The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories
her with the very atmosphere of the shabby, unpretentious little room.
Edna sat at the window, which looked out over the house-tops and across
the river. The window frame was filled with pots of flowers, and she
sat and picked the dry leaves from a rose geranium. The day was warm,
and the breeze which blew from the river was very pleasant. She removed
her hat and laid it on the piano. She went on picking the leaves and
digging around the plants with her hat pin. Once she thought she heard
Mademoiselle Reisz approaching. But it was a young black girl, who came
in, bringing a small bundle of laundry, which she deposited in the
adjoining room, and went away.
Edna seated herself at the piano, and softly picked out with one hand
the bars of a piece of music which lay open before her. A half-hour
went by. There was the occasional sound of people going and coming in
the lower hall. She was growing interested in her occupation of picking
out the aria, when there was a second rap at the door. She vaguely
wondered what these people did when they found Mademoiselle’s door
locked.
“Come in,” she called, turning her face toward the door. And this time
it was Robert Lebrun who presented himself. She attempted to rise; she
could not have done so without betraying the agitation which mastered
her at sight of him, so she fell back upon the stool, only exclaiming,
“Why, Robert!”
He came and clasped her hand, seemingly without knowing what he was
saying or doing.
“Mrs. Pontellier! How do you happen—oh! how well you look! Is
Mademoiselle Reisz not here? I never expected to see you.”
“When did you come back?” asked Edna in an unsteady voice, wiping her
face with her handkerchief. She seemed ill at ease on the piano stool,
and he begged her to take the chair by the window.
She did so, mechanically, while he seated himself on the stool.
“I returned day before yesterday,” he answered, while he leaned his arm
on the keys, bringing forth a crash of discordant sound.
“Day before yesterday!” she repeated, aloud; and went on thinking to
herself, “day before yesterday,” in a sort of an uncomprehending way.
She had pictured him seeking her at the very first hour, and he had
lived under the same sky since day before yesterday; while only by
accident had he stumbled upon her. Mademoiselle must have lied when she
said, “Poor fool, he loves you.”
“Day before yesterday,” she repeated, breaking off a spray of
Mademoiselle’s geranium; “then if you had not met me here to-day you
wouldn’t—when—that is, didn’t you mean to come and see me?”
“Of course, I should have gone to see you. There have been so many
things—” he turned the leaves of Mademoiselle’s music nervously. “I
started in at once yesterday with the old firm. After all there is as
much chance for me here as there was there—that is, I might find it
profitable some day. The Mexicans were not very congenial.”
So he had come back because the Mexicans were not congenial; because
business was as profitable here as there; because of any reason, and
not because he cared to be near her. She remembered the day she sat on
the floor, turning the pages of his letter, seeking the reason which
was left untold.
She had not noticed how he looked—only feeling his presence; but she
turned deliberately and observed him. After all, he had been absent but
a few months, and was not changed. His hair—the color of hers—waved
back from his temples in the same way as before. His skin was not more
burned than it had been at Grand Isle. She found in his eyes, when he
looked at her for one silent moment, the same tender caress, with an
added warmth and entreaty which had not been there before—the same
glance which had penetrated to the sleeping places of her soul and
awakened them.
A hundred times Edna had pictured Robert’s return, and imagined their
first meeting. It was usually at her home, whither he had sought her
out at once. She always fancied him expressing or betraying in some way
his love for her. And here, the reality was that they sat ten feet
apart, she at the window, crushing geranium leaves in her hand and
smelling them, he twirling around on the piano stool, saying:
“I was very much surprised to hear of Mr. Pontellier’s absence; it’s a
wonder Mademoiselle Reisz did not tell me; and your moving—mother told
me yesterday. I should think you would have gone to New York with him,
or to Iberville with the children, rather than be bothered here with
housekeeping. And you are going abroad, too, I hear. We shan’t have you
at Grand Isle next summer; it won’t seem—do you see much of
Mademoiselle Reisz? She often spoke of you in the few letters she
wrote.”
“Do you remember that you promised to write to me when you went away?”
A flush overspread his whole face.
“I couldn’t believe that my letters would be of any interest to you.”
“That is an excuse; it isn’t the truth.” Edna reached for her hat on
the piano. She adjusted it, sticking the hat pin through the heavy coil
of hair with some deliberation.
“Are you not going to wait for Mademoiselle Reisz?” asked Robert.
“No; I have found when she is absent this long, she is liable not to
come back till late.” She drew on her gloves, and Robert picked up his
hat.
“Won’t you wait for her?” asked Edna.
“Not if you think she will not be back till late,” adding, as if
suddenly aware of some discourtesy in his speech, “and I should miss
the pleasure of walking home with you.” Edna locked the door and put
the key back in its hiding-place.
They went together, picking their way across muddy streets and
sidewalks encumbered with the cheap display of small tradesmen. Part of
the distance they rode in the car, and after disembarking, passed the
Pontellier mansion, which looked broken and half torn asunder. Robert
had never known the house, and looked at it with interest.
“I never knew you in your home,” he remarked.
“I am glad you did not.”
“Why?” She did not answer. They went on around the corner, and it
seemed as if her dreams were coming true after all, when he followed
her into the little house.
“You must stay and dine with me, Robert. You see I am all alone, and it
is so long since I have seen you. There is so much I want to ask you.”
She took off her hat and gloves. He stood irresolute, making some
excuse about his mother who expected him; he even muttered something
about an engagement. She struck a match and lit the lamp on the table;
it was growing dusk. When he saw her face in the lamp-light, looking
pained, with all the soft lines gone out of it, he threw his hat aside
and seated himself.
“Oh! you know I want to stay if you will let me!” he exclaimed. All the
softness came back. She laughed, and went and put her hand on his
shoulder.
“This is the first moment you have seemed like the old Robert. I’ll go
tell Celestine.” She hurried away to tell Celestine to set an extra
place. She even sent her off in search of some added delicacy which she
had not thought of for herself. And she recommended great care in
dripping the coffee and having the omelet done to a proper turn.
When she reentered, Robert was turning over magazines, sketches, and
things that lay upon the table in great disorder. He picked up a
photograph, and exclaimed:
“Alcée Arobin! What on earth is his picture doing here?”
“I tried to make a sketch of his head one day,” answered Edna, “and he
thought the photograph might help me. It was at the other house. I
thought it had been left there. I must have packed it up with my
drawing materials.”
“I should think you would give it back to him if you have finished with
it.”
“Oh! I have a great many such photographs. I never think of returning
them. They don’t amount to anything.” Robert kept on looking at the
picture.
“It seems to me—do you think his head worth drawing? Is he a friend of
Mr. Pontellier’s? You never said you knew him.”
“He isn’t a friend of Mr. Pontellier’s; he’s a friend of mine. I always
knew him—that is, it is only of late that I know him pretty well. But
I’d rather talk about you, and know what you have been seeing and doing
and feeling out there in Mexico.” Robert threw aside the picture.
“I’ve been seeing the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle; the
quiet, grassy street of the _Chênière;_ 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 _Chênière 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.
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 as a boy.
He went out to a neighboring cigar stand to purchase cigarette papers,
and when he came back he found that Celestine had served the black
coffee in the parlor.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t have come back,” he said. “When you are tired of
me, tell me to go.”
“You never tire me. You must have forgotten the hours and hours at
Grand Isle in which we grew accustomed to each other and used to being
together.”
“I have forgotten nothing at Grand Isle,” he said, not looking at her,
but rolling a cigarette. His tobacco pouch, which he laid upon the
table, was a fantastic embroidered silk affair, evidently the handiwork
of a woman.
“You used to carry your tobacco in a rubber pouch,” said Edna, picking
up the pouch and examining the needlework.
“Yes; it was lost.”
“Where did you buy this one? In Mexico?”
“It was given to me by a Vera Cruz girl; they are very generous,” he
replied, striking a match and lighting his cigarette.
“They are very handsome, I suppose, those Mexican women; very
picturesque, with their black eyes and their lace scarfs.”
“Some are; others are hideous, just as you find women everywhere.”
“What was she like—the one who gave you the pouch? You must have known
her very well.”
“She was very ordinary. She wasn’t of the slightest importance. I knew
her well enough.”
“Did you visit at her house? Was it interesting? I should like to know
and hear about the people you met, and the impressions they made on
you.”
“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the
imprint of an oar upon the water.”
“Was she such a one?”
“It would be ungenerous for me to admit that she was of that order and
kind.” He thrust the pouch back in his pocket, as if to put away the
subject with the trifle which had brought it up.
Arobin dropped in with a message from Mrs. Merriman, to say that the
card party was postponed on account of the illness of one of her
children.