The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories
her face. She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the
children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes,
were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become
antagonistic.
She went back into the house. She had thought of speaking to the cook
concerning her blunders of the previous night; but Mr. Pontellier had
saved her that disagreeable mission, for which she was so poorly
fitted. Mr. Pontellier’s arguments were usually convincing with those
whom he employed. He left home feeling quite sure that he and Edna
would sit down that evening, and possibly a few subsequent evenings, to
a dinner deserving of the name.
Edna spent an hour or two in looking over some of her old sketches. She
could see their shortcomings and defects, which were glaring in her
eyes. She tried to work a little, but found she was not in the humor.
Finally she gathered together a few of the sketches—those which she
considered the least discreditable; and she carried them with her when,
a little later, she dressed and left the house. She looked handsome and
distinguished in her street gown. The tan of the seashore had left her
face, and her forehead was smooth, white, and polished beneath her
heavy, yellow-brown hair. There were a few freckles on her face, and a
small, dark mole near the under lip and one on the temple, half-hidden
in her hair.
As Edna walked along the street she was thinking of Robert. She was
still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him,
realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like
an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt
upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or
peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which
dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the
mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled
her with an incomprehensible longing.
Edna was on her way to Madame Ratignolle’s. Their intimacy, begun at
Grand Isle, had not declined, and they had seen each other with some
frequency since their return to the city. The Ratignolles lived at no
great distance from Edna’s home, on the corner of a side street, where
Monsieur Ratignolle owned and conducted a drug store which enjoyed a
steady and prosperous trade. His father had been in the business before
him, and Monsieur Ratignolle stood well in the community and bore an
enviable reputation for integrity and clearheadedness. His family lived
in commodious apartments over the store, having an entrance on the side
within the _porte cochère_. There was something which Edna thought very
French, very foreign, about their whole manner of living. In the large
and pleasant salon which extended across the width of the house, the
Ratignolles entertained their friends once a fortnight with a _soirée
musicale_, sometimes diversified by card-playing. There was a friend
who played upon the cello. One brought his flute and another his
violin, while there were some who sang and a number who performed upon
the piano with various degrees of taste and agility. The Ratignolles’
_soirées musicales_ were widely known, and it was considered a
privilege to be invited to them.
Edna found her friend engaged in assorting the clothes which had
returned that morning from the laundry. She at once abandoned her
occupation upon seeing Edna, who had been ushered without ceremony into
her presence.
“’Cité can do it as well as I; it is really her business,” she
explained to Edna, who apologized for interrupting her. And she
summoned a young black woman, whom she instructed, in French, to be
very careful in checking off the list which she handed her. She told
her to notice particularly if a fine linen handkerchief of Monsieur
Ratignolle’s, which was missing last week, had been returned; and to be
sure to set to one side such pieces as required mending and darning.
Then placing an arm around Edna’s waist, she led her to the front of
the house, to the salon, where it was cool and sweet with the odor of
great roses that stood upon the hearth in jars.
Madame Ratignolle looked more beautiful than ever there at home, in a
negligé which left her arms almost wholly bare and exposed the rich,
melting curves of her white throat.
“Perhaps I shall be able to paint your picture some day,” said Edna
with a smile when they were seated. She produced the roll of sketches
and started to unfold them. “I believe I ought to work again. I feel as
if I wanted to be doing something. What do you think of them? Do you
think it worth while to take it up again and study some more? I might
study for a while with Laidpore.”
She knew that Madame Ratignolle’s opinion in such a matter would be
next to valueless, that she herself had not alone decided, but
determined; but she sought the words of praise and encouragement that
would help her to put heart into her venture.
“Your talent is immense, dear!”
“Nonsense!” protested Edna, well pleased.
“Immense, I tell you,” persisted Madame Ratignolle, surveying the
sketches one by one, at close range, then holding them at arm’s length,
narrowing her eyes, and dropping her head on one side. “Surely, this
Bavarian peasant is worthy of framing; and this basket of apples! never
have I seen anything more lifelike. One might almost be tempted to
reach out a hand and take one.”
Edna could not control a feeling which bordered upon complacency at her
friend’s praise, even realizing, as she did, its true worth. She
retained a few of the sketches, and gave all the rest to Madame
Ratignolle, who appreciated the gift far beyond its value and proudly
exhibited the pictures to her husband when he came up from the store a
little later for his midday dinner.
Mr. Ratignolle was one of those men who are called the salt of the
earth. His cheerfulness was unbounded, and it was matched by his
goodness of heart, his broad charity, and common sense. He and his wife
spoke English with an accent which was only discernible through its
un-English emphasis and a certain carefulness and deliberation. Edna’s
husband spoke English with no accent whatever. The Ratignolles
understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings
into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their
union.
As Edna seated herself at table with them she thought, “Better a dinner
of herbs,” though it did not take her long to discover that it was no
dinner of herbs, but a delicious repast, simple, choice, and in every
way satisfying.
Monsieur Ratignolle was delighted to see her, though he found her
looking not so well as at Grand Isle, and he advised a tonic. He talked
a good deal on various topics, a little politics, some city news and
neighborhood gossip. He spoke with an animation and earnestness that
gave an exaggerated importance to every syllable he uttered. His wife
was keenly interested in everything he said, laying down her fork the
better to listen, chiming in, taking the words out of his mouth.
Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little
glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no
regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her,
and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was
moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that
colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the
region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited
her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life’s delirium.
Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by “life’s delirium.” It had
crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.
XIX
Edna could not help but think that it was very foolish, very childish,
to have stamped upon her wedding ring and smashed the crystal vase upon
the tiles. She was visited by no more outbursts, moving her to such
futile expedients. She began to do as she liked and to feel as she
liked. She completely abandoned her Tuesdays at home, and did not
return the visits of those who had called upon her. She made no
ineffectual efforts to conduct her household _en bonne ménagère_, going
and coming as it suited her fancy, and, so far as she was able, lending
herself to any passing caprice.
Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a
certain tacit submissiveness in his wife. But her new and unexpected
line of conduct completely bewildered him. It shocked him. Then her
absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him. When Mr.
Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved never to
take another step backward.
“It seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a
household, and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days
which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her
family.”
“I feel like painting,” answered Edna. “Perhaps I shan’t always feel
like it.”
“Then in God’s name paint! but don’t let the family go to the devil.
There’s Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn’t
let everything else go to chaos. And she’s more of a musician than you
are a painter.”
“She isn’t a musician, and I’m not a painter. It isn’t on account of
painting that I let things go.”
“On account of what, then?”
“Oh! I don’t know. Let me alone; you bother me.”
It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were
not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she
was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming
herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume
like a garment with which to appear before the world.
Her husband let her alone as she requested, and went away to his
office. Edna went up to her atelier—a bright room in the top of the
house. She was working with great energy and interest, without
accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied her even in the
smallest degree. For a time she had the whole household enrolled in the
service of art. The boys posed for her. They thought it amusing at
first, but the occupation soon lost its attractiveness when they
discovered that it was not a game arranged especially for their
entertainment. The quadroon sat for hours before Edna’s palette,
patient as a savage, while the house-maid took charge of the children,
and the drawing-room went undusted. But the house-maid, too, served her
term as model when Edna perceived that the young woman’s back and
shoulders were molded on classic lines, and that her hair, loosened
from its confining cap, became an inspiration. While Edna worked she
sometimes sang low the little air, “_Ah! si tu savais!_”
It moved her with recollections. She could hear again the ripple of the
water, the flapping sail. She could see the glint of the moon upon the
bay, and could feel the soft, gusty beating of the hot south wind. A
subtle current of desire passed through her body, weakening her hold
upon the brushes and making her eyes burn.
There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was
happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one
with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some
perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and
unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner,
fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone
and unmolested.
There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,—when it did
not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when
life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like
worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not