The Awakening, and Selected Short Stories
The youngster was in his long white nightgown, that kept tripping him
up as Madame Ratignolle led him along by the hand. With the other
chubby fist he rubbed his eyes, which were heavy with sleep and ill
humor. Edna took him in her arms, and seating herself in the rocker,
began to coddle and caress him, calling him all manner of tender names,
soothing him to sleep.
It was not more than nine o’clock. No one had yet gone to bed but the
children.
Léonce had been very uneasy at first, Madame Ratignolle said, and had
wanted to start at once for the _Chênière_. But Monsieur Farival had
assured him that his wife was only overcome with sleep and fatigue,
that Tonie would bring her safely back later in the day; and he had
thus been dissuaded from crossing the bay. He had gone over to Klein’s,
looking up some cotton broker whom he wished to see in regard to
securities, exchanges, stocks, bonds, or something of the sort, Madame
Ratignolle did not remember what. He said he would not remain away
late. She herself was suffering from heat and oppression, she said. She
carried a bottle of salts and a large fan. She would not consent to
remain with Edna, for Monsieur Ratignolle was alone, and he detested
above all things to be left alone.
When Etienne had fallen asleep Edna bore him into the back room, and
Robert went and lifted the mosquito bar that she might lay the child
comfortably in his bed. The quadroon had vanished. When they emerged
from the cottage Robert bade Edna good-night.
“Do you know we have been together the whole livelong day, Robert—since
early this morning?” she said at parting.
“All but the hundred years when you were sleeping. Good-night.”
He pressed her hand and went away in the direction of the beach. He did
not join any of the others, but walked alone toward the Gulf.
Edna stayed outside, awaiting her husband’s return. She had no desire
to sleep or to retire; nor did she feel like going over to sit with the
Ratignolles, or to join Madame Lebrun and a group whose animated voices
reached her as they sat in conversation before the house. She let her
mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and she tried to discover
wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer
of her life. She could only realize that she herself—her present
self—was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing
with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in
herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet
suspect.
She wondered why Robert had gone away and left her. It did not occur to
her to think he might have grown tired of being with her the livelong
day. She was not tired, and she felt that he was not. She regretted
that he had gone. It was so much more natural to have him stay when he
was not absolutely required to leave her.
As Edna waited for her husband she sang low a little song that Robert
had sung as they crossed the bay. It began with “Ah! _si tu savais_,”
and every verse ended with “_si tu savais_.”
Robert’s voice was not pretentious. It was musical and true. The voice,
the notes, the whole refrain haunted her memory.
XV
When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late, as was her
habit, an unusually animated conversation seemed to be going on.
Several persons were talking at once, and Victor’s voice was
predominating, even over that of his mother. Edna had returned late
from her bath, had dressed in some haste, and her face was flushed. Her
head, set off by her dainty white gown, suggested a rich, rare blossom.
She took her seat at table between old Monsieur Farival and Madame
Ratignolle.
As she seated herself and was about to begin to eat her soup, which had
been served when she entered the room, several persons informed her
simultaneously that Robert was going to Mexico. She laid her spoon down
and looked about her bewildered. He had been with her, reading to her
all the morning, and had never even mentioned such a place as Mexico.
She had not seen him during the afternoon; she had heard some one say
he was at the house, upstairs with his mother. This she had thought
nothing of, though she was surprised when he did not join her later in
the afternoon, when she went down to the beach.
She looked across at him, where he sat beside Madame Lebrun, who
presided. Edna’s face was a blank picture of bewilderment, which she
never thought of disguising. He lifted his eyebrows with the pretext of
a smile as he returned her glance. He looked embarrassed and uneasy.
“When is he going?” she asked of everybody in general, as if Robert
were not there to answer for himself.
“To-night!” “This very evening!” “Did you ever!” “What possesses him!”
were some of the replies she gathered, uttered simultaneously in French
and English.
“Impossible!” she exclaimed. “How can a person start off from Grand
Isle to Mexico at a moment’s notice, as if he were going over to
Klein’s or to the wharf or down to the beach?”
“I said all along I was going to Mexico; I’ve been saying so for
years!” cried Robert, in an excited and irritable tone, with the air of
a man defending himself against a swarm of stinging insects.
Madame Lebrun knocked on the table with her knife handle.
“Please let Robert explain why he is going, and why he is going
to-night,” she called out. “Really, this table is getting to be more
and more like Bedlam every day, with everybody talking at once.
Sometimes—I hope God will forgive me—but positively, sometimes I wish
Victor would lose the power of speech.”
Victor laughed sardonically as he thanked his mother for her holy wish,
of which he failed to see the benefit to anybody, except that it might
afford her a more ample opportunity and license to talk herself.
Monsieur Farival thought that Victor should have been taken out in
mid-ocean in his earliest youth and drowned. Victor thought there would
be more logic in thus disposing of old people with an established claim
for making themselves universally obnoxious. Madame Lebrun grew a
trifle hysterical; Robert called his brother some sharp, hard names.
“There’s nothing much to explain, mother,” he said; though he
explained, nevertheless—looking chiefly at Edna—that he could only meet
the gentleman whom he intended to join at Vera Cruz by taking such and
such a steamer, which left New Orleans on such a day; that Beaudelet
was going out with his lugger-load of vegetables that night, which gave
him an opportunity of reaching the city and making his vessel in time.
“But when did you make up your mind to all this?” demanded Monsieur
Farival.
“This afternoon,” returned Robert, with a shade of annoyance.
“At what time this afternoon?” persisted the old gentleman, with
nagging determination, as if he were cross-questioning a criminal in a
court of justice.
“At four o’clock this afternoon, Monsieur Farival,” Robert replied, in
a high voice and with a lofty air, which reminded Edna of some
gentleman on the stage.
She had forced herself to eat most of her soup, and now she was picking
the flaky bits of a _court bouillon_ with her fork.
The lovers were profiting by the general conversation on Mexico to
speak in whispers of matters which they rightly considered were
interesting to no one but themselves. The lady in black had once
received a pair of prayer-beads of curious workmanship from Mexico,
with very special indulgence attached to them, but she had never been
able to ascertain whether the indulgence extended outside the Mexican
border. Father Fochel of the Cathedral had attempted to explain it; but
he had not done so to her satisfaction. And she begged that Robert
would interest himself, and discover, if possible, whether she was
entitled to the indulgence accompanying the remarkably curious Mexican
prayer-beads.
Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme caution in
dealing with the Mexicans, who, she considered, were a treacherous
people, unscrupulous and revengeful. She trusted she did them no
injustice in thus condemning them as a race. She had known personally
but one Mexican, who made and sold excellent tamales, and whom she
would have trusted implicitly, so soft-spoken was he. One day he was
arrested for stabbing his wife. She never knew whether he had been
hanged or not.
Victor had grown hilarious, and was attempting to tell an anecdote
about a Mexican girl who served chocolate one winter in a restaurant in
Dauphine Street. No one would listen to him but old Monsieur Farival,
who went into convulsions over the droll story.
Edna wondered if they had all gone mad, to be talking and clamoring at
that rate. She herself could think of nothing to say about Mexico or
the Mexicans.
“At what time do you leave?” she asked Robert.
“At ten,” he told her. “Beaudelet wants to wait for the moon.”
“Are you all ready to go?”
“Quite ready. I shall only take a hand-bag, and shall pack my trunk in
the city.”
He turned to answer some question put to him by his mother, and Edna,
having finished her black coffee, left the table.
She went directly to her room. The little cottage was close and stuffy
after leaving the outer air. But she did not mind; there appeared to be
a hundred different things demanding her attention indoors. She began
to set the toilet-stand to rights, grumbling at the negligence of the
quadroon, who was in the adjoining room putting the children to bed.
She gathered together stray garments that were hanging on the backs of
chairs, and put each where it belonged in closet or bureau drawer. She
changed her gown for a more comfortable and commodious wrapper. She
rearranged her hair, combing and brushing it with unusual energy. Then
she went in and assisted the quadroon in getting the boys to bed.
They were very playful and inclined to talk—to do anything but lie
quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her supper and
told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the children a
story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added to their
wakefulness. She left them in heated argument, speculating about the
conclusion of the tale which their mother promised to finish the
following night.
The little black girl came in to say that Madame Lebrun would like to
have Mrs. Pontellier go and sit with them over at the house till Mr.
Robert went away. Edna returned answer that she had already undressed,
that she did not feel quite well, but perhaps she would go over to the
house later. She started to dress again, and got as far advanced as to
remove her _peignoir_. But changing her mind once more she resumed the
_peignoir_, and went outside and sat down before her door. She was
overheated and irritable, and fanned herself energetically for a while.
Madame Ratignolle came down to discover what was the matter.
“All that noise and confusion at the table must have upset me,” replied
Edna, “and moreover, I hate shocks and surprises. The idea of Robert
starting off in such a ridiculously sudden and dramatic way! As if it
were a matter of life and death! Never saying a word about it all
morning when he was with me.”
“Yes,” agreed Madame Ratignolle. “I think it was showing us all—you
especially—very little consideration. It wouldn’t have surprised me in
any of the others; those Lebruns are all given to heroics. But I must
say I should never have expected such a thing from Robert. Are you not
coming down? Come on, dear; it doesn’t look friendly.”
“No,” said Edna, a little sullenly. “I can’t go to the trouble of
dressing again; I don’t feel like it.”
“You needn’t dress; you look all right; fasten a belt around your
waist. Just look at me!”
“No,” persisted Edna; “but you go on. Madame Lebrun might be offended
if we both stayed away.”