The Awakening and Selected Short Stories
by
Kate Chopin
Part 4 out of 4
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.
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.
Beyond the Bayou
The bayou curved like a crescent around the point of land on
which La Folle's cabin stood. Between the stream and the hut lay
a big abandoned field, where cattle were pastured when the bayou
supplied them with water enough. Through the woods that spread
back into unknown regions the woman had drawn an imaginary line,
and past this circle she never stepped. This was the form of her
only mania.
She was now a large, gaunt black woman, past thirty-five. Her
real name was Jacqueline, but every one on the plantation called
her La Folle, because in childhood she had been frightened
literally "out of her senses," and had never wholly regained them.
It was when there had been skirmishing and sharpshooting all
day in the woods. Evening was near when P'tit Maitre, black with
powder and crimson with blood, had staggered into the cabin of
Jacqueline's mother, his pursuers close at his heels. The sight
had stunned her childish reason.
She dwelt alone in her solitary cabin, for the rest of the
quarters had long since been removed beyond her sight and
knowledge. She had more physical strength than most men, and made
her patch of cotton and corn and tobacco like the best of them.
But of the world beyond the bayou she had long known nothing,
save what her morbid fancy conceived.
People at Bellissime had grown used to her and her way, and
they thought nothing of it. Even when "Old Mis'" died, they did
not wonder that La Folle had not crossed the bayou, but had stood
upon her side of it, wailing and lamenting.
P'tit Maitre was now the owner of Bellissime. He was a
middle-aged man, with a family of beautiful daughters about him,
and a little son whom La Folle loved as if he had been her own.
She called him Cheri, and so did every one else because she did.
None of the girls had ever been to her what Cheri was. They
had each and all loved to be with her, and to listen to her
wondrous stories of things that always happened "yonda, beyon' de
bayou."
But none of them had stroked her black hand quite as Cheri
did, nor rested their heads against her knee so confidingly, nor
fallen asleep in her arms as he used to do. For Cheri hardly did
such things now, since he had become the proud possessor of a gun,
and had had his black curls cut off.
That summer--the summer Cheri gave La Folle two black curls
tied with a knot of red ribbon--the water ran so low in the bayou
that even the little children at Bellissime were able to cross it
on foot, and the cattle were sent to pasture down by the river. La
Folle was sorry when they were gone, for she loved these dumb
companions well, and liked to feel that they were there, and to
hear them browsing by night up to her own enclosure.
It was Saturday afternoon, when the fields were deserted. The
men had flocked to a neighboring village to do their week's
trading, and the women were occupied with household affairs,--La
Folle as well as the others. It was then she mended and washed her
handful of clothes, scoured her house, and did her baking.
In this last employment she never forgot Cheri. To-day
she had fashioned croquignoles of the most fantastic and
alluring shapes for him. So when she saw the boy come trudging
across the old field with his gleaming little new rifle on his
shoulder, she called out gayly to him, "Cheri! Cheri!"
But Cheri did not need the summons, for he was coming straight
to her. His pockets all bulged out with almonds and raisins and an
orange that he had secured for her from the very fine dinner which
had been given that day up at his father's house.
He was a sunny-faced youngster of ten. When he had emptied
his pockets, La Folle patted his round red cheek, wiped his soiled
hands on her apron, and smoothed his hair. Then she watched him
as, with his cakes in his hand, he crossed her strip of cotton back
of the cabin, and disappeared into the wood.
He had boasted of the things he was going to do with his gun
out there.
"You think they got plenty deer in the wood, La Folle?" he had
inquired, with the calculating air of an experienced hunter.
"Non, non!" the woman laughed. "Don't you look fo' no deer, Cheri.
Dat's too big. But you bring La Folle one good fat squirrel
fo' her dinner to-morrow, an' she goin' be satisfi'."
"One squirrel ain't a bite. I'll bring you mo' 'an one, La
Folle," he had boasted pompously as he went away.
When the woman, an hour later, heard the report of the boy's
rifle close to the wood's edge, she would have thought nothing of
it if a sharp cry of distress had not followed the sound.
She withdrew her arms from the tub of suds in which they had
been plunged, dried them upon her apron, and as quickly as her
trembling limbs would bear her, hurried to the spot whence the
ominous report had come.
It was as she feared. There she found Cheri stretched upon
the ground, with his rifle beside him. He moaned
piteously:--
"I'm dead, La Folle! I'm dead! I'm gone!"
"Non, non!" she exclaimed resolutely, as she knelt beside
him. "Put you' arm 'roun' La Folle's nake, Cheri. Dat's nuttin';
dat goin' be nuttin'." She lifted him in her powerful arms.
Cheri had carried his gun muzzle-downward. He had
stumbled,--he did not know how. He only knew that he had a ball lodged
somewhere in his leg, and he thought that his end was at hand.
Now, with his head upon the woman's shoulder, he moaned and wept
with pain and fright.
"Oh, La Folle! La Folle! it hurt so bad! I can' stan' it, La Folle!"
"Don't cry, mon bebe, mon bebe, mon Cheri!" the woman
spoke soothingly as she covered the ground with long strides.
"La Folle goin' mine you; Doctor Bonfils goin' come make
mon Cheri well agin."
She had reached the abandoned field. As she crossed it with
her precious burden, she looked constantly and restlessly from side
to side. A terrible fear was upon her, --the fear of the world
beyond the bayou, the morbid and insane dread she had been under
since childhood.
When she was at the bayou's edge she stood there, and shouted
for help as if a life depended upon
it:--
"Oh, P'tit Maitre! P'tit Maitre! Venez donc! Au secours! Au secours!"
No voice responded. Cheri's hot tears were scalding her neck.
She called for each and every one upon the place, and still no
answer came.
She shouted, she wailed; but whether her voice remained
unheard or unheeded, no reply came to her frenzied cries. And all
the while Cheri moaned and wept and entreated to be taken home to
his mother.
La Folle gave a last despairing look around her. Extreme
terror was upon her. She clasped the child close against her
breast, where he could feel her heart beat like a muffled hammer.
Then shutting her eyes, she ran suddenly down the shallow bank of
the bayou, and never stopped till she had climbed the opposite
shore.
She stood there quivering an instant as she opened her eyes.
Then she plunged into the footpath through the trees.
She spoke no more to Cheri, but muttered constantly, "Bon
Dieu, ayez pitie La Folle! Bon Dieu, ayez pitie moi!"
Instinct seemed to guide her. When the pathway spread clear
and smooth enough before her, she again closed her eyes tightly
against the sight of that unknown and terrifying world.
A child, playing in some weeds, caught sight of her as she
neared the quarters. The little one uttered a cry of dismay.
"La Folle!" she screamed, in her piercing treble. "La Folle
done cross de bayer!"
Quickly the cry passed down the line of cabins.
"Yonda, La Folle done cross de bayou!"
Children, old men, old women, young ones with infants in their
arms, flocked to doors and windows to see this awe-inspiring
spectacle. Most of them shuddered with superstitious dread of what
it might portend. "She totin' Cheri!" some of them shouted.
Some of the more daring gathered about her, and followed at
her heels, only to fall back with new terror when she turned her
distorted face upon them. Her eyes were bloodshot and the saliva
had gathered in a white foam on her black lips.
Some one had run ahead of her to where P'tit Maitre sat with
his family and guests upon the gallery.
"P'tit Maitre! La Folle done cross de bayou! Look her! Look
her yonda totin' Cheri!" This startling intimation was the first
which they had of the woman's approach.
She was now near at hand. She walked with long strides. Her
eyes were fixed desperately before her, and she breathed heavily,
as a tired ox.
At the foot of the stairway, which she could not have mounted,
she laid the boy in his father's arms. Then the world that had
looked red to La Folle suddenly turned black,--like that day she
had seen powder and blood.
She reeled for an instant. Before a sustaining arm could
reach her, she fell heavily to the ground.
When La Folle regained consciousness, she was at home again,
in her own cabin and upon her own bed. The moon rays, streaming in
through the open door and windows, gave what light was needed to
the old black mammy who stood at the table concocting a tisane of
fragrant herbs. It was very late.
Others who had come, and found that the stupor clung to her,
had gone again. P'tit Maitre had been there, and with him Doctor
Bonfils, who said that La Folle might die.
But death had passed her by. The voice was very clear and
steady with which she spoke to Tante Lizette, brewing her tisane
there in a corner.
"Ef you will give me one good drink tisane, Tante Lizette, I
b'lieve I'm goin' sleep, me."
And she did sleep; so soundly, so healthfully, that old
Lizette without compunction stole softly away, to creep back
through the moonlit fields to her own cabin in the new quarters.
The first touch of the cool gray morning awoke La Folle. She
arose, calmly, as if no tempest had shaken and threatened her
existence but yesterday.
She donned her new blue cottonade and white apron, for she
remembered that this was Sunday. When she had made for herself a
cup of strong black coffee, and drunk it with relish, she quitted
the cabin and walked across the old familiar field to the bayou's
edge again.
She did not stop there as she had always done before, but
crossed with a long, steady stride as if she had done this all her
life.
When she had made her way through the brush and scrub
cottonwood-trees that lined the opposite bank, she found herself
upon the border of a field where the white, bursting cotton, with
the dew upon it, gleamed for acres and acres like frosted silver in
the early dawn.
La Folle drew a long, deep breath as she gazed across
the country. She walked slowly and uncertainly, like one who
hardly knows how, looking about her as she went.
The cabins, that yesterday had sent a clamor of voices to
pursue her, were quiet now. No one was yet astir at Bellissime.
Only the birds that darted here and there from hedges were awake,
and singing their matins.
When La Folle came to the broad stretch of velvety lawn that
surrounded the house, she moved slowly and with delight over the
springy turf, that was delicious beneath her tread.
She stopped to find whence came those perfumes that were
assailing her senses with memories from a time far gone.
There they were, stealing up to her from the thousand blue
violets that peeped out from green, luxuriant beds. There they
were, showering down from the big waxen bells of the magnolias far
above her head, and from the jessamine clumps around her.
There were roses, too, without number. To right and left
palms spread in broad and graceful curves. It all looked like
enchantment beneath the sparkling sheen of dew.
When La Folle had slowly and cautiously mounted the many steps
that led up to the veranda, she turned to look back at the perilous
ascent she had made. Then she caught sight of the river, bending
like a silver bow at the foot of Bellissime. Exultation possessed
her soul.
La Folle rapped softly upon a door near at hand. Cheri's
mother soon cautiously opened it. Quickly and cleverly she
dissembled the astonishment she felt at seeing La Folle.
"Ah, La Folle! Is it you, so early?"
"Oui, madame. I come ax how my po' li'le Cheri do, 's mo'nin'."
"He is feeling easier, thank you, La Folle. Dr. Bonfils says
it will be nothing serious. He's sleeping now. Will you come back
when he awakes?"
"Non, madame. I'm goin' wait yair tell Cheri wake
up." La Folle seated herself upon the topmost step of the veranda.
A look of wonder and deep content crept into her face as she
watched for the first time the sun rise upon the new, the beautiful
world beyond the bayou.
Ma'ame Pelagie
I
When the war began, there stood on Cote Joyeuse an imposing
mansion of red brick, shaped like the Pantheon. A grove of
majestic live-oaks surrounded it.
Thirty years later, only the thick walls were standing, with
the dull red brick showing here and there through a matted growth
of clinging vines. The huge round pillars were intact; so to some
extent was the stone flagging of hall and portico. There had been
no home so stately along the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse. Every
one knew that, as they knew it had cost Philippe Valmet sixty
thousand dollars to build, away back in 1840. No one was in danger
of forgetting that fact, so long as his daughter Pelagie survived.
She was a queenly, white-haired woman of fifty. "Ma'ame Pelagie,"
they called her, though she was unmarried, as was her sister
Pauline, a child in Ma'ame Pelagie's eyes; a child of thirty-five.
The two lived alone in a three-roomed cabin, almost within the
shadow of the ruin. They lived for a dream, for Ma'ame Pelagie's
dream, which was to rebuild the old home.
It would be pitiful to tell how their days were spent to
accomplish this end; how the dollars had been saved for thirty
years and the picayunes hoarded; and yet, not half enough gathered!
But Ma'ame Pelagie felt sure of twenty years of life before her,
and counted upon as many more for her sister. And what could not
come to pass in twenty--in forty--years?
Often, of pleasant afternoons, the two would drink their black
coffee, seated upon the stone-flagged portico whose canopy was the
blue sky of Louisiana. They loved to sit there in the silence,
with only each other and the sheeny, prying lizards for company,
talking of the old times and planning for the new; while light
breezes stirred the tattered vines high up among the columns, where
owls nested.
"We can never hope to have all just as it was, Pauline,"
Ma'ame Pelagie would say; "perhaps the marble pillars of the salon
will have to be replaced by wooden ones, and the crystal candelabra
left out. Should you be willing, Pauline?"
"Oh, yes Sesoeur, I shall be willing." It was always, "Yes,
Sesoeur," or "No, Sesoeur," "Just as you please, Sesoeur," with
poor little Mam'selle Pauline. For what did she remember of that
old life and that old spendor? Only a faint gleam here and there;
the half-consciousness of a young, uneventful existence; and then
a great crash. That meant the nearness of war; the revolt of
slaves; confusion ending in fire and flame through which she was
borne safely in the strong arms of Pelagie, and carried to the log
cabin which was still their home. Their brother, Leandre, had
known more of it all than Pauline, and not so much as Pelagie. He
had left the management of the big plantation with all its memories
and traditions to his older sister, and had gone away to dwell in
cities. That was many years ago. Now, Leandre's business called
him frequently and upon long journeys from home, and his motherless
daughter was coming to stay with her aunts at Cote Joyeuse.
They talked about it, sipping their coffee on the ruined
portico. Mam'selle Pauline was terribly excited; the flush that
throbbed into her pale, nervous face showed it; and she locked her
thin fingers in and out incessantly.
"But what shall we do with La Petite, Sesoeur? Where shall we
put her? How shall we amuse her? Ah, Seigneur!"
"She will sleep upon a cot in the room next to ours,"
responded Ma'ame Pelagie, "and live as we do. She knows how we
live, and why we live; her father has told her. She knows we have
money and could squander it if we chose. Do not fret, Pauline; let
us hope La Petite is a true Valmet."
Then Ma'ame Pelagie rose with stately deliberation and went to
saddle her horse, for she had yet to make her last daily round
through the fields; and Mam'selle Pauline threaded her way slowly
among the tangled grasses toward the cabin.
The coming of La Petite, bringing with her as she did the
pungent atmosphere of an outside and dimly known world, was a shock
to these two, living their dream-life. The girl was quite as tall
as her aunt Pelagie, with dark eyes that reflected joy as a still
pool reflects the light of stars; and her rounded cheek was tinged
like the pink crepe myrtle. Mam'selle Pauline kissed her and
trembled. Ma'ame Pelagie looked into her eyes with a searching
gaze, which seemed to seek a likeness of the past in the living
present.
And they made room between them for this young life.
II
La Petite had determined upon trying to fit herself to the
strange, narrow existence which she knew awaited her at Cote
Joyeuse. It went well enough at first. Sometimes she followed
Ma'ame Pelagie into the fields to note how the cotton was opening,
ripe and white; or to count the ears of corn upon the hardy stalks.
But oftener she was with her aunt Pauline, assisting in household
offices, chattering of her brief past, or walking with the older
woman arm-in-arm under the trailing moss of the giant oaks.
Mam'selle Pauline's steps grew very buoyant that summer, and
her eyes were sometimes as bright as a bird's, unless La Petite
were away from her side, when they would lose all other light but
one of uneasy expectancy. The girl seemed to love her well in
return, and called her endearingly Tan'tante. But as the time went
by, La Petite became very quiet,--not listless, but thoughtful, and
slow in her movements. Then her cheeks began to pale, till they
were tinged like the creamy plumes of the white crepe myrtle that
grew in the ruin.
One day when she sat within its shadow, between her aunts,
holding a hand of each, she said: "Tante Pelagie, I must tell you
something, you and Tan'tante." She spoke low, but clearly and firmly.
"I love you both,--please remember that I love you both. But I must go
away from you. I can't live any longer here at Cote Joyeuse. "
A spasm passed through Mam'selle Pauline's delicate frame. La Petite
could feel the twitch of it in the wiry fingers that were intertwined
with her own. Ma'ame Pelagie remained unchanged and motionless.
No human eye could penetrate so deep as to see the satisfaction
which her soul felt. She said: "What do you mean, Petite?
Your father has sent you to us, and I am sure it is his wish that you remain."
"My father loves me, tante Pelagie, and such will not be his
wish when he knows. Oh!" she continued with a restless, movement,
"it is as though a weight were pressing me backward here. I must
live another life; the life I lived before. I want to know things
that are happening from day to day over the world, and hear them
talked about. I want my music, my books, my companions. If I had
known no other life but this one of privation, I suppose it would
be different. If I had to live this life, I should make the best
of it. But I do not have to; and you know, tante Pelagie, you do
not need to. It seems to me," she added in a whisper, "that it is
a sin against myself. Ah, Tan'tante!--what is the matter with
Tan'tante?"
It was nothing; only a slight feeling of faintness, that would
soon pass. She entreated them to take no notice; but they brought
her some water and fanned her with a palmetto leaf.
But that night, in the stillness of the room, Mam'selle
Pauline sobbed and would not be comforted. Ma'ame Pelagie took her
in her arms.
"Pauline, my little sister Pauline," she entreated, "I never
have seen you like this before. Do you no longer love me?
Have we not been happy together, you and I?"
"Oh, yes, Sesoeur."
"Is it because La Petite is going away?"
"Yes, Sesoeur."
"Then she is dearer to you than I!" spoke Ma'ame Pelagie with
sharp resentment. "Than I, who held you and warmed you in my arms
the day you were born; than I, your mother, father, sister,
everything that could cherish you. Pauline, don't tell me that."
Mam'selle Pauline tried to talk through her sobs.
"I can't explain it to you, Sesoeur. I don't understand it
myself. I love you as I have always loved you; next to God. But if
La Petite goes away I shall die. I can't understand,--help me,
Sesoeur. She seems--she seems like a saviour; like one who had
come and taken me by the hand and was leading me
somewhere-somewhere I want to go."
Ma'ame Pelagie had been sitting beside the bed in her peignoir
and slippers. She held the hand of her sister who lay there, and
smoothed down the woman's soft brown hair. She said not a word,
and the silence was broken only by Mam'selle Pauline's continued
sobs. Once Ma'ame Pelagie arose to mix a drink of orange-flower
water, which she gave to her sister, as she would have offered it
to a nervous, fretful child. Almost an hour passed before Ma'ame
Pelagie spoke again. Then she said:--
"Pauline, you must cease that sobbing, now, and sleep. You will
make yourself ill. La Petite will not go away. Do you hear me?
Do you understand? She will stay, I promise you."
Mam'selle Pauline could not clearly comprehend, but she had
great faith in the word of her sister, and soothed by the promise
and the touch of Ma'ame Pelagie's strong, gentle hand, she fell asleep.
III
Ma'ame Pelagie, when she saw that her sister slept, arose
noiselessly and stepped outside upon the low-roofed narrow gallery.
She did not linger there, but with a step that was hurried and agitated,
she crossed the distance that divided her cabin from the ruin.
The night was not a dark one, for the sky was clear and the
moon resplendent. But light or dark would have made no difference
to Ma'ame Pelagie. It was not the first time she had stolen away
to the ruin at night-time, when the whole plantation slept; but she
never before had been there with a heart so nearly broken. She was
going there for the last time to dream her dreams; to see the
visions that hitherto had crowded her days and nights, and to bid
them farewell.
There was the first of them, awaiting her upon the very
portal; a robust old white-haired man, chiding her for returning
home so late. There are guests to be entertained. Does she not
know it? Guests from the city and from the near plantations. Yes,
she knows it is late. She had been abroad with Felix, and they did
not notice how the time was speeding. Felix is there; he will
explain it all. He is there beside her, but she does not want to
hear what he will tell her father.
Ma'ame Pelagie had sunk upon the bench where she and her
sister so often came to sit. Turning, she gazed in through the
gaping chasm of the window at her side. The interior of the ruin
is ablaze. Not with the moonlight, for that is faint beside the
other one--the sparkle from the crystal candelabra, which negroes,
moving noiselessly and respectfully about, are lighting, one after
the other. How the gleam of them reflects and glances from the
polished marble pillars!
The room holds a number of guests. There is old Monsieur
Lucien Santien, leaning against one of the pillars, and laughing at
something which Monsieur Lafirme is telling him, till his fat
shoulders shake. His son Jules is with him--Jules, who wants to
marry her. She laughs. She wonders if Felix has told her father
yet. There is young Jerome Lafirme playing at checkers upon the
sofa with Leandre. Little Pauline stands annoying them and
disturbing the game. Leandre reproves her. She begins to cry, and
old black Clementine, her nurse, who is not far off, limps across
the room to pick her up and carry her away. How sensitive the
little one is! But she trots about and takes care of herself
better than she did a year or two ago, when she fell upon
the stone hall floor and raised a great "bo-bo" on her forehead.
Pelagie was hurt and angry enough about it; and she ordered rugs
and buffalo robes to be brought and laid thick upon the tiles, till
the little one's steps were surer.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." She was saying it aloud
--"faire mal a Pauline."
But she gazes beyond the salon, back into the big dining hall,
where the white crepe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has
circled. It has struck Ma'ame Pelagie full on the breast. She
does not know it. She is beyond there in the dining hall, where
her father sits with a group of friends over their wine. As usual
they are talking politics. How tiresome! She has heard them say
"la guerre" oftener than once. La guerre. Bah! She and Felix have
something pleasanter to talk about, out under the oaks, or back in
the shadow of the oleanders.
But they were right! The sound of a cannon, shot at Sumter,
has rolled across the Southern States, and its echo is heard along
the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse.
Yet Pelagie does not believe it. Not till La Ricaneuse stands
before her with bare, black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile
abuse and of brazen impudence. Pelagie wants to kill her. But yet
she will not believe. Not till Felix comes to her in the chamber
above the dining hall--there where that trumpet vine hangs--comes
to say good-by to her. The hurt which the big brass buttons of his
new gray uniform pressed into the tender flesh of her bosom has
never left it. She sits upon the sofa, and he beside her, both
speechless with pain. That room would not have been altered. Even
the sofa would have been there in the same spot, and Ma'ame Pelagie
had meant all along, for thirty years, all along, to lie there upon
it some day when the time came to die.
But there is no time to weep, with the enemy at the door. The
door has been no barrier. They are clattering through the halls
now, drinking the wines, shattering the crystal and glass, slashing
the portraits.
One of them stands before her and tells her to leave the
house. She slaps his face. How the stigma stands out red as blood
upon his blanched cheek!
Now there is a roar of fire and the flames are bearing down
upon her motionless figure. She wants to show them how a daughter
of Louisiana can perish before her conquerors. But little Pauline
clings to her knees in an agony of terror. Little Pauline must be
saved.
"Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline." Again she is saying it
aloud--"faire mal a Pauline."
The night was nearly spent; Ma'ame Pelagie had glided from the
bench upon which she had rested, and for hours lay prone upon the
stone flagging, motionless. When she dragged herself to her feet
it was to walk like one in a dream. About the great, solemn
pillars, one after the other, she reached her arms, and pressed her
cheek and her lips upon the senseless brick.
"Adieu, adieu!" whispered Ma'ame Pelagie.
There was no longer the moon to guide her steps across the
familiar pathway to the cabin. The brightest light in the sky was
Venus, that swung low in the east. The bats had ceased to beat
their wings about the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had warbled
for hours in the old mulberry-tree had sung himself asleep. That
darkest hour before the day was mantling the earth. Ma'ame Pelagie
hurried through the wet, clinging grass, beating aside the heavy
moss that swept across her face, walking on toward the cabin-toward
Pauline. Not once did she look back upon the ruin that brooded
like a huge monster--a black spot in the darkness that enveloped
it.
IV
Little more than a year later the transformation which the old
Valmet place had undergone was the talk and wonder of Cote Joyeuse.
One would have looked in vain for the ruin; it was no longer there;
neither was the log cabin. But out in the open, where the sun
shone upon it, and the breezes blew about it, was a shapely
structure fashioned from woods that the forests of the State had
furnished. It rested upon a solid foundation of brick.
Upon a corner of the pleasant gallery sat Leandre smoking his
afternoon cigar, and chatting with neighbors who had called. This
was to be his pied a terre now; the home where his sisters and
his daughter dwelt. The laughter of young people was heard out
under the trees, and within the house where La Petite was playing
upon the piano. With the enthusiasm of a young artist she drew
from the keys strains that seemed marvelously beautiful to
Mam'selle Pauline, who stood enraptured near her. Mam'selle
Pauline had been touched by the re-creation of Valmet. Her cheek
was as full and almost as flushed as La Petite's. The years were
falling away from her.
Ma'ame Pelagie had been conversing with her brother and his
friends. Then she turned and walked away; stopping to listen
awhile to the music which La Petite was making. But it was only
for a moment. She went on around the curve of the veranda, where
she found herself alone. She stayed there, erect, holding to the
banister rail and looking out calmly in the distance across the
fields.
She was dressed in black, with the white kerchief she always wore
folded across her bosom. Her thick, glossy hair rose like a silver
diadem from her brow. In her deep, dark eyes smouldered the light
of fires that would never flame. She had grown very old.
Years instead of months seemed to have passed over her
since the night she bade farewell to her visions.
Poor Ma'ame Pelagie! How could it be different! While the
outward pressure of a young and joyous existence had forced her
footsteps into the light, her soul had stayed in the shadow of the
ruin.
Desiree's Baby
As the day was pleasant, Madame Valmonde drove over to L'Abri
to see Desiree and the baby.
It made her laugh to think of Desiree with a baby. Why, it
seemed but yesterday that Desiree was little more than a baby
herself; when Monsieur in riding through the gateway of Valmonde
had found her lying asleep in the shadow of the big stone pillar.
The little one awoke in his arms and began to cry for "Dada."
That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she
might have strayed there of her own accord, for she was of the
toddling age. The prevailing belief was that she had been
purposely left by a party of Texans, whose canvas-covered wagon,
late in the day, had crossed the ferry that Coton Mais kept, just
below the plantation. In time Madame Valmonde abandoned every
speculation but the one that Desiree had been sent to her by a
beneficent Providence to be the child of her affection, seeing that
she was without child of the flesh. For the girl grew to be
beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere,--the idol of Valmonde.
It was no wonder, when she stood one day against the stone
pillar in whose shadow she had lain asleep, eighteen years before,
that Armand Aubigny riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in
love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love,
as if struck by a pistol shot. The wonder was that he had not
loved her before; for he had known her since his father brought
him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there.
The passion that awoke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate,
swept along like an avalanche, or like a prairie fire, or like
anything that drives headlong over all obstacles.
Monsieur Valmonde grew practical and wanted things well considered:
that is, the girl's obscure origin. Armand looked into her eyes
and did not care. He was reminded that she was nameless.
What did it matter about a name when he could give her one of the
oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered the corbeille from
Paris, and contained himself with what patience he could until it
arrived; then they were married.
Madame Valmonde had not seen Desiree and the baby for four
weeks. When she reached L'Abri she shuddered at the first sight of
it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many
years had not known the gentle presence of a mistress, old Monsieur
Aubigny having married and buried his wife in France, and she
having loved her own land too well ever to leave it. The roof came
down steep and black like a cowl, reaching out beyond the wide
galleries that encircled the yellow stuccoed house. Big, solemn
oaks grew close to it, and their thick-leaved, far-reaching
branches shadowed it like a pall. Young Aubigny's rule was a
strict one, too, and under it his negroes had forgotten how to be
gay, as they had been during the old master's easy-going and
indulgent lifetime.
The young mother was recovering slowly, and lay full length,
in her soft white muslins and laces, upon a couch. The baby was
beside her, upon her arm, where he had fallen asleep, at her
breast. The yellow nurse woman sat beside a window fanning
herself.
Madame Valmonde bent her portly figure over Desiree and kissed
her, holding her an instant tenderly in her arms. Then she turned
to the child.
"This is not the baby!" she exclaimed, in startled tones.
French was the language spoken at Valmonde in those days.
"I knew you would be astonished," laughed Desiree, "at the way
he has grown. The little cochon de lait! Look at his legs,
mamma, and his hands and fingernails,--real finger-nails. Zandrine
had to cut them this morning. Isn't it true, Zandrine?"
The woman bowed her turbaned head majestically, "Mais si, Madame."
"And the way he cries," went on Desiree, "is deafening.
Armand heard him the other day as far away as La Blanche's cabin."
Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child.
She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was
lightest. She scanned the baby narrowly, then looked as
searchingly at Zandrine, whose face was turned to gaze across the
fields.
"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde,
slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother. "What does Armand say?"
Desiree's face became suffused with a glow that was happiness itself.
"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the parish, I believe,
chiefly because it is a boy, to bear his name; though he says
not,--that he would have loved a girl as well. But I know it isn't
true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added,
drawing Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a
whisper, "he hasn't punished one of them--not one of them--since
baby is born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg
that he might rest from work--he only laughed, and said Negrillon
was a great scamp. oh, mamma, I'm so happy; it frightens me."
What Desiree said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of
his son had softened Armand Aubigny's imperious and exacting nature
greatly. This was what made the gentle Desiree so happy, for she
loved him desperately. When he frowned she trembled, but loved
him. When he smiled, she asked no greater blessing of God.
But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured
by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.
When the baby was about three months old, Desiree awoke one
day to the conviction that there was something in the air menacing
her peace. It was at first too subtle to grasp. It had only been
a disquieting suggestion; an air of mystery among the blacks;
unexpected visits from far-off neighbors who could hardly account
for their coming. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's
manner, which she dared not ask him to explain. When he spoke to
her, it was with averted eyes, from which the old love-light seemed
to have gone out. He absented himself from home; and when there,
avoided her presence and that of her child, without excuse. And
the very spirit of Satan seemed suddenly to take hold of him in his
dealings with the slaves. Desiree was miserable enough to die.
She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, in her peignoir,
listlessly drawing through her fingers the strands of her long,
silky brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half
naked, lay asleep upon her own great mahogany bed, that was like a
sumptuous throne, with its satin-lined half-canopy. One of La
Blanche's little quadroon boys--half naked too--stood fanning the
child slowly with a fan of peacock feathers. Desiree's eyes had
been fixed absently and sadly upon the baby, while she was striving
to penetrate the threatening mist that she felt closing about her.
She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back
again; over and over. "Ah!" It was a cry that she could not help;
which she was not conscious of having uttered. The blood turned
like ice in her veins, and a clammy moisture gathered upon her face.
She tried to speak to the little quadroon boy; but no sound
would come, at first. When he heard his name uttered, he looked
up, and his mistress was pointing to the door. He laid aside the
great, soft fan, and obediently stole away, over the polished
floor, on his bare tiptoes.
She stayed motionless, with gaze riveted upon her child, and
her face the picture of fright.
Presently her husband entered the room, and without noticing
her, went to a table and began to search among some papers which
covered it.
"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have
stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice. "Armand,"
she said again. Then she rose and tottered towards him. "Armand,"
she panted once more, clutching his arm, "look at our child. What
does it mean? tell me."
He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm
and thrust the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!"
she cried despairingly.
"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white;
it means that you are not white."
A quick conception of all that this accusation meant for her
nerved her with unwonted courage to deny it. "It is a lie; it is
not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it is brown; and my eyes
are gray, Armand, you know they are gray. And my skin is fair,"
seizing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand,"
she laughed hysterically.
"As white as La Blanche's," he returned cruelly; and went away
leaving her alone with their child.
When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing
letter to Madame Valmonde.
"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me
I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must
know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so
unhappy, and live."
The answer that came was brief:
"My own Desiree: Come home to Valmonde; back to your mother
who loves you. Come with your child."
When the letter reached Desiree she went with it to her
husband's study, and laid it open upon the desk before which he
sat. She was like a stone image: silent, white, motionless after
she placed it there.
In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.
He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in tones sharp
with agonized suspense.
"Yes, go."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Yes, I want you to go."
He thought Almighty God had dealt cruelly and unjustly with
him; and felt, somehow, that he was paying Him back in kind when he
stabbed thus into his wife's soul. Moreover he no longer loved
her, because of the unconscious injury she had brought upon his
home and his name.
She turned away like one stunned by a blow, and walked slowly
towards the door, hoping he would call her back.
"Good-by, Armand," she moaned.
He did not answer her. That was his last blow at fate.
Desiree went in search of her child. Zandrine was pacing the
sombre gallery with it. She took the little one from the nurse's
arms with no word of explanation, and descending the steps, walked
away, under the live-oak branches.
It was an October afternoon; the sun was just sinking. Out in
the still fields the negroes were picking cotton.
Desiree had not changed the thin white garment nor the
slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun's rays
brought a golden gleam from its brown meshes. She did not take the
broad, beaten road which led to the far-off plantation of Valmonde.
She walked across a deserted field, where the stubble bruised her
tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick
along the banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come
back again.
Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L'Abri.
In the centre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire.
Armand Aubigny sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the
spectacle; and it was he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the
material which kept this fire ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings,
was laid upon the pyre, which had already been fed with the
richness of a priceless layette. Then there were silk gowns,
and velvet and satin ones added to these; laces, too, and
embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been of
rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent
little scribblings that Desiree had sent to him during the days of
their espousal. There was the remnant of one back in the drawer
from which he took them. But it was not Desiree's; it was part of
an old letter from his mother to his father. He read it. She was
thanking God for the blessing of her husband's love:--
"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank the good
God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will
never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race
that is cursed with the brand of slavery."
A Respectable Woman
Mrs. Baroda was a little provoked to learn that her husband
expected his friend, Gouvernail, up to spend a week or two on the
plantation.
They had entertained a good deal during the winter; much of
the time had also been passed in New Orleans in various forms of
mild dissipation. She was looking forward to a period of unbroken
rest, now, and undisturbed tete-a-tete with her husband, when he
informed her that Gouvernail was coming up to stay a week or two.
This was a man she had heard much of but never seen. He had
been her husband's college friend; was now a journalist, and in no
sense a society man or "a man about town," which were, perhaps,
some of the reasons she had never met him. But she had
unconsciously formed an image of him in her mind. She pictured him
tall, slim, cynical; with eye-glasses, and his hands in his
pockets; and she did not like him. Gouvernail was slim enough, but
he wasn't very tall nor very cynical; neither did he wear
eyeglasses nor carry his hands in his pockets. And she rather liked
him when he first presented himself.
But why she liked him she could not explain satisfactorily to
herself when she partly attempted to do so. She could discover in
him none of those brilliant and promising traits which Gaston, her
husband, had often assured her that he possessed. On the contrary,
he sat rather mute and receptive before her chatty eagerness to
make him feel at home and in face of Gaston's frank and wordy hospitality.
His manner was as courteous toward her as the most exacting woman
could require; but he made no direct appeal to her approval or even esteem.
Once settled at the plantation he seemed to like to sit upon
the wide portico in the shade of one of the big Corinthian pillars,
smoking his cigar lazily and listening attentively to Gaston's
experience as a sugar planter.
"This is what I call living," he would utter with deep
satisfaction, as the air that swept across the sugar field caressed
him with its warm and scented velvety touch. It pleased him also
to get on familiar terms with the big dogs that came about him,
rubbing themselves sociably against his legs. He did not care to
fish, and displayed no eagerness to go out and kill grosbecs when
Gaston proposed doing so.
Gouvernail's personality puzzled Mrs. Baroda, but she liked
him. Indeed, he was a lovable, inoffensive fellow. After a few
days, when she could understand him no better than at first, she
gave over being puzzled and remained piqued. In this mood she left
her husband and her guest, for the most part, alone together. Then
finding that Gouvernail took no manner of exception to her action,
she imposed her society upon him, accompanying him in his idle
strolls to the mill and walks along the batture. She persistently
sought to penetrate the reserve in which he had unconsciously
enveloped himself.
"When is he going--your friend?" she one day asked her
husband. "For my part, he tires me frightfully."
"Not for a week yet, dear. I can't understand; he gives you
no trouble."
"No. I should like him better if he did; if he were more like
others, and I had to plan somewhat for his comfort and enjoyment."
Gaston took his wife's pretty face between his hands and
looked tenderly and laughingly into her troubled eyes.
They were making a bit of toilet sociably together in Mrs. Baroda's
dressing-room.
"You are full of surprises, ma belle," he said to her. "Even
I can never count upon how you are going to act under given
conditions." He kissed her and turned to fasten his cravat before
the mirror.
"Here you are," he went on, "taking poor Gouvernail seriously
and making a commotion over him, the last thing he would desire or
expect."
"Commotion!" she hotly resented. "Nonsense! How can you say
such a thing? Commotion, indeed! But, you know, you said he was clever."
"So he is. But the poor fellow is run down by overwork now.
That's why I asked him here to take a rest."
"You used to say he was a man of ideas," she retorted,
unconciliated. "I expected him to be interesting, at least. I'm
going to the city in the morning to have my spring gowns fitted.
Let me know when Mr. Gouvernail is gone; I shall be at my Aunt
Octavie's."
That night she went and sat alone upon a bench that stood
beneath a live oak tree at the edge of the gravel walk.
She had never known her thoughts or her intentions to be so
confused. She could gather nothing from them but the feeling of a
distinct necessity to quit her home in the morning.
Mrs. Baroda heard footsteps crunching the gravel; but could
discern in the darkness only the approaching red point of a lighted
cigar. She knew it was Gouvernail, for her husband did not smoke.
She hoped to remain unnoticed, but her white gown revealed her to
him. He threw away his cigar and seated himself upon the bench
beside her; without a suspicion that she might object to his
presence.
"Your husband told me to bring this to you, Mrs. Baroda," he
said, handing her a filmy, white scarf with which she sometimes
enveloped her head and shoulders. She accepted the scarf from him
with a murmur of thanks, and let it lie in her lap.
He made some commonplace observation upon the baneful effect
of the night air at the season. Then as his gaze reached out into
the darkness, he murmured, half to himself:
"`Night of south winds--night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night--'"
She made no reply to this apostrophe to the night, which,
indeed, was not addressed to her.
Gouvernail was in no sense a diffident man, for he was not a
self-conscious one. His periods of reserve were not
constitutional, but the result of moods. Sitting there beside Mrs.
Baroda, his silence melted for the time.
He talked freely and intimately in a low, hesitating drawl
that was not unpleasant to hear. He talked of the old college days
when he and Gaston had been a good deal to each other; of the days
of keen and blind ambitions and large intentions. Now there was
left with him, at least, a philosophic acquiescence to the existing
order--only a desire to be permitted to exist, with now and then a
little whiff of genuine life, such as he was breathing now.
Her mind only vaguely grasped what he was saying. Her
physical being was for the moment predominant. She was not
thinking of his words, only drinking in the tones of his voice.
She wanted to reach out her hand in the darkness and touch him with
the sensitive tips of her fingers upon the face or the lips. She
wanted to draw close to him and whisper against his cheek--she did
not care what--as she might have done if she had not been a
respectable woman.
The stronger the impulse grew to bring herself near him, the
further, in fact, did she draw away from him. As soon as she could
do so without an appearance of too great rudeness, she rose and
left him there alone.
Before she reached the house, Gouvernail had lighted a fresh
cigar and ended his apostrophe to the night.
Mrs. Baroda was greatly tempted that night to tell her
husband--who was also her friend--of this folly that had
seized her. But she did not yield to the temptation. Beside being
a respectable woman she was a very sensible one; and she knew there
are some battles in life which a human being must fight alone.
When Gaston arose in the morning, his wife had already
departed. She had taken an early morning train to the city. She
did not return till Gouvernail was gone from under her roof.
There was some talk of having him back during the summer that
followed. That is, Gaston greatly desired it; but this desire
yielded to his wife's strenuous opposition.
However, before the year ended, she proposed, wholly from
herself, to have Gouvernail visit them again. Her husband was
surprised and delighted with the suggestion coming from her.
"I am glad, chere amie, to know that you have finally overcome
your dislike for him; truly he did not deserve it."
"Oh," she told him, laughingly, after pressing a long, tender
kiss upon his lips, "I have overcome everything! you will see.
This time I shall be very nice to him."
The Kiss
It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the
curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim,
uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.
Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and
he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eves
fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the
firelight.
She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that
belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite composed, as she
idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap,
and she occasionally sent a slow glance into the shadow where her
companion sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which
plainly were not the things that occupied their thoughts. She knew
that he loved her--a frank, blustering fellow without guile enough
to conceal his feelings, and no desire to do so. For two weeks past
he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was
confidently waiting for him to declare himself and she meant to
accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Brantain was
enormously rich; and she liked and required the entourage which
wealth could give her.
During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea
and the next reception the door opened and a young man
entered whom Brantain knew quite well. The girl turned her
face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and
bending over her chair--before she could suspect his intention,
for she did not realize that he had not seen her visitor--he pressed
an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips.
Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly, and
the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and some
defiance struggling with the confusion in his face.
"I believe," stammered Brantain, "I see that I have stayed too long.
I--I had no idea--that is, I must wish you good-by." He was clutching
his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was
extending her hand to him, her presence of mind had not completely
deserted her; but she could not have trusted herself to speak.
"Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Nattie! I know it's
deuced awkward for you. But I hope you'll forgive me this
once--this very first break. Why, what's the matter?"
"Don't touch me; don't come near me," she returned angrily.
"What do you mean by entering the house without ringing?"
"I came in with your brother, as I often do," he answered
coldly, in self-justification. "We came in the side way. He went
upstairs and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is
simple enough and ought to satisfy you that the misadventure was
unavoidable. But do say that you forgive me, Nathalie," he
entreated, softening.
"Forgive you! You don't know what you are talking about. Let
me pass. It depends upon--a good deal whether I ever forgive you."
At that next reception which she and Brantain had been talking
about she approached the young man with a delicious frankness of
manner when she saw him there.
"Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Brantain?"
she asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He seemed
extremely unhappy; but when she took his arm and walked
away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope
mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression.
She was apparently very outspoken.
"Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr.
Brantain; but--but, oh, I have been very uncomfortable, almost
miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I
thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed things"
--hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain's
round, guileless face--"Of course, I know it is nothing to you, but
for my own sake I do want you to understand that Mr. Harvy is an
intimate friend of long standing. Why, we have always been like
cousins--like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother's
most intimate associate and often fancies that he is entitled to
the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd,
uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even," she was almost
weeping, "but it makes so much difference to me what you think
of--of me." Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had
all disappeared from Brantain's face.
"Then you do really care what I think, Miss Nathalie? May I
call you Miss Nathalie?" They turned into a long, dim corridor that
was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants. They walked
slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to retrace their
steps Brantain's face was radiant and hers was triumphant.
Harvy was among the guests at the wedding; and he sought her
out in a rare moment when she stood alone.
"Your husband," he said, smiling, "has sent me over to kiss
you. "
A quick blush suffused her face and round polished throat. "I
suppose it's natural for a man to feel and act generously on an
occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn't want his marriage to
interrupt wholly that pleasant intimacy which has existed between
you and me. I don't know what you've been telling him," with an
insolent smile, "but he has sent me here to kiss you."
She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of
his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes
were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his;
and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.
"But, you know," he went on quietly, "I didn't tell him
so, it would have seemed ungrateful, but I can tell you. I've
stopped kissing women; it's dangerous."
Well, she had Brantain and his million left. A person can't
have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of
her to expect it.
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself the unexpected
possessor of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount
of money, and the way in which it stuffed and bulged her worn old
porte-monnaie gave her a feeling of importance such as she had
not enjoyed for years.
The question of investment was one that occupied her greatly.
For a day or two she walked about apparently in a dreamy state, but
really absorbed in speculation and calculation. She did not wish
to act hastily, to do anything she might afterward regret. But it
was during the still hours of the night when she lay awake
revolving plans in her mind that she seemed to see her way clearly
toward a proper and judicious use of the money.
A dollar or two should be added to the price usually paid for
Janie's shoes, which would insure their lasting an appreciable time
longer than they usually did. She would buy so and so many yards
of percale for new shirt waists for the boys and Janie and Mag.
She had intended to make the old ones do by skilful patching. Mag
should have another gown. She had seen some beautiful patterns,
veritable bargains in the shop windows. And still there would be
left enough for new stockings--two pairs apiece--and what darning
that would save for a while! She would get caps for the boys and
sailor-hats for the girls. The vision of her little brood
looking fresh and dainty and new for once in their lives
excited her and made her restless and wakeful with anticipation.
The neighbors sometimes talked of certain "better days" that
little Mrs. Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being
Mrs. Sommers. She herself indulged in no such morbid
retrospection. She had no time--no second of time to devote to the
past. The needs of the present absorbed her every faculty. A
vision of the future like some dim, gaunt monster sometimes
appalled her, but luckily to-morrow never comes.
Mrs. Sommers was one who knew the value of bargains; who could
stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward the desired
object that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if
need be; she had learned to clutch a piece of goods and hold it and
stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came
to be served, no matter when it came.
But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had
swallowed a light luncheon--no! when she came to think of it,
between getting the children fed and the place righted, and
preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten
to eat any luncheon at all!
She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that
was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage
to charge through an eager multitude that was besieging
breastworks of shirting and figured lawn. An all-gone limp feeling had
come over her and she rested her hand aimlessly upon the counter.
She wore no gloves. By degrees she grew aware that her hand had
encountered something very soothing, very pleasant to touch. She
looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings.
A placard near by announced that they had been reduced in price
from two dollars and fifty cents to one dollar and ninety-eight
cents; and a young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if
she wished to examine their line of silk hosiery. She smiled,
just as if she had been asked to inspect a tiara of diamonds
with the ultimate view of purchasing it. But she went on
feeling the soft, sheeny luxurious things--with both hands now,
holding them up to see them glisten, and to feel them glide
serpent-like through her fingers.
Two hectic blotches came suddenly into her pale cheeks. She
looked up at the girl.
"Do you think there are any eights-and-a-half among these?"
There were any number of eights-and-a-half. In fact, there
were more of that size than any other. Here was a light-blue pair;
there were some lavender, some all black and various shades of tan
and gray. Mrs. Sommers selected a black pair and looked at them
very long and closely. She pretended to be examining their
texture, which the clerk assured her was excellent.
"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she mused aloud. "Well,
I'll take this pair." She handed the girl a five-dollar bill and
waited for her change and for her parcel. What a very small parcel
it was! It seemed lost in the depths of her shabby old shopping-bag.
Mrs. Sommers after that did not move in the direction of the
bargain counter. She took the elevator, which carried her to an
upper floor into the region of the ladies' waiting-rooms. Here, in
a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new
silk ones which she had just bought. She was not going through any
acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she
striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action.
She was not thinking at all. She seemed for the time to be taking
a rest from that laborious and fatiguing function and to have
abandoned herself to some mechanical impulse that directed her
actions and freed her of responsibility.
How good was the touch of the raw silk to her flesh! She felt
like lying back in the cushioned chair and reveling for a while in
the luxury of it. She did for a little while. Then she replaced
her shoes, rolled the cotton stockings together and thrust them
into her bag. After doing this she crossed straight over to the
shoe department and took her seat to be fitted.
She was fastidious. The clerk could not make her out; he
could not reconcile her shoes with her stockings, and she was not
too easily pleased. She held back her skirts and turned her feet
one way and her head another way as she glanced down at the
polished, pointed-tipped boots. Her foot and ankle looked very
pretty. She could not realize that they belonged to her and were
a part of herself. She wanted an excellent and stylish fit, she
told the young fellow who served her, and she did not mind the
difference of a dollar or two more in the price so long as she got
what she desired.
It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with
gloves. On rare occasions when she had bought a pair they were
always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been preposterous
and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter,
and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch,
drew a long-wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers's hand. She smoothed
it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost
themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the
little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where
money might be spent.
There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a
stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two
high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to read in the
days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She
carried them without wrapping. As well as she could she lifted her
skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well fitting
gloves had worked marvels in her bearing--had given her a feeling
of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.
She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the
cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have
brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was
available. But the impulse that was guiding her would not suffer her
to entertain any such thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered
its doors; from the outside she had sometimes caught glimpses of
spotless damask and shining crystal, and soft-stepping waiters
serving people of fashion.
When she entered her appearance created no surprise, no
consternation, as she had half feared it might. She seated herself
at a small table alone, and an attentive waiter at once approached
to take her order. She did not want a profusion; she craved a nice
and tasty bite--a half dozen blue-points, a plump chop with cress,
a something sweet--a creme-frappee, for instance; a glass of Rhine
wine, and after all a small cup of black coffee.
While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very
leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine
and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her
knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more
spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal
more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not
notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft,
pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was
blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word
or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the
silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted
the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray,
whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.
There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation
presented itself in the shape of a matinee poster.
It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play
had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were
vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered,
between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time
and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many
others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe
to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs.
Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole--stage
and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and
enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy and wept--she and the gaudy
woman next to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little
together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled
on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs.
Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It
was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs.
Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like
the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what
he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard
enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable
car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
The Locket
I
One night in autumn a few men were gathered about a fire on
the slope of a hill. They belonged to a small detachment of
Confederate forces and were awaiting orders to march. Their gray
uniforms were worn beyond the point of shabbiness. One of the men
was heating something in a tin cup over the embers. Two were lying
at full length a little distance away, while a fourth was trying to
decipher a letter and had drawn close to the light. He had
unfastened his collar and a good bit of his flannel shirt front.
"What's that you got around your neck, Ned?" asked one of the
men lying in the obscurity.
Ned--or Edmond--mechanically fastened another button of his
shirt and did not reply. He went on reading his letter.
"Is it your sweet heart's picture?"
"`Taint no gal's picture," offered the man at the fire. He
had removed his tin cup and was engaged in stirring its grimy
contents with a small stick. "That's a charm; some kind of hoodoo
business that one o' them priests gave him to keep him out o'
trouble. I know them Cath'lics. That's how come Frenchy got
permoted an never got a scratch sence he's been in the ranks. Hey,
French! aint I right?" Edmond looked up absently from his letter.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Aint that a charm you got round your neck?"
"It must be, Nick," returned Edmond with a smile. "I don't know
how I could have gone through this year and a half without it."
The letter had made Edmond heart sick and home sick. He
stretched himself on his back and looked straight up at the
blinking stars. But he was not thinking of them nor of anything
but a certain spring day when the bees were humming in the
clematis; when a girl was saying good bye to him. He could see her
as she unclasped from her neck the locket which she fastened about
his own. It was an old fashioned golden locket bearing miniatures
of her father and mother with their names and the date of their
marriage. It was her most precious earthly possession. Edmond
could feel again the folds of the girl's soft white gown, and see
the droop of the angel-sleeves as she circled her fair arms about
his neck. Her sweet face, appealing, pathetic, tormented by the
pain of parting, appeared before him as vividly as life. He turned
over, burying his face in his arm and there he lay, still and
motionless.
The profound and treacherous night with its silence and
semblance of peace settled upon the camp. He dreamed that the fair
Octavie brought him a letter. He had no chair to offer her and was
pained and embarrassed at the condition of his garments. He was
ashamed of the poor food which comprised the dinner at which he
begged her to join them.
He dreamt of a serpent coiling around his throat, and when he
strove to grasp it the slimy thing glided away from his clutch.
Then his dream was clamor.
"Git your duds! you! Frenchy!" Nick was bellowing in his face.
There was what appeared to be a scramble and a rush rather than
any regulated movement. The hill side was alive with clatter
and motion; with sudden up-springing lights among the pines.
In the east the dawn was unfolding out of the darkness.
Its glimmer was yet dim in the plain below.
"What's it all about?" wondered a big black bird perched in
the top of the tallest tree. He was an old solitary and a wise
one, yet he was not wise enough to guess what it was all about.
So all day long he kept blinking and wondering.
The noise reached far out over the plain and across the hills
and awoke the little babes that were sleeping in their cradles.
The smoke curled up toward the sun and shadowed the plain so that
the stupid birds thought it was going to rain; but the wise one
knew better.
"They are children playing a game," thought he. "I shall know
more about it if I watch long enough."
At the approach of night they had all vanished away with their
din and smoke. Then the old bird plumed his feathers. At last he
had understood! With a flap of his great, black wings he shot
downward, circling toward the plain.
A man was picking his way across the plain. He was dressed in
the garb of a clergyman. His mission was to administer the
consolations of religion to any of the prostrate figures in whom
there might yet linger a spark of life. A negro accompanied him,
bearing a bucket of water and a flask of wine.
There were no wounded here; they had been borne away. But the
retreat had been hurried and the vultures and the good Samaritans
would have to look to the dead.
There was a soldier--a mere boy--lying with his face to the
sky. His hands were clutching the sward on either side and his
finger nails were stuffed with earth and bits of grass that he had
gathered in his despairing grasp upon life. His musket was gone;
he was hatless and his face and clothing were begrimed. Around his
neck hung a gold chain and locket. The priest, bending over him,
unclasped the chain and removed it from the dead soldier's neck.
He had grown used to the terrors of war and could face them
unflinchingly; but its pathos, someway, always brought the tears
to his old, dim eyes.
The angelus was ringing half a mile away. The priest and the
negro knelt and murmured together the evening benediction and a
prayer for the dead.
II
The peace and beauty of a spring day had descended upon the
earth like a benediction. Along the leafy road which skirted a
narrow, tortuous stream in central Louisiana, rumbled an old
fashioned cabriolet, much the worse for hard and rough usage over
country roads and lanes. The fat, black horses went in a slow,
measured trot, notwithstanding constant urging on the part of the
fat, black coachman. Within the vehicle were seated the fair
Octavie and her old friend and neighbor, Judge Pillier, who had
come to take her for a morning drive.
Octavie wore a plain black dress, severe in its simplicity. A
narrow belt held it at the waist and the sleeves were gathered into
close fitting wristbands. She had discarded her hoopskirt and
appeared not unlike a nun. Beneath the folds of her bodice nestled
the old locket. She never displayed it now. It had returned to
her sanctified in her eyes; made precious as material things
sometimes are by being forever identified with a significant moment
of one's existence.
A hundred times she had read over the letter with which the
locket had come back to her. No later than that morning she had
again pored over it. As she sat beside the window, smoothing the
letter out upon her knee, heavy and spiced odors stole in to her
with the songs of birds and the humming of insects in the air.
She was so young and the world was so beautiful that there
came over her a sense of unreality as she read again and again the
priest's letter. He told of that autumn day drawing to its close,
with the gold and the red fading out of the west, and the night
gathering its shadows to cover the faces of the dead. Oh! She
could not believe that one of those dead was her own! with visage
uplifted to the gray sky in an agony of supplication. A spasm of
resistance and rebellion seized and swept over her. Why was the
spring here with its flowers and its seductive breath if he was
dead! Why was she here! What further had she to do with life and
the living!
Octavie had experienced many such moments of despair, but a
blessed resignation had never failed to follow, and it fell then
upon her like a mantle and enveloped her.
"I shall grow old and quiet and sad like poor Aunt Tavie," she
murmured to herself as she folded the letter and replaced it in the
secretary. Already she gave herself a little demure air like her
Aunt Tavie. She walked with a slow glide in unconscious imitation
of Mademoiselle Tavie whom some youthful affliction had robbed of
earthly compensation while leaving her in possession of youth's
illusions.
As she sat in the old cabriolet beside the father of her dead
lover, again there came to Octavie the terrible sense of loss which
had assailed her so often before. The soul of her youth clamored
for its rights; for a share in the world's glory and exultation.
She leaned back and drew her veil a little closer about her face.
It was an old black veil of her Aunt Tavie's. A whiff of dust from
the road had blown in and she wiped her cheeks and her eyes with
her soft, white handkerchief, a homemade handkerchief, fabricated
from one of her old fine muslin petticoats.
"Will you do me the favor, Octavie," requested the judge in
the courteous tone which he never abandoned, "to remove that veil
which you wear. It seems out of harmony, someway, with the beauty
and promise of the day."
The young girl obediently yielded to her old companion's wish
and unpinning the cumbersome, sombre drapery from her bonnet,
folded it neatly and laid it upon the seat in front of her.
"Ah! that is better; far better!" he said in a tone expressing
unbounded relief. "Never put it on again, dear." Octavie felt a
little hurt; as if he wished to debar her from share and parcel in
the burden of affliction which had been placed upon all of them.
Again she drew forth the old muslin handkerchief.
They had left the big road and turned into a level plain which
had formerly been an old meadow. There were clumps of thorn trees
here and there, gorgeous in their spring radiance. Some cattle
were grazing off in the distance in spots where the grass was tall
and luscious. At the far end of the meadow was the towering lilac
hedge, skirting the lane that led to Judge Pillier's house, and the
scent of its heavy blossoms met them like a soft and tender embrace
of welcome.
As they neared the house the old gentleman placed an arm
around the girl's shoulders and turning her face up to him he said:
"Do you not think that on a day like this, miracles might happen?
When the whole earth is vibrant with life, does it not seem to you,
Octavie, that heaven might for once relent and give us back our
dead?" He spoke very low, advisedly, and impressively. In his
voice was an old quaver which was not habitual and there was
agitation in every line of his visage. She gazed at him with eyes
that were full of supplication and a certain terror of joy.
They had been driving through the lane with the towering hedge
on one side and the open meadow on the other. The horses had
somewhat quickened their lazy pace. As they turned into the avenue
leading to the house, a whole choir of feathered songsters fluted
a sudden torrent of melodious greeting from their leafy hiding
places.
Octavie felt as if she had passed into a stage of existence
which was like a dream, more poignant and real than life.
There was the old gray house with its sloping eaves.
Amid the blur of green, and dimly, she saw familiar faces
and heard voices as if they came from far across the fields,
and Edmond was holding her. Her dead Edmond; her living Edmond,
and she felt the beating of his heart against her and the agonizing
rapture of his kisses striving to awake her. It was as if the spirit
of life and the awakening spring had given back the soul to her youth
and bade her rejoice.
It was many hours later that Octavie drew the locket from her
bosom and looked at Edmond with a questioning appeal in her glance.
"It was the night before an engagement," he said. "In the
hurry of the encounter, and the retreat next day, I never missed it
till the fight was over. I thought of course I had lost it in the
heat of the struggle, but it was stolen."
"Stolen," she shuddered, and thought of the dead soldier with
his face uplifted to the sky in an agony of supplication.
Edmond said nothing; but he thought of his messmate; the one
who had lain far back in the shadow; the one who had said nothing.
A Reflection
Some people are born with a vital and responsive energy. It
not only enables them to keep abreast of the times; it qualifies
them to furnish in their own personality a good bit of the motive
power to the mad pace. They are fortunate beings. They do not
need to apprehend the significance of things. They do not grow
weary nor miss step, nor do they fall out of rank and sink by the
wayside to be left contemplating the moving procession.
Ah! that moving procession that has left me by the road-side!
Its fantastic colors are more brilliant and beautiful than the sun
on the undulating waters. What matter if souls and bodies are
failing beneath the feet of the ever-pressing multitude! It moves
with the majestic rhythm of the spheres. Its discordant clashes
sweep upward in one harmonious tone that blends with the music of
other worlds--to complete God's orchestra.
It is greater than the stars--that moving procession of human
energy; greater than the palpitating earth and the things growing
thereon. Oh! I could weep at being left by the wayside; left with
the grass and the clouds and a few dumb animals. True, I feel at
home in the society of these symbols of life's immutability.
In the procession I should feel the crushing feet,
the clashing discords, the ruthless hands and stifling breath.
I could not hear the rhythm of the march.
Salve! ye dumb hearts. Let us be still and wait by the roadside.
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