The Awakening Audiobook by Kate Chopin (Chs 21-39)

PART 5: Chapter XXI
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 belongings 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.
Chapter XXII
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.
Chapter XXIII
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 musicale at 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 Alcee 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 horseracing, 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 threatened 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 Alcee Arobin."
Chapter XXIV
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, Leonce," 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
Leonce'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 candles 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 Leonce 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.
Chapter XXV
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.
Alcee 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. Alcee 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 eyes, 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 ear 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
droplight; 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
Alcee 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, Alcee 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.
Alcee 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.
Alcee 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.
>
PART 6: Chapter XXVI
Alcee 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, anyway--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.
Chapter XXVII
"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 to- day, 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.
Chapter XXVIII
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.
Chapter XXIX
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, supplying
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 Leonce 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.
Chapter XXX
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
souffrante and 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 Alcee 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 present 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.'" 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.
>
PART 7: Chapter XXXI
"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 parterre that 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.
Chapter XXXII
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 menage on 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.
Chapter XXXIII
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 Alcee
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-un one 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:
"Alcee 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.
Chapter XXXIV
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 tignon twisted 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 asa 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.
Chapter XXXV
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 he 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 unfolded 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.
>
PART 8: Chapter XXXVI
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 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 actually 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
Leonce 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 Leonce 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 promised. 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.
Chapter XXXVII
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 Adele 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 Griffe woman 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. Adele 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.
Adele, pressing her cheek, whispered in an exhausted voice: "Think of the children,
Edna. Oh think of the children!
Remember them!"
Chapter XXXVIII
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.
Adele 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 Leonce 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 Adele 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 Adele'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.
Chapter XXXIX
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 Leonce Pontellier--but Raoul
and Etienne!"
She understood now clearly what she had meant long ago when she said to Adele
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 Leonce 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.
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