come
back, I-- oh! you will let me come back?"
He cast one appealing
glance at her, to which she made no response. Alcée Arobin's manner was so
genuine that it often deceived even himself.
Edna did not care or
think whether it were genuine or not. When she was alone she looked
mechanically at the back of her hand which he had kissed so warmly. Then she
leaned her head down on the mantelpiece. She felt somewhat like a woman who in
a moment of passion is betrayed into an act of infidelity, and realizes the
significance of the act without being wholly awakened from its glamour. The
thought was passing vaguely through her mind, "What would he think?"
She did not mean her
husband; she was thinking of Robert Lebrun. Her husband seemed to her now like
a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.
She lit a candle and
went up to her room. Alcée Arobin was absolutely nothing to her. Yet his
presence, his manners, the warmth of his glances, and above all the touch of
his lips upon her hand had acted like a narcotic upon her.
She slept a languorous
sleep, interwoven with vanishing dreams.
Alcée Arobin wrote Edna
an elaborate note of apology, palpitant with sincerity. It embarrassed her; for
in a cooler, quieter moment it appeared to her, absurd that she should have
taken his action so seriously, so dramatically. She felt sure that the significance
of the whole occurrence had lain in her own self- consciousness. If she ignored
his note it would give undue importance to a trivial affair. If she replied to
it in a serious spirit it would still leave in his mind the impression that she
had in a susceptible moment yielded to his influence. After all, it was no
great matter to have one's hand kissed. She was provoked at his having written
the apology. She answered in as light and bantering a spirit as she fancied it
deserved, and said she would be glad to have him look in upon her at work
whenever he felt the inclination and his business gave him the opportunity.
He responded at once by
presenting himself at her home with all his disarming naivete. And then there
was scarcely a day which followed that she did not see him or was not reminded
of him. He was prolific in pretexts. His attitude became one of good-humored
subservience and tacit adoration. He was ready at all times to submit to her
moods, which were as often kind as they were cold. She grew accustomed to him.
They became intimate and friendly by imperceptible degrees, and then by leaps.
He sometimes talked in a way that astonished her at first and brought the
crimson into her face; in a way that pleased her at last, appealing to the
animalism that stirred impatiently within her.
There was nothing which
so quieted the turmoil of Edna's senses as a visit to Mademoiselle Reisz. It
was then, in the presence of that personality which was offensive to her, that
the woman, by her divine art, seemed to reach Edna's spirit and set it free.
It was misty, with
heavy, lowering atmosphere, one afternoon, when Edna climbed the stairs to the
pianist's apartments under the roof. Her clothes were dripping with moisture.
She felt chilled and pinched as she entered the room. Mademoiselle was poking
at a rusty stove that smoked a little and warmed the room indifferently. She
was endeavoring to heat a pot of chocolate on the stove. The room looked
cheerless and dingy to Edna as she entered. A bust of Beethoven, covered with a
hood of dust, scowled at her from the mantelpiece.
"Ah! here comes
the sunlight!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, rising from her knees before the
stove. "Now it will be warm and bright enough; I can let the fire
alone."
She closed the stove
door with a bang, and approaching, assisted in removing Edna's dripping
mackintosh.
"You are cold; you
look miserable. The chocolate will soon be hot. But would you rather have a
taste of brandy? I have scarcely touched the bottle which you brought me for my
cold." A piece of red flannel was wrapped around Mademoiselle's throat; a
stiff neck compelled her to hold her head on one side.
"I will take some
brandy," said Edna, shivering as she removed her gloves and overshoes. She
drank the liquor from the glass as a man would have done. Then flinging herself
upon the uncomfortable sofa she said, "Mademoiselle, I am going to move
away from my house on Esplanade Street."
"Ah!"
ejaculated the musician, neither surprised nor especially interested. Nothing
ever seemed to astonish her very much. She was endeavoring to adjust the bunch
of violets which had become loose from its fastening in her hair. Edna drew her
down upon the sofa, and taking a pin from her own hair, secured the shabby
artificial flowers in their accustomed place.
"Aren't you
astonished?"
"Passably. Where
are you going? to New York? to Iberville? to your father in Mississippi?
where?"
"Just two steps
away," laughed Edna, "in a little four-room house around the corner.
It looks so cozy, so inviting and restful, whenever I pass by; and it's for
rent. I'm tired looking after that big house. It never seemed like mine, any
way--like home. It's too much trouble. I have to keep too many servants. I am
tired bothering with them."
"That is not your
true reason, ma belle. There is no use in telling me lies. I don't know your
reason, but you have not told me the truth." Edna did not protest or
endeavor to justify herself.
"The house, the
money that provides for it, are not mine. Isn't that enough reason?"
"They are your
husband's," returned Mademoiselle, with a shrug and a malicious elevation
of the eyebrows.
"Oh! I see there
is no deceiving you. Then let me tell you: It is a caprice. I have a little
money of my own from my mother's estate, which my father sends me by driblets.
I won a large sum this winter on the races, and I am beginning to sell my
sketches. Laidpore is more and more pleased with my work; he says it grows in
force and individuality. I cannot judge of that myself, but I feel that I have
gained in ease and confidence. However, as I said, I have sold a good many
through Laidpore. I can live in the tiny house for little or nothing, with one
servant. Old Celestine, who works occasionally for me, says she will come stay
with me and do my work. I know I shall like it, like the feeling of freedom and
independence."
"What does your
husband say?"
"I have not told
him yet. I only thought of it this morning. He will think I am demented, no
doubt. Perhaps you think so."
Mademoiselle shook her
head slowly. "Your reason is not yet clear to me," she said.
Neither was it quite
clear to Edna herself; but it unfolded itself as she sat for a while in
silence. Instinct had prompted her to put away her husband's bounty in casting
off her allegiance. She did not know how it would be when he returned. There
would have to be an understanding, an explanation. Conditions would some way
adjust themselves, she felt; but whatever came, she had resolved never again to
belong to another than herself.
"I shall give a
grand dinner before I leave the old house!" Edna exclaimed. "You will
have to come to it, Mademoiselle. I will give you everything that you like to
eat and to drink. We shall sing and laugh and be merry for once." And she
uttered a sigh that came from the very depths of her being.
If Mademoiselle
happened to have received a letter from Robert during the interval of Edna's
visits, she would give her the letter unsolicited. And she would seat herself
at the piano and play as her humor prompted her while the young woman read the
letter.
The little stove was
roaring; it was red-hot, and the chocolate in the tin sizzled and sputtered.
Edna went forward and opened the stove door, and Mademoiselle rising, took a
letter from under the bust of Beethoven and handed it to Edna.
"Another! so
soon!" she exclaimed, her eyes filled with delight. "Tell me,
Mademoiselle, does he know that I see his letters?"
"Never in the
world! He would be angry and would never write to me again if he thought so.
Does he write to you? Never a line. Does he send you a message? Never a word.
It is because he loves you, poor fool, and is trying to forget you, since you
are not free to listen to him or to belong to him."
"Why do you show
me his letters, then?"
"Haven't you begged
for them? Can I refuse you anything? Oh! you cannot deceive me," and
Mademoiselle approached her beloved instrument and began to play. Edna did not
at once read the letter. She sat holding it in her hand, while the music
penetrated her whole being like an effulgence, warming and brightening the dark
places of her soul. It prepared her for joy and exultation.
"Oh!" she
exclaimed, letting the letter fall to the floor. "Why did you not tell
me?" She went and grasped Mademoiselle's hands up from the keys. "Oh!
unkind! malicious! Why did you not tell me?"
"That he was
coming back? No great news, ma foi. I wonder he did not come long ago."
"But when,
when?" cried Edna, impatiently. "He does not say when."
"He says 'very
soon.' You know as much about it as I do; it is all in the letter."
"But why? Why is
he coming? Oh, if I thought--" and she snatched the letter from the floor
and turned the pages this way and that way, looking for the reason, which was
left untold.
"If I were young
and in love with a man," said Mademoiselle, turning on the stool and
pressing her wiry hands between her knees as she looked down at Edna, who sat
on the floor holding the letter, "it seems to me he would have to be some
grand esprit; a man with lofty aims and ability to reach them; one who stood
high enough to attract the notice of his fellow-men. It seems to me if I were
young and in love I should never deem a man of ordinary caliber worthy of my
devotion."
"Now it is you who
are telling lies and seeking to deceive me, Mademoiselle; or else you have
never been in love, and know nothing about it. Why," went on Edna,
clasping her knees and looking up into Mademoiselle's twisted face, "do
you suppose a woman knows why she loves? Does she select? Does she say to
herself: 'Go to! Here is a distinguished statesman with presidential
possibilities; I shall proceed to fall in love with him.' Or, 'I shall set my
heart upon this musician, whose fame is on every tongue?' Or, 'This financier,
who controls the world's money markets?'
"You are purposely
misunderstanding me, ma reine. Are you in love with Robert?"
"Yes," said
Edna. It was the first time she had admitted it, and a glow overspread her
face, blotching it with red spots.
"Why?" asked
her companion. "Why do you love him when you ought not to?"
Edna, with a motion or
two, dragged herself on her knees before Mademoiselle Reisz, who took the
glowing face between her two hands.
"Why? Because his
hair is brown and grows away from his temples; because he opens and shuts his
eyes, and his nose is a little out of drawing; because he has two lips and a
square chin, and a little finger which he can't straighten from having played
baseball too energetically in his youth. Because--"
"Because you do,
in short," laughed Mademoiselle. "What will you do when he comes
back?" she asked.
"Do? Nothing,
except feel glad and happy to be alive."
She was already glad
and happy to be alive at the mere thought of his return. The murky, lowering
sky, which had depressed her a few hours before, seemed bracing and
invigorating as she splashed through the streets on her way home.
She stopped at a
confectioner's and ordered a huge box of bonbons for the children in Iberville.
She slipped a card in the box, on which she scribbled a tender message and sent
an abundance of kisses.
Before dinner in the
evening Edna wrote a charming letter to her husband, telling him of her
intention to move for a while into the little house around the block, and to give
a farewell dinner before leaving, regretting that he was not there to share it,
to help out with the menu and assist her in entertaining the guests. Her letter
was brilliant and brimming with cheerfulness.
"What is the
matter with you?" asked Arobin that evening. "I never found you in
such a happy mood." Edna was tired by that time, and was reclining on the
lounge before the fire.
"Don't you know
the weather prophet has told us we shall see the sun pretty soon?"
"Well, that ought
to be reason enough," he acquiesced. "You wouldn't give me another if
I sat here all night imploring you." He sat close to her on a low
tabouret, and as he spoke his fingers lightly touched the hair that fell a
little over her forehead. She liked the touch of his fingers through her hair,
and closed her eyes sensitively.
"One of these
days," she said, "I'm going to pull myself together for a while and
think--try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't
know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked
specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am. I must
think about it."
"Don't. What's the
use? Why should you bother thinking about it when I can tell you what manner of
woman you are." His fingers strayed occasionally down to her warm, smooth
cheeks and firm chin, which was growing a little full and double.
"Oh, yes! You will
tell me that I am adorable; everything that is captivating. Spare yourself the
effort."
"No; I shan't tell
you anything of the sort, though I shouldn't be lying if I did."
"Do you know
Mademoiselle Reisz?" she asked irrelevantly.
"The pianist? I
know her by sight. I've heard her play."
"She says queer
things sometimes in a bantering way that you don't notice at the time and you
find yourself thinking about afterward."
"For
instance?"
"Well, for
instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my
shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would
soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.
It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back
to earth.' "Whither would you soar?"
"I'm not thinking
of any extraordinary flights. I only half comprehend her."
"I've heard she's
partially demented," said Arobin.
"She seems to me
wonderfully sane," Edna replied.
"I'm told she's
extremely disagreeable and unpleasant. Why have you introduced her at a moment
when I desired to talk of you?"
"Oh! talk of me if
you like," cried Edna, clasping her hands beneath her head; "but let
me think of something else while you do."
"I'm jealous of
your thoughts tonight. They're making you a little kinder than usual; but some
way I feel as if they were wandering, as if they were not here with me."
She only looked at him and smiled. His eyes were very near. He leaned upon the
lounge with an arm extended across her, while the other hand still rested upon
her hair. They continued silently to look into each other's eyes. When he
leaned forward and kissed her, she clasped his head, holding his lips to hers.
It was the first kiss
of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a flaming torch
that kindled desire.
Edna cried a little
that night after Arobin left her. It was only one phase of the multitudinous
emotions which had assailed her. There was with her an overwhelming feeling of
irresponsibility. There was the shock of the unexpected and the unaccustomed.
There was her husband's reproach looking at her from the external things around
her which he had provided for her external existence. There was Robert's
reproach making itself felt by a quicker, fiercer, more overpowering love,
which had awakened within her toward him. Above all, there was understanding.
She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to took upon
and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and
brutality. But among the conflicting sensations which assailed her, there was
neither shame nor remorse. There was a dull pang of regret because it was not
the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held
this cup of life to her lips.
Without even waiting
for an answer from her husband regarding his opinion or wishes in the matter,
Edna hastened her preparations for quitting her home on Esplanade Street and
moving into the little house around the block. A feverish anxiety attended her
every action in that direction. There was no moment of deliberation, no
interval of repose between the thought and its fulfillment. Early upon the
morning following those hours passed in Arobin's society, Edna set about
securing her new abode and hurrying her arrangements for occupying it. Within
the precincts of her home she felt like one who has entered and lingered within
the portals of some forbidden temple in which a thousand muffled voices bade
her begone.
Whatever was her own in
the house, everything which she had acquired aside from her husband's bounty,
she caused to be transported to the other house, sup plying simple and meager
deficiencies from her own resources.
Arobin found her with
rolled sleeves, working in company with the house-maid when he looked in during
the afternoon. She was splendid and robust, and had never appeared handsomer
than in the old blue gown, with a red silk handkerchief knotted at random
around her head to protect her hair from the dust. She was mounted upon a high
stepladder, unhooking a picture from the wall when he entered. He had found the
front door open, and had followed his ring by walking in unceremoniously.
"Come down!"
he said. "Do you want to kill yourself?" She greeted him with
affected carelessness, and appeared absorbed in her occupation.
If he had expected to
find her languishing, reproachful, or indulging in sentimental tears, he must
have been greatly surprised.
He was no doubt
prepared for any emergency, ready for any one of the foregoing attitudes, just
as he bent himself easily and naturally to the situation which confronted him.
"Please come
down," he insisted, holding the ladder and looking up at her.
"No," she
answered; "Ellen is afraid to mount the ladder. Joe is working over at the
'pigeon house'--that's the name Ellen gives it, because it's so small and looks
like a pigeon house--and some one has to do this."
Arobin pulled off his
coat, and expressed himself ready and willing to tempt fate in her place. Ellen
brought him one of her dust-caps, and went into contortions of mirth, which she
found it impossible to control, when she saw him put it on before the mirror as
grotesquely as he could. Edna herself could not refrain from smiling when she
fastened it at his request. So it was he who in turn mounted the ladder,
unhooking pictures and curtains, and dislodging ornaments as Edna directed.
When he had finished he took off his dust-cap and went out to wash his hands.
Edna was sitting on the
tabouret, idly brushing the tips of a feather duster along the carpet when he
came in again.
"Is there anything
more you will let me do?" he asked.
"That is
all," she answered. "Ellen can manage the rest." She kept the
young woman occupied in the drawing-room, unwilling to be left alone with
Arobin.
"What about the
dinner?" he asked; "the grand event, the coup d'etat?"
"It will be day
after to-morrow. Why do you call it the 'coup d'etat?'Oh! it will be very fine;
all my best of everything--crystal, silver and gold, Sevres, flowers, music,
and champagne to swim in. I'll let Léonce pay the bills. I wonder what he'll
say when he sees the bills.
"And you ask me
why I call it a coup d'etat?"Arobin had put on his coat, and he stood
before her and asked if his cravat was plumb. She told him it was, looking no
higher than the tip of his collar.
"When do you go to
the 'pigeon house?'--with all due acknowledgment to Ellen."
"Day after
to-morrow, after the dinner. I shall sleep there."
"Ellen, will you
very kindly get me a glass of water?" asked Arobin. "The dust in the
curtains, if you will pardon me for hinting such a thing, has parched my throat
to a crisp."
"While Ellen gets
the water," said Edna, rising, "I will say good-by and let you go. I
must get rid of this grime, and I have a million things to do and think
of."
"When shall I see
you?" asked Arobin, seeking to detain her, the maid having left the room.
"At the dinner, of
course. You are invited."
"Not before?--not
to-night or to-morrow morning or tomorrow noon or night? or the day after
morning or noon? Can't you see yourself, without my telling you, what an
eternity it is?"
He had followed her
into the hall and to the foot of the stairway, looking up at her as she mounted
with her face half turned to him.
"Not an instant
sooner," she said. But she laughed and looked at him with eyes that at
once gave him courage to wait and made it torture to wait.
Though Edna had spoken
of the dinner as a very grand affair, it was in truth a very small affair and
very select, in so much as the guests invited were few and were selected with
discrimination. She had counted upon an even dozen seating themselves at her
round mahogany board, forgetting for the moment that Madame Ratignolle was to
the last degree souffranteand unpresentable, and not foreseeing that Madame
Lebrun would send a thousand regrets at the last moment. So there were only
ten, after all, which made a cozy, comfortable number.
There were Mr. and Mrs.
Merriman, a pretty, vivacious little woman in the thirties; her husband, a
jovial fellow, something of a shallow-pate, who laughed a good deal at other
people's witticisms, and had thereby made himself extremely popular. Mrs.
Highcamp had accompanied them. Of course, there was Alcée Arobin; and
Mademoiselle Reisz had consented to come. Edna had sent her a fresh bunch of
violets with black lace trimmings for her hair. Monsieur Ratignolle brought
himself and his wife's excuses. Victor Lebrun, who happened to be in the city,
bent upon relaxation, had accepted with alacrity. There was a Miss Mayblunt, no
longer in her teens, who looked at the world through lorgnettes and with the keenest
interest. It was thought and said that she was intellectual; it was suspected
of her that she wrote under a nom de guerre. She had come with a gentleman by
the name of Gouvernail, connected with one of the daily papers, of whom nothing
special could be said, except that he was observant and seemed quiet and
inoffensive. Edna herself made the tenth, and at half-past eight they seated
themselves at table, Arobin and Monsieur Ratignolle on either side of their
hostess.
Mrs. Highcamp sat
between Arobin and Victor Lebrun. Then came Mrs. Merriman, Mr. Gouvernail, Miss
Mayblunt, Mr. Merriman, and Mademoiselle Reisz next to Monsieur Ratignolle.
There was something
extremely gorgeous about the appearance of the table, an effect of splendor
conveyed by a cover of pale yellow satin under strips of lace-work. There were
wax candles, in massive brass candelabra, burning softly under yellow silk
shades; full, fragrant roses, yellow and red, abounded. There were silver and
gold, as she had said there would be, and crystal which glittered like the gems
which the women wore.
The ordinary stiff
dining chairs had been discarded for the occasion and replaced by the most
commodious and luxurious which could be collected throughout the house.
Mademoiselle Reisz, being exceedingly diminutive, was elevated upon cushions,
as small children are sometimes hoisted at table upon bulky volumes.
"Something new,
Edna?" exclaimed Miss Mayblunt, with lorgnette directed toward a
magnificent cluster of diamonds that sparkled, that almost sputtered, in Edna's
hair, just over the center of her forehead.
"Quite new;
'brand' new, in fact; a pres ent from my husband. It arrived this morning from
New York. I may as well admit that this is my birthday, and that I am
twenty-nine. In good time I expect you to drink my health. Meanwhile, I shall
ask you to begin with this cocktail, composed-- would you say 'composed?'"
with an appeal to Miss Mayblunt-- "composed by my father in honor of
Sister Janet's wedding."
Before each guest stood
a tiny glass that looked and sparkled like a garnet gem.
"Then, all things
considered," spoke Arobin, "it might not be amiss to start out by
drinking the Colonel's health in the cocktail which he composed, on the
birthday of the most charming of women-- the daughter whom he invented."
Mr. Merriman's laugh at
this sally was such a genuine outburst and so contagious that it started the
dinner with an agreeable swing that never slackened.
Miss Mayblunt begged to
be allowed to keep her cocktail untouched before her, just to look at. The
color was marvelous! She could compare it to nothing she had ever seen, and the
garnet lights which it emitted were unspeakably rare. She pronounced the
Colonel an artist, and stuck to it.
Monsieur Ratignolle was
prepared to take things seriously; the mets,the entre-mets, the service, the
decorations, even the people. He looked up from his pompano and inquired of
Arobin if he were related to the gentleman of that name who formed one of the
firm of Laitner and Arobin, lawyers. The young man admitted that Laitner was a
warm personal friend, who permitted Arobin's name to decorate the firm's
letterheads and to appear upon a shingle that graced Perdido Street.
"There are so many
inquisitive people and institutions abounding," said Arobin, "that
one is really forced as a matter of convenience these days to assume the virtue
of an occupation if he has it not." Monsieur Ratignolle stared a little,
and turned to ask Mademoiselle Reisz if she considered the symphony concerts up
to the standard which had been set the previous winter. Mademoiselle Reisz
answered Monsieur Ratignolle in French, which Edna thought a little rude, under
the circumstances, but characteristic. Mademoiselle had only disagreeable
things to say of the symphony concerts, and insulting remarks to make of all
the musicians of New Orleans, singly and collectively. All her interest seemed
to be centered upon the delicacies placed before her.
Mr. Merriman said that
Mr. Arobin's remark about inquisitive people reminded him of a man from Waco
the other day at the St. Charles Hotel--but as Mr. Merriman's stories were
always lame and lacking point, his wife seldom permitted him to complete them.
She interrupted him to ask if he remembered the name of the author whose book she
had bought the week before to send to a friend in Geneva. She was talking
"books" with Mr. Gouvernail and trying to draw from him his opinion
upon current literary topics. Her husband told the story of the Waco man
privately to Miss Mayblunt, who pretended to be greatly amused and to think it
extremely clever.
Mrs. Highcamp hung with
languid but unaffected interest upon the warm and impetuous volubility of her
left-hand neighbor, Victor Lebrun. Her attention was never for a moment
withdrawn from him after seating herself at table; and when he turned to Mrs.
Merriman, who was prettier and more vivacious than Mrs. Highcamp, she waited
with easy indifference for an opportunity to reclaim his attention. There was
the occasional sound of music, of mandolins, sufficiently removed to be an
agreeable accompaniment rather than an interruption to the conversation.
Outside the soft, monotonous splash of a fountain could be heard; the sound
penetrated into the room with the heavy odor of jessamine that came through the
open windows.
The golden shimmer of
Edna's satin gown spread in rich folds on either side of her. There was a soft
fall of lace encircling her shoulders. It was the color of her skin, without
the glow, the myriad living tints that one may sometimes discover in vibrant
flesh. There was something in her attitude, in her whole appearance when she
leaned her head against the high-backed chair and spread her arms, which
suggested the regal woman, the one who rules, who looks on, who stands alone.
But as she sat there
amid her guests, she felt the old ennui overtaking her; the hopelessness which
so often assailed her, which came upon her like an obsession, like something
extraneous, independent of volition. It was something which announced itself; a
chill breath that seemed to issue from some vast cavern wherein discords
waited. There came over her the acute longing which always summoned into her
spiritual vision the presence of the beloved one, overpowering her at once with
a sense of the unattainable.
The moments glided on,
while a feeling of good fellowship passed around the circle like a mystic cord,
holding and binding these people together with jest and laughter. Monsieur
Ratignolle was the first to break the pleasant charm. At ten o'clock he excused
himself. Madame Ratignolle was waiting for him at home. She was bien
souffrante, and she was filled with vague dread, which only her husband's
presence could allay.
Mademoiselle Reisz
arose with Monsieur Ratignolle, who offered to escort her to the car. She had
eaten well; she had tasted the good, rich wines, and they must have turned her
head, for she bowed pleasantly to all as she withdrew from table. She kissed
Edna upon the shoulder, and whispered: "Bonne nuit, ma reine; soyez sage."
She had been a little bewildered upon rising, or rather, descending from her
cushions, and Monsieur Ratignolle gallantly took her arm and led her away.
Mrs. Highcamp was
weaving a garland of roses, yellow and red. When she had finished the garland,
she laid it lightly upon Victor's black curls. He was reclining far back in the
luxurious chair, holding a glass of champagne to the light.
As if a magician's wand
had touched him, the garland of roses transformed him into a vision of Oriental
beauty. His cheeks were the color of crushed grapes, and his dusky eyes glowed
with a languishing fire.
"Sapristi!"exclaimed
Arobin.
But Mrs. Highcamp had
one more touch to add to the picture. She took from the back of her chair a
white silken scarf, with which she had covered her shoulders in the early part
of the evening. She draped it across the boy in graceful folds, and in a way to
conceal his black, conventional evening dress. He did not seem to mind what she
did to him, only smiled, showing a faint gleam of white teeth, while he
continued to gaze with narrowing eyes at the light through his glass of
champagne.
"Oh! to be able to
paint in color rather than in words!" exclaimed Miss Mayblunt, losing
herself in a rhapsodic dream as she looked at him, "'There was a graven image
of Desire Painted with red blood on a ground of gold.'"
Algernon Charles Swinburne murmured Gouvernail, under his breath. The effect of the wine upon Victor
was to change his accustomed volubility into silence. He seemed to have
abandoned himself to a reverie, and to be seeing pleasing visions in the amber
bead.
"Sing,"
entreated Mrs. Highcamp. "Won't you sing to us?"
"Let him
alone," said Arobin.
"He's
posing," offered Mr. Merriman; "let him have it out."
"I believe he's
paralyzed," laughed Mrs. Merriman. And leaning over the youth's chair, she
took the glass from his hand and held it to his lips. He sipped the wine
slowly, and when he had drained the glass she laid it upon the table and wiped
his lips with her little filmy handkerchief.
"Yes, I'll sing
for you," he said, turning in his chair toward Mrs. Highcamp. He clasped
his hands behind his head, and looking up at the ceiling began to hum a little,
trying his voice like a musician tuning an instrument. Then, looking at Edna,
he began to sing: "Ah! si tu savais!"
"Stop!" she
cried, "don't sing that. I don't want you to sing it," and she laid
her glass so impetuously and blindly upon the table as to shatter it against a
carafe. The wine spilled over Arobin's legs and some of it trickled down upon
Mrs. Highcamp's black gauze gown. Victor had lost all idea of courtesy, or else
he thought his hostess was not in earnest, for he laughed and went on:
"Ah! si tu savais Ce que tes yeux me disent"--
"Oh! you mustn't!
you mustn't," exclaimed Edna, and pushing back her chair she got up, and
going behind him placed her hand over his mouth. He kissed the soft palm that
pressed upon his lips.
"No, no, I won't,
Mrs. Pontellier. I didn't know you meant it," looking up at her with
caressing eyes. The touch of his lips was like a pleasing sting to her hand.
She lifted the garland of roses from his head and flung it across the room.
"Come, Victor;
you've posed long enough. Give Mrs. Highcamp her scarf."
Mrs. Highcamp undraped
the scarf from about him with her own hands. Miss Mayblunt and Mr. Gouvernail
suddenly conceived the notion that it was time to say good night. And Mr. and
Mrs. Merriman wondered how it could be so late.
Before parting from
Victor, Mrs. Highcamp invited him to call upon her daughter, who she knew would
be charmed to meet him and talk French and sing French songs with him. Victor
expressed his desire and intention to call upon Miss Highcamp at the first
opportunity which presented itself. He asked if Arobin were going his way. Arobin
was not.
The mandolin players
had long since stolen away. A profound stillness had fallen upon the broad,
beautiful street. The voices of Edna's disbanding guests jarred like a
discordant note upon the quiet harmony of the night.
"Well?" questioned
Arobin, who had remained with Edna after the others had departed.
"Well," she
reiterated, and stood up, stretching her arms, and feeling the need to relax
her muscles after having been so long seated.
"What next?"
he asked.
"The servants are all
gone. They left when the musicians did. I have dismissed them. The house has to
be closed and locked, and I shall trot around to the pigeon house, and shall
send Celestine over in the morning to straighten things up."
He looked around, and
began to turn out some of the lights.
"What about
upstairs?" he inquired.
"I think it is all
right; but there may be a window or two unlatched. We had better look; you
might take a candle and see. And bring me my wrap and hat on the foot of the
bed in the middle room."
He went up with the
light, and Edna began closing doors and windows. She hated to shut in the smoke
and the fumes of the wine. Arobin found her cape and hat, which he brought down
and helped her to put on.
When everything was
secured and the lights put out, they left through the front door, Arobin
locking it and taking the key, which he carried for Edna. He helped her down
the steps.
"Will you have a
spray of jessamine?" he asked, breaking off a few blossoms as he passed.
"No; I don't want
anything."
She seemed
disheartened, and had nothing to say. She took his arm, which he offered her,
holding up the weight of her satin train with the other hand. She looked down,
noticing the black line of his leg moving in and out so close to her against
the yellow shimmer of her gown. There was the whistle of a railway train
somewhere in the distance, and the midnight bells were ringing. They met no one
in their short walk.
The "pigeon
house" stood behind a locked gate, and a shallow parterrethat had been
somewhat neglected. There was a small front porch, upon which a long window and
the front door opened. The door opened directly into the parlor; there was no
side entry. Back in the yard was a room for servants, in which old Celestine
had been ensconced.
Edna had left a lamp
burning low upon the table. She had succeeded in making the room look habitable
and homelike. There were some books on the table and a lounge near at hand. On
the floor was a fresh matting, covered with a rug or two; and on the walls hung
a few tasteful pictures. But the room was filled with flowers. These were a
surprise to her. Arobin had sent them, and had had Celestine distribute them
during Edna's absence. Her bedroom was adjoining, and across a small passage
were the dining- room and kitchen.
Edna seated herself
with every appearance of discomfort.
"Are you
tired?" he asked.
"Yes, and chilled,
and miserable. I feel as if I had been wound up to a certain pitch--too
tight--and something inside of me had snapped." She rested her head
against the table upon her bare arm.
"You want to rest,"
he said, "and to be quiet. I'll go; I'll leave you and let you rest."
"Yes," she
replied.
He stood up beside her
and smoothed her hair with his soft, magnetic hand. His touch conveyed to her a
certain physical comfort. She could have fallen quietly asleep there if he had
continued to pass his hand over her hair. He brushed the hair upward from the
nape of her neck.
"I hope you will
feel better and happier in the morning," he said. "You have tried to
do too much in the past few days The dinner was the last straw; you might have
dispensed with it."
"Yes," she
admitted; "it was stupid."
"No, it was
delightful; but it has worn you out." His hand had strayed to her
beautiful shoulders, and he could feel the response of her flesh to his touch.
He seated himself beside her and kissed her lightly upon the shoulder.
"I thought you
were going away," she said, in an uneven voice.
"I am, after I
have said good night."
"Good night,"
she murmured.
He did not answer,
except to continue to caress her. He did not say good night until she had
become supple to his gentle, seductive entreaties.
When Mr. Pontellier
learned of his wife's intention to abandon her home and take up her residence
elsewhere, he immediately wrote her a letter of unqualified disapproval and
remonstrance. She had given reasons which he was unwilling to acknowledge as
adequate. He hoped she had not acted upon her rash impulse; and he begged her
to consider first, foremost, and above all else, what people would say. He was
not dreaming of scandal when he uttered this warning; that was a thing which
would never have entered into his mind to consider in connection with his
wife's name or his own. He was simply thinking of his financial integrity. It
might get noised about that the Pontelliers had met with reverses, and were
forced to conduct their menageon a humbler scale than heretofore. It might do
incalculable mischief to his business prospects.
But remembering Edna's
whimsical turn of mind of late, and foreseeing that she had immediately acted
upon her impetuous determination, he grasped the situation with his usual
promptness and handled it with his well-known business tact and cleverness.
The same mail which
brought. to Edna his letter of disapproval carried instructions--the most
minute instructions--to a well-known architect concerning the remodeling of his
home, changes which he had long contemplated, and which he desired carried
forward during his temporary absence.
Expert and reliable
packers and movers were engaged to convey the furniture, carpets, pictures
--everything movable, in short--to places of security. And in an incredibly
short time the Pontellier house was turned over to the artisans. There was to
be an addition--a small snuggery; there was to be frescoing, and hardwood
flooring was to be put into such rooms as had not yet been subjected to this
improvement.
Furthermore, in one of
the daily papers appeared a brief notice to the effect that Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier
were contemplating a summer sojourn abroad, and that their handsome residence
on Esplanade Street was undergoing sumptuous alterations, and would not be
ready for occupancy until their return. Mr. Pontellier had saved appearances!
Edna admired the skill
of his maneuver, and avoided any occasion to balk his intentions. When the
situation as set forth by Mr. Pontellier was accepted and taken for granted,
she was apparently satisfied that it should be so.
The pigeon house
pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character of a home, while she
herself invested it with a charm which it reflected like a warm glow. There was
with her a feeling of having descended in the social scale, with a
corresponding sense of having risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took
toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion
as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to apprehend
the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to "feed upon
opinion" when her own soul had invited her.
After a little while, a
few days, in fact, Edna went up and spent a week with her children in
Iberville. They were delicious February days, with all the summer's promise
hovering in the air.
How glad she was to see
the children! She wept for very pleasure when she felt their little arms
clasping her; their hard, ruddy cheeks pressed against her own glowing cheeks.
She looked into their faces with hungry eyes that could not be satisfied with
looking. And what stories they had to tell their mother! About the pigs, the
cows, the mules! About riding to the mill behind Gluglu; fishing back in the
lake with their Uncle Jasper; picking pecans with Lidie's little black brood,
and hauling chips in their express wagon. It was a thousand times more fun to
haul real chips for old lame Susie's real fire than to drag painted blocks
along the banquette on Esplanade Street!
She went with them
herself to see the pigs and the cows, to look at the darkies laying the cane,
to thrash the pecan trees, and catch fish in the back lake. She lived with them
a whole week long, giving them all of herself, and gathering and filling
herself with their young existence. They listened, breathless, when she told
them the house in Esplanade Street was crowded with workmen, hammering,
nailing, sawing, and filling the place with clatter. They wanted. to know where
their bed was; what had been done with their rocking-horse; and where did Joe
sleep, and where had Ellen gone, and the cook? But, above all, they were fired
with a desire to see the little house around the block. Was there any place to
play? Were there any boys next door? Raoul, with pessimistic foreboding, was
convinced that there were only girls next door. Where would they sleep, and where
would papa sleep? She told them the fairies would fix it all right.
The old Madame was
charmed with Edna's visit, and showered all manner of delicate attentions upon
her. She was delighted to know that the Esplanade Street house was in a
dismantled condition. It gave her the promise and pretext to keep the children
indefinitely.
It was with a wrench
and a pang that Edna left her children. She carried away with her the sound of
their voices and the touch of their cheeks. All along the journey homeward their
presence lingered with her like the memory of a delicious song. But by the time
she had regained the city the song no longer echoed in her soul. She was again
alone.
It happened sometimes
when Edna went to see Mademoiselle Reisz that the little musician was absent,
giving a lesson or making some small necessary household purchase. The key was
always left in a secret hiding-place in the entry, which Edna knew. If
Mademoiselle happened to be away, Edna would usually enter and wait for her return.
When she knocked at
Mademoiselle Reisz's door one afternoon there was no response; so unlocking the
door, as usual, she entered and found the apartment deserted, as she had
expected. Her day had been quite filled up, and it was for a rest, for a refuge,
and to talk about Robert, that she sought out her friend.
She had worked at her
canvas--a young Italian character study--all the morning, completing the work
without the model; but there had been many interruptions, some incident to her
modest housekeeping, and others of a social nature.
Madame Ratignolle had
dragged herself over, avoiding the too public thoroughfares, she said. She
complained that Edna had neglected her much of late. Besides, she was consumed
with curiosity to see the little house and the manner in which it was
conducted. She wanted to hear all about the dinner party; Monsieur Ratignolle
had left so early. What had happened after he left? The champagne and grapes
which Edna sent over were too delicious. She had so little appetite; they had
refreshed and toned her stomach. Where on earth was she going to put Mr.
Pontellier in that little house, and the boys? And then she made Edna promise
to go to her when her hour of trial overtook her.
"At any time--any
time of the day or night, dear," Edna assured her.
Before leaving Madame
Ratignolle said:
"In some way you
seem to me like a child, Edna. You seem to act without a certain amount of
reflection which is necessary in this life. That is the reason I want to say
you mustn't mind if I advise you to be a little careful while you are living
here alone. Why don't you have some one come and stay with you? Wouldn't
Mademoiselle Reisz come?"
"No; she wouldn't
wish to come, and I shouldn't want her always with me."
"Well, the
reason--you know how evil-minded the world is--some one was talking of Alcée
Arobin visiting you. Of course, it wouldn't matter if Mr. Arobin had not such a
dreadful reputation. Monsieur Ratignolle was telling me that his attentions
alone are considered enough to ruin a woman s name."
"Does he boast of
his successes?" asked Edna, indifferently, squinting at her picture.
"No, I think not.
I believe he is a decent fellow as far as that goes. But his character is so
well known among the men. I shan't be able to come back and see you; it was
very, very imprudent to-day."
"Mind the
step!" cried Edna.
"Don't neglect
me," entreated Madame Ratignolle; "and don't mind what I said about
Arobin, or having some one to stay with you.
"Of course
not," Edna laughed. "You may say anything you like to me." They
kissed each other good-by. Madame Ratignolle had not far to go, and Edna stood
on the porch a while watching her walk down the street.
Then in the afternoon
Mrs. Merriman and Mrs. Highcamp had made their "party call." Edna
felt that they might have dispensed with the formality. They had also come to
invite her to play vingt-et-unone evening at Mrs. Merriman's. She was asked to
go early, to dinner, and Mr. Merriman or Mr. Arobin would take her home. Edna
accepted in a half-hearted way. She sometimes felt very tired of Mrs. Highcamp
and Mrs. Merriman.
Late in the afternoon
she sought refuge with Mademoiselle Reisz, and stayed there alone, waiting for
her, feeling a kind of repose invade her with the very atmosphere of the
shabby, unpretentious little room.
Edna sat at the window,
which looked out over the house-tops and across the river. The window frame was
filled with pots of flowers, and she sat and picked the dry leaves from a rose
geranium. The day was warm, and the breeze which blew from the river was very
pleasant. She removed her hat and laid it on the piano. She went on picking the
leaves and digging around the plants with her hat pin. Once she thought she
heard Mademoiselle Reisz approaching. But it was a young black girl, who came
in, bringing a small bundle of laundry, which she deposited in the adjoining
room, and went away.
Edna seated herself at
the piano, and softly picked out with one hand the bars of a piece of music
which lay open before her. A half-hour went by. There was the occasional sound
of people going and coming in the lower hall. She was growing interested in her
occupation of picking out the aria, when there was a second rap at the door.
She vaguely wondered what these people did when they found Mademoiselle's door
locked.
"Come in,"
she called, turning her face toward the door. And this time it was Robert
Lebrun who presented himself. She attempted to rise; she could not have done so
without betraying the agitation which mastered her at sight of him, so she fell
back upon the stool, only exclaiming, "Why, Robert!"
He came and clasped her
hand, seemingly without knowing what he was saying or doing.
"Mrs. Pontellier!
How do you happen--oh! how well you look! Is Mademoiselle Reisz not here? I
never expected to see you."
"When did you come
back?" asked Edna in an unsteady voice, wiping her face with her
handkerchief. She seemed ill at ease on the piano stool, and he begged her to
take the chair by the window. She did so, mechanically, while he seated himself
on the stool.
"I returned day
before yesterday," he answered, while he leaned his arm on the keys,
bringing forth a crash of discordant sound.
"Day before
yesterday!" she repeated, aloud; and went on thinking to herself,
"day before yesterday," in a sort of an uncomprehending way. She had
pictured him seeking her at the very first hour, and he had lived under the
same sky since day before yesterday; while only by accident had he stumbled
upon her. Mademoiselle must have lied when she said, "Poor fool, he loves you."
"Day before
yesterday," she repeated, breaking off a spray of Mademoiselle's geranium;
"then if you had not met me here to-day you wouldn't--when--that is,
didn't you mean to come and see me?"
"Of course, I
should have gone to see you. There have been so many things--" he turned
the leaves of Mademoiselle's music nervously. "I started in at once
yesterday with the old firm. After all there is as much chance for me here as
there was there-- that is, I might find it profitable some day. The Mexicans
were not very congenial."
So he had come back
because the Mexicans were not congenial; because business was as profitable
here as there; because of any reason, and not because he cared to be near her.
She remembered the day she sat on the floor, turning the pages of his letter,
seeking the reason which was left untold.
She had not noticed how
he looked--only feeling his presence; but she turned deliberately and observed
him. After all, he had been absent but a few months, and was not changed. His
hair--the color of hers--waved back from his temples in the same way as before.
His skin was not more burned than it had been at Grand Isle. She found in his
eyes, when he looked at her for one silent moment, the same tender caress, with
an added warmth and entreaty which had not been there before the same glance
which had penetrated to the sleeping places of her soul and awakened them.
A hundred times Edna
had pictured Robert's return, and imagined their first meeting. It was usually
at her home, whither he had sought her out at once. She always fancied him
expressing or betraying in some way his love for her. And here, the reality was
that they sat ten feet apart, she at the window, crushing geranium leaves in
her hand and smelling "them, he twirling around on the piano stool,
saying:
"I was very much
surprised to hear of Mr. Pontellier's absence; it's a wonder Mademoiselle Reisz
did not tell me; and your moving--mother told me yesterday. I should think you
would have gone to New York with him, or to Iberville with the children, rather
than be bothered here with housekeeping. And you are going abroad, too, I hear.
We shan't have you at Grand Isle next summer; it won't seem--do you see much of
Mademoiselle Reisz? She often spoke of you in the few letters she wrote."
"Do you remember
that you promised to write to me when you went away?" A flush overspread
his whole face.
"I couldn't
believe that my letters would be of any interest to you."
"That is an
excuse; it isn't the truth." Edna reached for her hat on the piano. She
adjusted it, sticking the hat pin through the heavy coil of hair with some
deliberation.
"Are you not going
to wait for Mademoiselle Reisz?" asked Robert.
"No; I have found
when she is absent this long, she is liable not to come back till late."
She drew on her gloves, and Robert picked up his hat.
"Won't you wait
for her?" asked Edna.
"Not if you think
she will not be back till late," adding, as if suddenly aware of some
discourtesy in his speech, "and I should miss the pleasure of walking home
with you." Edna locked the door and put the key back in its hiding- place.
They went together,
picking their way across muddy streets and sidewalks encumbered with the cheap
display of small tradesmen. Part of the distance they rode in the car, and
after disembarking, passed the Pontellier mansion, which looked broken and half
torn asunder. Robert had never known the house, and looked at it with interest.
"I never knew you
in your home," he remarked.
"I am glad you did
not."
"Why?" She
did not answer. They went on around the corner, and it seemed as if her dreams
were coming true after all, when he followed her into the little house.
"You must stay and
dine with me, Robert. You see I am all alone, and it is so long since I have
seen you. There is so much I want to ask you."
She took off her hat
and gloves. He stood irresolute, making some excuse about his mother who
expected him; he even muttered something about an engagement. She struck a
match and lit the lamp on the table; it was growing dusk. When he saw her face
in the lamp-light, looking pained, with all the soft lines gone out of it, he
threw his hat aside and seated himself.
"Oh! you know I
want to stay if you will let me!" he exclaimed. All the softness came
back. She laughed, and went and put her hand on his shoulder.
"This is the first
moment you have seemed like the old Robert. I'll go tell Celestine." She
hurried away to tell Celestine to set an extra place. She even sent her off in
search of some added delicacy which she had not thought of for herself. And she
recommended great care in dripping the coffee and having the omelet done to a
proper turn.
When she reentered,
Robert was turning over magazines, sketches, and things that lay upon the table
in great disorder. He picked up a photograph, and exclaimed:
"Alcée Arobin!
What on earth is his picture doing here?"
"I tried to make a
sketch of his head one day," answered Edna, "and he thought the
photograph might help me. It was at the other house. I thought it had been left
there. I must have packed it up with my drawing materials. "
"I should think
you would give it back to him if you have finished with it."
"Oh! I have a
great many such photographs. I never think of returning them. They don't amount
to anything." Robert kept on looking at the picture.
"It seems to
me--do you think his head worth drawing? Is he a friend of Mr. Pontellier's?
You never said you knew him."
"He isn't a friend
of Mr. Pontellier's; he's a friend of mine. I always knew him--that is, it is
only of late that I know him pretty well. But I'd rather talk about you, and
know what you have been seeing and doing and feeling out there in Mexico."
Robert threw aside the picture.
"I've been seeing
the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle; the quiet, grassy street of the
Cheniere; the old fort at Grande Terre. I've been working like a machine, and
feeling like a lost soul. There was nothing interesting."
She leaned her head
upon her hand to shade her eyes from the light.
"And what have you
been seeing and doing and feeling all these days?" he asked.
"I've been seeing
the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle; the quiet, grassy street of the
Cheniere Caminada;the old sunny fort at Grande Terre. I've been working with a
little more comprehension than a machine, and still feeling like a lost soul.
There was nothing interesting."
"Mrs. Pontellier,
you are cruel," he said, with feeling, closing his eyes and resting his
head back in his chair. They remained in silence till old Celestine announced
dinner.
The dining-room was
very small. Edna's round mahogany would have almost filled it. As it was there
was but a step or two from the little table to the kitchen, to the mantel, the
small buffet, and the side door that opened out on the narrow brick-paved yard.
A certain degree of
ceremony settled upon them with the announcement of dinner. There was no return
to personalities. Robert related incidents of his sojourn in Mexico, and Edna
talked of events likely to interest him, which had occurred during his absence.
The dinner was of ordinary quality, except for the few delicacies which she had
sent out to purchase. Old Celestine, with a bandana tignontwisted about her
head, hobbled in and out, taking a personal interest in everything; and she
lingered occasionally to talk patois with Robert, whom she had known as a boy.
He went out to a
neighboring cigar stand to purchase cigarette papers, and when he came back he
found that Celestine had served the black coffee in the parlor.
"Perhaps I
shouldn't have come back," he said. "When you are tired of me, tell
me to go."
"You never tire me.
You must have forgotten the hours and hours at Grand Isle in which we grew
accustomed to each other and used to being together."
"I have forgotten
nothing at Grand Isle," he said, not looking at her, but rolling a
cigarette. His tobacco pouch, which he laid upon the table, was a fantastic
embroidered silk affair, evidently the handiwork of a woman.
"You used to carry
your tobacco in a rubber pouch," said Edna, picking up the pouch and
examining the needlework.
"Yes; it was
lost."
"Where did you buy
this one? In Mexico?"
"It was given to
me by a Vera Cruz girl; they are very generous," he replied, striking a
match and lighting his cigarette.
"They are very
handsome, I suppose, those Mexican women; very picturesque, with their black
eyes and their lace scarfs."
"Some are; others
are hideous. just as you find women everywhere."
"What was she
like--the one who gave you the pouch? You must have known her very well."
"She was very
ordinary. She wasn't of the slightest importance. I knew her well enough."
"Did you visit at
her house? Was it interesting? I should like to know and hear about the people
you met, and the impressions they made on you."
"There are some
people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water."
"Was she such a
one?"
"It would be
ungenerous for me to admit that she was of that order and kind." He thrust
the pouch back in his pocket, as if to put away the subject with the trifle
which had brought it up.
Arobin dropped in with
a message from Mrs. Merriman, to say that the card party was postponed on
account of the illness of one of her children.
"How do you do,
Arobin?" said Robert, rising from the obscurity.
"Oh! Lebrun. To be
sure! I heard yesterday you were back. How did they treat you down in
Mexique?"
"Fairly
well."
"But not well
enough to keep you there. Stunning girls, though, in Mexico. I thought I should
never get away from Vera Cruz when I was down there a couple of years
ago."
"Did they
embroider slippers and tobacco pouches and hat-bands and things for you?"
asked Edna.
"Oh! my! no! I
didn't get so deep in their regard. I fear they made more impression on me than
I made on them."
"You were less
fortunate than Robert, then."
"I am always less
fortunate than Robert. Has he been imparting tender confidences?"
"I've been
imposing myself long enough," said Robert, rising, and shaking hands with
Edna. "Please convey my regards to Mr. Pontellier when you write."
He shook hands with Arobin
and went away.
"Fine fellow, that
Lebrun," said Arobin when Robert had gone. "I never heard you speak
of him."
"I knew him last
summer at Grand Isle," she replied. "Here is that photograph of
yours. Don't you want it?"
"What do I want
with it? Throw it away." She threw it back on the table.
"I'm not going to
Mrs. Merriman's," she said. "If you see her, tell her so. But perhaps
I had better write. I think I shall write now, and say that I am sorry her
child is sick, and tell her not to count on me."
"It would be a
good scheme," acquiesced Arobin. "I don't blame you; stupid
lot!"
Edna opened the
blotter, and having procured paper and pen, began to write the note. Arobin lit
a cigar and read the evening paper, which he had in his pocket.
"What is the
date?" she asked. He told her.
"Will you mail
this for me when you go out?"
"Certainly."
He read to her little bits out of the newspaper, while she straightened things
on the table.
"What do you want
to do?" he asked, throwing aside the paper. "Do you want to go out
for a walk or a drive or anything? It would be a fine night to drive."
"No; I don't want
to do anything but just be quiet. You go away and amuse yourself. Don't
stay."
"I'll go away if I
must; but I shan't amuse myself. You know that I only live when I am near
you."
He stood up to bid her
good night.
"Is that one of
the things you always say to women?"
"I have said it
before, but I don't think I ever came so near meaning it," he answered
with a smile. There were no warm lights in her eyes; only a dreamy, absent
look.
"Good night. I
adore you. Sleep well," he said, and he kissed her hand and went away.
She stayed alone in a
kind of reverie--a sort of stupor. Step by step she lived over every instant of
the time she had been with Robert after he had entered Mademoiselle Reisz's
door. She recalled his words, his looks. How few and meager they had been for her
hungry heart! A vision--a transcendently seductive vision of a Mexican girl
arose before her. She writhed with a jealous pang. She wondered when he would
come back. He had not said he would come back. She had been with him, had heard
his voice and touched his hand. But some way he had seemed nearer to her off
there in Mexico.
The morning was full of
sunlight and hope. Edna could see before her no denial--only the promise of
excessive joy. She lay in bed awake, with bright eyes full of speculation.
"He loves you, poor fool." If she could but get that conviction
firmly fixed in her mind, what mattered about the rest? She felt she had been
childish and unwise the night before in giving herself over to despondency. She
recapitulated the motives which no doubt explained Robert's reserve. They were
not insurmountable; they would not hold if he really loved her; they could not
hold against her own passion, which he must come to realize in time. She
pictured him going to his business that morning. She even saw how he was
dressed; how he walked down one street, and turned the corner of another; saw
him bending over his desk, talking to people who entered the office, going to
his lunch, and perhaps watching for her on the street. He would come to her in
the afternoon or evening, sit and roll his cigarette, talk a little, and go
away as she had done the night before. But how delicious it would be to have
him there with her! She would have no regrets, nor seek to penetrate his
reserve if he still chose to wear it.
Edna ate her breakfast
only half dressed. The maid brought her a delicious printed scrawl from Raoul,
expressing his love, asking her to send him some bonbons, and telling her they
had found that morning ten tiny white pigs all lying in a row beside Lidie's
big white pig.
A letter also came from
her husband, saying he hoped to be back early in March, and then they would get
ready for that journey abroad which he had promised her so long, which he felt
now fully able to afford; he felt able to travel as people should, without any
thought of small economies--thanks to his recent speculations in Wall Street.
Much to her surprise
she received a note from Arobin, written at midnight from the club. It was to
say good morning to her, to hope she had slept well, to assure her of his
devotion, which he trusted she in some faintest manner returned.
All these letters were
pleasing to her. She answered the children in a cheerful frame of mind,
promising them bonbons, and congratulating them upon their happy find of the
little pigs.
She answered her
husband with friendly evasiveness, --not with any fixed design to mislead him,
only because all sense of reality had gone out of her life; she had abandoned
herself to Fate, and awaited the consequences with indifference.
To Arobin's note she
made no reply. She put it under Celestine's stove-lid.
Edna worked several
hours with much spirit. She saw no one but a picture dealer, who asked her if
it were true that she was going abroad to study in Paris.
She said possibly she
might, and he negotiated with her for some Parisian studies to reach him in
time for the holiday trade in December.
Robert did not come
that day. She was keenly disappointed. He did not come the following day, nor
the next. Each morning she awoke with hope, and each night she was a prey to
despondency. She was tempted to seek him out. But far from yielding to the
impulse, she avoided any occasion which might throw her in his way. She did not
go to Mademoiselle Reisz's nor pass by Madame Lebrun's, as she might have done
if he had still been in Mexico.
When Arobin, one night,
urged her to drive with him, she went- -out to the lake, on the Shell Road. His
horses were full of mettle, and even a little unmanageable. She liked the rapid
gait at which they spun along, and the quick, sharp sound of the horses' hoofs
on the hard road. They did not stop anywhere to eat or to drink. Arobin was not
needlessly imprudent. But they ate and they drank when they regained Edna's
little dining-room--which was comparatively early in the evening.
It was late when he
left her. It was getting to be more than a passing whim with Arobin to see her
and be with her. He had detected the latent sensuality, which un folded under
his delicate sense of her nature's requirements like a torpid, torrid,
sensitive blossom.
There was no
despondency when she fell asleep that night; nor was there hope when she awoke
in the morning.
There was a garden out
in the suburbs; a small, leafy corner, with a few green tables under the orange
trees. An old cat slept all day on the stone step in the sun, and an old
mulatresse slept her idle hours away in her chair at the open window, till,
some one happened to knock on one of the green tables. She had milk and cream
cheese to sell, and bread and butter. There was no one who could make such
excellent coffee or fry a chicken so golden brown as she.
The place was too
modest to attract the attention of people of fashion, and so quiet as to have
escaped the notice of those in search of pleasure and dissipation. Edna had
discovered it accidentally one day when the high-board gate stood ajar. She
caught sight of a little green table, blotched with the checkered sunlight that
filtered through the quivering leaves overhead. Within she had found the
slumbering mulatresse, the drowsy cat, and a glass of milk which reminded her
of the milk she had tasted in Iberville.
She often stopped there
during her perambulations; sometimes taking a book with her, and sitting an
hour or two under the trees when she found the place deserted. Once or twice
she took a quiet dinner there alone, having instructed Celestine beforehand to
prepare no dinner at home. It was the last place in the city where she would
have expected to meet any one she knew.
Still she was not
astonished when, as she was partaking of a modest dinner late in the afternoon,
looking into an open book, stroking the cat, which had made friends with
her--she was not greatly astonished to see Robert come in at the tall garden
gate.
"I am destined to
see you only by accident," she said, shoving the cat off the chair beside
her. He was surprised, ill at ease, almost embarrassed at meeting her thus so
unexpectedly.
"Do you come here
often?" he asked.
"I almost live
here," she said.
"I used to drop in
very often for a cup of Catiche's good coffee. This is the first time since I
came back."
"She'll bring you
a plate, and you will share my dinner. There's always enough for two--even
three." Edna had intended to be indifferent and as reserved as he when she
met him; she had reached the determination by a laborious train of reasoning,
incident to one of her despondent moods. But her resolve melted when she saw
him before her, seated there beside her in the little garden, as if a designing
Providence had led him into her path.
"Why have you kept
away from me, Robert?" she asked, closing the book that lay open upon the
table.
"Why are you so
personal, Mrs. Pontellier? Why do you force me to idiotic subterfuges?" he
exclaimed with sudden warmth. "I suppose there's no use telling you I've
been very busy, or that I've been sick, or that I've been to see you and not
found you at home. Please let me off with any one of these excuses."
"You are the
embodiment of selfishness," she said. "You save yourself something--I
don't know what--but there is some selfish motive, and in sparing yourself you
never consider for a moment what I think, or how I feel your neglect and
indifference. I suppose this is what you would call unwomanly; but I have got
into a habit of expressing myself. It doesn't matter to me, and you may think
me unwomanly if you like."
"No; I only think
you cruel, as I said the other day. Maybe not intentionally cruel; but you seem
to be forcing me into disclosures which can result in nothing; as if you would
have me bare a wound for the pleasure of looking at it, without the intention
or power of healing it."
"I'm spoiling your
dinner, Robert; never mind what I say. You haven't eaten a morsel."
"I only came in
for a cup of coffee." His sensitive face was all disfigured with
excitement.
"Isn't this a
delightful place?" she remarked. "I am so glad it has never actu ally
been discovered. It is so quiet, so sweet, here. Do you notice there is
scarcely a sound to be heard? It's so out of the way; and a good walk from the
car. However, I don't mind walking. I always feel so sorry for women who don't
like to walk; they miss so much--so many rare little glimpses of life; and we
women learn so little of life on the whole.
"Catiche's coffee
is always hot. I don't know how she manages it, here in the open air.
Celestine's coffee gets cold bringing it from the kitchen to the dining-room.
Three lumps! How can you drink it so sweet? Take some of the cress with your
chop; it's so biting and crisp. Then there's the advantage of being able to
smoke with your coffee out here. Now, in the city--aren't you going to
smoke?"
"After a while,"
he said, laying a cigar on the table.
"Who gave it to
you?" she laughed.
"I bought it. I
suppose I'm getting reckless; I bought a whole box." She was determined
not to be personal again and make him uncomfortable.
The cat made friends
with him, and climbed into his lap when he smoked his cigar. He stroked her
silky fur, and talked a little about her. He looked at Edna's book, which he
had read; and he told her the end, to save her the trouble of wading through
it, he said.
Again he accompanied her
back to her home; and it was after dusk when they reached the little
"pigeon-house." She did not ask him to remain, which he was grateful
for, as it permitted him to stay without the discomfort of blundering through
an excuse which he had no intention of considering. He helped her to light the
lamp; then she went into her room to take off her hat and to bathe her face and
hands.
When she came back
Robert was not examining the pictures and magazines as before; he sat off in
the shadow, leaning his head back on the chair as if in a reverie. Edna
lingered a moment beside the table, arranging the books there. Then she went
across the room to where he sat. She bent over the arm of his chair and called
his name.
"Robert," she
said, "are you asleep?"
"No," he
answered, looking up at her.
She leaned over and
kissed him--a soft, cool, delicate kiss, whose voluptuous sting penetrated his
whole being-then she moved away from him. He followed, and took her in his
arms, just holding her close to him. She put her hand up to his face and
pressed his cheek against her own. The action was full of love and tenderness.
He sought her lips again. Then he drew her down upon the sofa beside him and
held her hand in both of his.
"Now you
know," he said, "now you know what I have been fighting against since
last summer at Grand Isle; what drove me away and drove me back again."
"Why have you been
fighting against it?" she asked. Her face glowed with soft lights.
"Why? Because you
were not free; you were Léonce Pontellier's wife. I couldn't help loving you if
you were ten times his wife; but so long as I went away from you and kept away
I could help telling you so." She put her free hand up to his shoulder,
and then against his cheek, rubbing it softly. He kissed her again. His face
was warm and flushed.
"There in Mexico I
was thinking of you all the time, and longing for you."
"But not writing
to me," she interrupted.
"Something put
into my head that you cared for me; and I lost my senses. I forgot everything
but a wild dream of your some way becoming my wife." "Your
wife!"
"Religion,
loyalty, everything would give way if only you cared."
"Then you must
have forgotten that I was Léonce Pontellier's wife."
"Oh! I was
demented, dreaming of wild, impossible things, recalling men who had set their
wives free, we have heard of such things."
"Yes, we have
heard of such things."
"I came back full
of vague, mad intentions. And when I got here--"
"When you got here
you never came near me!" She was still caressing his cheek.
"I realized what a
cur I was to dream of such a thing, even if you had been willing."
She took his face
between her hands and looked into it as if she would never withdraw her eyes
more. She kissed him on the forehead, the eyes, the cheeks, and the lips.
"You have been a
very, very foolish boy, wasting your time dreaming of impossible things when
you speak of Mr. Pontellier setting me free! I am no longer one of Mr.
Pontellier's possessions to dispose of or not. I give myself where I choose. If
he were to say, 'Here, Robert, take her and be happy; she is yours,' I should
laugh at you both."
His face grew a little
white. "What do you mean?" he asked.
There was a knock at
the door. Old Celestine came in to say that Madame Ratignolle's servant had
come around the back way with a message that Madame had been taken sick and
begged Mrs. Pontellier to go to her immediately.
"Yes, yes,"
said Edna, rising; "I prom ised. Tell her yes--to wait for me. I'll go
back with her."
"Let me walk over
with you," offered Robert.
"No," she
said; "I will go with the servant. She went into her room to put on her
hat, and when she came in again she sat once more upon the sofa beside him. He
had not stirred. She put her arms about his neck.
"Good-by, my sweet
Robert. Tell me good-by." He kissed her with a degree of passion which had
not before entered into his caress, and strained her to him.
"I love you,"
she whispered, "only you; no one but you. It was you who awoke me last
summer out of a life-long, stupid dream. Oh! you have made me so unhappy with
your indifference. Oh! I have suffered, suffered! Now you are here we shall
love each other, my Robert. We shall be everything to each other. Nothing else
in the world is of any consequence. I must go to my friend; but you will wait
for me? No matter how late; you will wait for me, Robert?"
"Don't go; don't
go! Oh! Edna, stay with me," he pleaded. "Why should you go? Stay
with me, stay with me."
"I shall come back
as soon as I can; I shall find you here." She buried her face in his neck,
and said good-by again. Her seductive voice, together with his great love for
her, had enthralled his senses, had deprived him of every impulse but the
longing to hold her and keep her.
Edna looked in at the
drug store. Monsieur Ratignolle was putting up a mixture himself, very
carefully, dropping a red liquid into a tiny glass. He was grateful to Edna for
having come; her presence would be a comfort to his wife. Madame Ratignolle's
sister, who had always been with her at such trying times, had not been able to
come up from the plantation, and Adèle had been inconsolable until Mrs.
Pontellier so kindly promised to come to her. The nurse had been with them at
night for the past week, as she lived a great distance away. And Dr. Mandelet
had been coming and going all the afternoon. They were then looking for him any
moment.
Edna hastened upstairs
by a private stairway that led from the rear of the store to the apartments
above. The children were all sleeping in a back room. Madame Ratignolle was in
the salon, whither she had strayed in her suffering impatience. She sat on the
sofa, clad in an ample white peignoir,holding a handkerchief tight in her hand
with a nervous clutch. Her face was drawn and pinched, her sweet blue eyes
haggard and unnatural. All her beautiful hair had been drawn back and plaited.
It lay in a long braid on the sofa pillow, coiled like a golden serpent. The
nurse, a comfortable looking Griffewoman in white apron and cap, was urging her
to return to her bedroom.
"There is no use,
there is no use," she said at once to Edna. "We must get rid of
Mandelet; he is getting too old and careless. He said he would be here at
half-past seven; now it must be eight. See what time it is, Josephine."
The woman was possessed
of a cheerful nature, and refused to take any situation too seriously,
especially a situation with which she was so familiar. She urged Madame to have
courage and patience. But Madame only set her teeth hard into her under lip,
and Edna saw the sweat gather in beads on her white forehead. After a moment or
two she uttered a profound sigh and wiped her face with the handkerchief rolled
in a ball. She appeared exhausted. The nurse gave her a fresh handkerchief,
sprinkled with cologne water.
"This is too
much!" she cried. "Mandelet ought to be killed! Where is Alphonse? Is
it possible I am to be abandoned like this-- neglected by every one?"
"Neglected,
indeed!" exclaimed the nurse. Wasn't she there? And here was Mrs.
Pontellier leaving, no doubt, a pleasant evening at home to devote to her? And
wasn't Monsieur Ratignolle coming that very instant through the hall? And
Josephine was quite sure she had heard Doctor Mandelet's coupe. Yes, there it
was, down at the door.
Adèle consented to go
back to her room. She sat on the edge of a little low couch next to her bed.
Doctor Mandelet paid no
attention to Madame Ratignolle's upbraidings. He was accustomed to them at such
times, and was too well convinced of her loyalty to doubt it.
He was glad to see
Edna, and wanted her to go with him into the salon and entertain him. But
Madame Ratignolle would not consent that Edna should leave her for an instant.
Between agonizing moments, she chatted a little, and said it took her mind off
her sufferings.
Edna began to feel
uneasy. She was seized with a vague dread. Her own like experiences seemed far
away, unreal, and only half remembered. She recalled faintly an ecstasy of
pain, the heavy odor of chloroform, a stupor which had deadened sensation, and
an awakening to find a little new life to which she had given being, added to
the great unnumbered multitude of souls that come and go.
She began to wish she
had not come; her presence was not necessary. She might have invented a pretext
for staying away; she might even invent a pretext now for going. But Edna did
not go. With an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways
of Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture.
She was still stunned
and speechless with emotion when later she leaned over her friend to kiss her
and softly say good-by. Adèle, pressing her cheek, whispered in an exhausted
voice: "Think of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember
them!"
Edna still felt dazed
when she got outside in the open air. The Doctor's coupe had returned for him
and stood before the porte cochere. She did not wish to enter the coupe, and
told Doctor Mandelet she would walk; she was not afraid, and would go alone. He
directed his carriage to meet him at Mrs. Pontellier's, and he started to walk
home with her.
Up--away up, over the
narrow street between the tall houses, the stars were blazing. The air was mild
and caressing, but cool with the breath of spring and the night. They walked
slowly, the Doctor with a heavy, measured tread and his hands behind him; Edna,
in an absent-minded way, as she had walked one night at Grand Isle, as if her
thoughts had gone ahead of her and she was striving to overtake them.
"You shouldn't
have been there, Mrs. Pontellier," he said. "That was no place for
you. Adèle is full of whims at such times. There were a dozen women she might
have had with her, unimpressionable women. I felt that it was cruel, cruel. You
shouldn't have gone."
"Oh, well!"
she answered, indifferently. "I don't know that it matters after all. One
has to think of the children some time or other; the sooner the better."
"When is Léonce
coming back?"
"Quite soon. Some
time in March."
"And you are going
abroad?"
"Perhaps--no, I am
not going. I'm not going to be forced into doing things. I don't want to go
abroad. I want to be let alone. Nobody has any right--except children,
perhaps--and even then, it seems to me--or it did seem--" She felt that
her speech was voicing the incoherency of her thoughts, and stopped abruptly.
"The trouble
is," sighed the Doctor, grasping her meaning intuitively, "that youth
is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to
secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences,
of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain
at any cost."
"Yes," she
said. "The years that are gone seem like dreams-- if one might go on
sleeping and dreaming--but to wake up and find-- oh! well! perhaps it is better
to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions
all one's life."
"It seems to me,
my dear child," said the Doctor at parting, holding her hand, "you
seem to me to be in trouble. I am not going to ask for your confidence. I will
only say that if ever you feel moved to give it to me, perhaps I might help
you. I know I would understand, And I tell you there are not many who
would--not many, my dear."
"Some way I don't
feel moved to speak of things that trouble me. Don't think I am ungrateful or
that I don't appreciate your sympathy. There are periods of despondency and
suffering which take possession of me. But I don't want anything but my own
way. That is wanting a good deal, of course, when you have to trample upon the
lives, the hearts, the prejudices of others--but no matter-still, I shouldn't
want to trample upon the little lives. Oh! I don't know what I'm saying,
Doctor. Good night. Don't blame me for anything."
"Yes, I will blame
you if you don't come and see me soon. We will talk of things you never have
dreamt of talking about before. It will do us both good. I don't want you to
blame yourself, whatever comes. Good night, my child."
She let herself in at
the gate, but instead of entering she sat upon the step of the porch. The night
was quiet and soothing. All the tearing emotion of the last few hours seemed to
fall away from her like a somber, uncomfortable garment, which she had but to
loosen to be rid of. She went back to that hour before Adèle had sent for her;
and her senses kindled afresh in thinking of Robert's words, the pressure of
his arms, and the feeling of his lips upon her own. She could picture at that
moment no greater bliss on earth than possession of the beloved one. His
expression of love had already given him to her in part. When she thought that
he was there at hand, waiting for her, she grew numb with the intoxication of
expectancy. It was so late; he would be asleep perhaps. She would awaken him
with a kiss. She hoped he would be asleep that she might arouse him with her
caresses.
Still, she remembered
Adèle's voice whispering, "Think of the children; think of them." She
meant to think of them; that determination had driven into her soul like a
death wound--but not to-night. To-morrow would be time to think of everything.
Robert was not waiting
for her in the little parlor. He was nowhere at hand. The house was empty. But
he had scrawled on a piece of paper that lay in the lamplight:
"I love you.
Good-by--because I love you."
Edna grew faint when
she read the words. She went and sat on the sofa. Then she stretched herself
out there, never uttering a sound. She did not sleep. She did not go to bed.
The lamp sputtered and went out. She was still awake in the morning, when
Celestine unlocked the kitchen door and came in to light the fire.
Victor, with hammer and
nails and scraps of scantling, was patching a corner of one of the galleries.
Mariequita sat near by, dangling her legs, watching him work, and handing him
nails from the tool-box. The sun was beating down upon them. The girl had
covered her head with her apron folded into a square pad. They had been talking
for an hour or more. She was never tired of hearing Victor describe the dinner
at Mrs. Pontellier's. He exaggerated every detail, making it appear a veritable
Lucullean feast. The flowers were in tubs, he said. The champagne was quaffed
from huge golden goblets. Venus rising from the foam could have presented no
more entrancing a spectacle than Mrs. Pontellier, blazing with beauty and
diamonds at the head of the board, while the other women were all of them
youthful houris, possessed of incomparable charms. She got it into her head
that Victor was in love with Mrs. Pontellier, and he gave her evasive answers,
framed so as to confirm her belief. She grew sullen and cried a little,
threatening to go off and leave him to his fine ladies. There were a dozen men
crazy about her at the Cheniere;and since it was the fashion to be in love with
married people, why, she could run away any time she liked to New Orleans with
Celina's husband.
Celina's husband was a
fool, a coward, and a pig, and to prove it to her, Victor intended to hammer
his head into a jelly the next time he encountered him. This assurance was very
consoling to Mariequita. She dried her eyes, and grew cheerful at the prospect.
They were still talking
of the dinner and the allurements of city life when Mrs. Pontellier herself
slipped around the corner of the house. The two youngsters stayed dumb with
amazement before what they considered to be an apparition. But it was really
she in flesh and blood, looking tired and a little travel-stained.
"I walked up from
the wharf", she said, "and heard the hammering. I supposed it was
you, mending the porch. It's a good thing. I was always tripping over those
loose planks last summer. How dreary and deserted everything looks!"
It took Victor some
little time to comprehend that she had come in Beaudelet's lugger, that she had
come alone, and for no purpose but to rest.
"There's nothing
fixed up yet, you see. I'll give you my room; it's the only place."
"Any corner will
do," she assured him.
"And if you can
stand Philomel's cooking," he went on, "though I might try to get her
mother while you are here. Do you think she would come?" turning to
Mariequita.
Mariequita thought that
perhaps Philomel's mother might come for a few days, and money enough.
Beholding Mrs.
Pontellier make her appearance, the girl had at once suspected a lovers'
rendezvous. But Victor's astonishment was so genuine, and Mrs. Pontellier's
indifference so apparent, that the disturbing notion did not lodge long in her
brain. She contemplated with the greatest interest this woman who gave the most
sumptuous dinners in America, and who had all the men in New Orleans at her
feet.
"What time will
you have dinner?" asked Edna. "I'm very hungry; but don't get
anything extra."
"I'll have it
ready in little or no time," he said, bustling and packing away his tools.
"You may go to my room to brush up and rest yourself. Mariequita will show
you."
"Thank you",
said Edna. "But, do you know, I have a notion to go down to the beach and
take a good wash and even a little swim, before dinner?"
"The water is too
cold!" they both exclaimed. "Don't think of it."
"Well, I might go
down and try--dip my toes in. Why, it seems to me the sun is hot enough to have
warmed the very depths of the ocean. Could you get me a couple of towels? I'd
better go right away, so as to be back in time. It would be a little too chilly
if I waited till this afternoon."
Mariequita ran over to
Victor's room, and returned with some towels, which she gave to Edna.
"I hope you have
fish for dinner," said Edna, as she started to walk away; "but don't
do anything extra if you haven't."
"Run and find
Philomel's mother," Victor instructed the girl. "I'll go to the
kitchen and see what I can do. By Gimminy! Women have no consideration! She
might have sent me word."
Edna walked on down to
the beach rather mechanically, not noticing anything special except that the
sun was hot. She was not dwelling upon any particular train of thought. She had
done all the thinking which was necessary after Robert went away, when she lay
awake upon the sofa till morning.
She had said over and
over to herself: "To-day it is Arobin; to-morrow it will be some one else.
It makes no difference to me, it doesn't matter about Léonce Pontellier--but
Raoul and Etienne!" She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago
when she said to Adèle Ratignolle that she would give up the unessential, but
she would never sacrifice herself for her children.
Despondency had come
upon her there in the wakeful night, and had never lifted. There was no one
thing in the world that she desired. There was no human being whom she wanted
near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he,
too, and the thought of him would melt out of her existence, leaving her alone.
The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her; who had
overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul's slavery for the rest of her
days. But she knew a way to elude them. She was not thinking of these things
when she walked down to the beach.
The water of the Gulf
stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The
voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring,
inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach,
up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was
beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the
water.
Edna had found her old
bathing suit still hanging, faded, upon its accustomed peg.
She put it on, leaving
her clothing in the bath-house. But when she was there beside the sea,
absolutely alone, she cast the unpleasant, pricking garments from her, and for
the first time in her life she stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the
sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her.
How strange and awful
it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious! She felt like some
new-born creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never
known.
The foamy wavelets
curled up to her white feet, and coiled like serpents about her ankles. She
walked out. The water was chill, but she walked on. The water was deep, but she
lifted her white body and reached out with a long, sweeping stroke. The touch
of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
She went on and on. She
remembered the night she swam far out, and recalled the terror that seized her
at the fear of being unable to regain the shore. She did not look back now, but
went on and on, thinking of the blue-grass meadow that she had traversed when a
little child, believing that it had no beginning and no end.
Her arms and legs were
growing tired.
She thought of Léonce
and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought
that they could possess her, body and soul. How Mademoiselle Reisz would have
laughed, perhaps sneered, if she knew! "And you call yourself an artist!
What pretensions, Madame! The artist must possess the courageous soul that
dares and defies."
Exhaustion was pressing
upon and overpowering her.
"Good-by--because
I love you." He did not know; he did not understand. He would never
understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen
him--but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.
She looked into the
distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again. Edna
heard her father's voice and her sister Margaret's. She heard the barking of an
old dog that was chained to the sycamore tree. The spurs of the cavalry officer
clanged as he walked across the porch. There was the hum of bees, and the musky
odor of pinks filled the air.