[Lyric] Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening: Chapters 10-14” (Mrs. Booms-Ryan)

Chapter 10

At all events Robert proposed it, and there was not a dissenting voice.
There was not one but was ready to follow when he led the way. He did
not lead the way, however, he directed the way; and he himself loitered
behind with the lovers, who had betrayed a disposition to linger and
hold themselves apart. He walked between them, whether with malicious or
mischievous intent was not wholly clear, even to himself.

The Pontelliers and Ratignolles walked ahead; the women leaning upon the
arms of their husbands. Edna could hear Robert's voice behind them,
and could sometimes hear what he said. She wondered why he did not join
them. It was unlike him not to. Of late he had sometimes held away from
her for an entire day, redoubling his devotion upon the next and the
next, as though to make up for hours that had been lost. She missed him
the days when some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one
misses the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun
when it was shining.

The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They talked and
laughed; some of them sang. There was a band playing down at Klein's
hotel, and the strains reached them faintly, tempered by the distance.
There were strange, rare odors abroad--a tangle of the sea smell and of
weeds and damp, new-plowed earth, mingled with the heavy perfume of a
field of white blossoms somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon
the sea and the land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no
shadows. The white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the
mystery and the softness of sleep.
Most of them walked into the water as though into a native element. The
sea was quiet now, and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted into
one another and did not break except upon the beach in little foamy
crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents.

Edna had attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had received
instructions from both the men and women; in some instances from the
children. Robert had pursued a system of lessons almost daily; and he
was nearly at the point of discouragement in realizing the futility of
his efforts. A certain ungovernable dread hung about her when in the
water, unless there was a hand near by that might reach out and reassure
her.

But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling, clutching
child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for the first time
alone, boldly and with over-confidence. She could have shouted for joy.
She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping stroke or two she lifted her
body to the surface of the water.

A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant
import had been given her to control the working of her body and her
soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating her strength. She
wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum before.

Her unlooked-for achievement was the subject of wonder, applause, and
admiration. Each one congratulated himself that his special teachings
had accomplished this desired end.
"How easy it is!" she thought. "It is nothing," she said aloud; "why did
I not discover before that it was nothing. Think of the time I have lost
splashing about like a baby!" She would not join the groups in their
sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her newly conquered power, she
swam out alone.

She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of space and
solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and melting with the
moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As she swam she seemed to be
reaching out for the unlimited in which to lose herself.

Once she turned and looked toward the shore, toward the people she had
left there. She had not gone any great distance--that is, what would
have been a great distance for an experienced swimmer. But to her
unaccustomed vision the stretch of water behind her assumed the aspect
of a barrier which her unaided strength would never be able to overcome.

A quick vision of death smote her soul, and for a second of time
appalled and enfeebled her senses. But by an effort she rallied her
staggering faculties and managed to regain the land.

She made no mention of her encounter with death and her flash of terror,
except to say to her husband, "I thought I should have perished out
there alone."

"You were not so very far, my dear; I was watching you," he told her.
Edna went at once to the bath-house, and she had put on her dry clothes
and was ready to return home before the others had left the water. She
started to walk away alone. They all called to her and shouted to her.
She waved a dissenting hand, and went on, paying no further heed to
their renewed cries which sought to detain her.

"Sometimes I am tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is capricious,"
said Madame Lebrun, who was amusing herself immensely and feared that
Edna's abrupt departure might put an end to the pleasure.

"I know she is," assented Mr. Pontellier; "sometimes, not often."

Edna had not traversed a quarter of the distance on her way home before
she was overtaken by Robert.

"Did you think I was afraid?" she asked him, without a shade of
annoyance.

"No; I knew you weren't afraid."

"Then why did you come? Why didn't you stay out there with the others?"

"I never thought of it."

"Thought of what?"

"Of anything. What difference does it make?"

"I'm very tired," she uttered, complainingly.

"I know you are."

"You don't know anything about it. Why should you know? I never was so
exhausted in my life. But it isn't unpleasant. A thousand emotions have
swept through me to-night. I don't comprehend half of them. Don't mind
what I'm saying; I am just thinking aloud. I wonder if I shall ever
be stirred again as Mademoiselle Reisz's playing moved me to-night. I
wonder if any night on earth will ever again be like this one. It is
like a night in a dream. The people about me are like some uncanny,
half-human beings. There must be spirits abroad to-night."

"There are," whispered Robert, "Didn't you know this was the
twenty-eighth of August?"

"The twenty-eighth of August?"

"Yes. On the twenty-eighth of August, at the hour of midnight, and if
the moon is shining--the moon must be shining--a spirit that has haunted
these shores for ages rises up from the Gulf. With its own penetrating
vision the spirit seeks some one mortal worthy to hold him
company, worthy of being exalted for a few hours into realms of the
semi-celestials. His search has always hitherto been fruitless, and he
has sunk back, disheartened, into the sea. But to-night he found Mrs.
Pontellier. Perhaps he will never wholly release her from the spell.
Perhaps she will never again suffer a poor, unworthy earthling to walk
in the shadow of her divine presence."

"Don't banter me," she said, wounded at what appeared to be his
flippancy. He did not mind the entreaty, but the tone with its delicate
note of pathos was like a reproach. He could not explain; he could not
tell her that he had penetrated her mood and understood. He said
nothing except to offer her his arm, for, by her own admission, she
was exhausted. She had been walking alone with her arms hanging limp,
letting her white skirts trail along the dewy path. She took his arm,
but she did not lean upon it. She let her hand lie listlessly, as though
her thoughts were elsewhere--somewhere in advance of her body, and she
was striving to overtake them.

Robert assisted her into the hammock which swung from the post before
her door out to the trunk of a tree.

"Will you stay out here and wait for Mr. Pontellier?" he asked.

"I'll stay out here. Good-night."

"Shall I get you a pillow?"

"There's one here," she said, feeling about, for they were in the
shadow.

"It must be soiled; the children have been tumbling it about."

"No matter." And having discovered the pillow, she adjusted it beneath
her head. She extended herself in the hammock with a deep breath of
relief. She was not a supercilious or an over-dainty woman. She was not
much given to reclining in the hammock, and when she did so it was with
no cat-like suggestion of voluptuous ease, but with a beneficent repose
which seemed to invade her whole body.

"Shall I stay with you till Mr. Pontellier comes?" asked Robert, seating
himself on the outer edge of one of the steps and taking hold of the
hammock rope which was fastened to the post.

"If you wish. Don't swing the hammock. Will you get my white shawl which
I left on the window-sill over at the house?"

"Are you chilly?"

"No; but I shall be presently."

"Presently?" he laughed. "Do you know what time it is? How long are you
going to stay out here?"

"I don't know. Will you get the shawl?"

"Of course I will," he said, rising. He went over to the house, walking
along the grass. She watched his figure pass in and out of the strips of
moonlight. It was past midnight. It was very quiet.

When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She
did not put it around her.

"Did you say I should stay till Mr. Pontellier came back?"

"I said you might if you wished to."

He seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he smoked in
silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier speak. No multitude of words
could have been more significant than those moments of silence, or more
pregnant with the first-felt throbbings of desire.

When the voices of the bathers were heard approaching, Robert said
good-night. She did not answer him. He thought she was asleep. Again
she watched his figure pass in and out of the strips of moonlight as he
walked away.





Chapter 11

"What are you doing out here, Edna? I thought I should find you in bed,"
said her husband, when he discovered her lying there. He had walked up
with Madame Lebrun and left her at the house. His wife did not reply.

"Are you asleep?" he asked, bending down close to look at her.

"No." Her eyes gleamed bright and intense, with no sleepy shadows, as
they looked into his.

"Do you know it is past one o'clock? Come on," and he mounted the steps
and went into their room.

"Edna!" called Mr. Pontellier from within, after a few moments had gone
by.

"Don't wait for me," she answered. He thrust his head through the door.

"You will take cold out there," he said, irritably. "What folly is this?
Why don't you come in?"

"It isn't cold; I have my shawl."

"The mosquitoes will devour you."

"There are no mosquitoes."

She heard him moving about the room; every sound indicating impatience
and irritation. Another time she would have gone in at his request. She
would, through habit, have yielded to his desire; not with any sense of
submission or obedience to his compelling wishes, but unthinkingly, as
we walk, move, sit, stand, go through the daily treadmill of the life
which has been portioned out to us.

"Edna, dear, are you not coming in soon?" he asked again, this time
fondly, with a note of entreaty.

"No; I am going to stay out here."

"This is more than folly," he blurted out. "I can't permit you to stay
out there all night. You must come in the house instantly."

With a writhing motion she settled herself more securely in the hammock.
She perceived that her will had blazed up, stubborn and resistant. She
could not at that moment have done other than denied and resisted. She
wondered if her husband had ever spoken to her like that before, and if
she had submitted to his command. Of course she had; she remembered that
she had. But she could not realize why or how she should have yielded,
feeling as she then did.

"Leonce, go to bed," she said, "I mean to stay out here. I don't wish to
go in, and I don't intend to. Don't speak to me like that again; I shall
not answer you."

Mr. Pontellier had prepared for bed, but he slipped on an extra garment.
He opened a bottle of wine, of which he kept a small and select supply
in a buffet of his own. He drank a glass of the wine and went out on the
gallery and offered a glass to his wife. She did not wish any. He drew
up the rocker, hoisted his slippered feet on the rail, and proceeded
to smoke a cigar. He smoked two cigars; then he went inside and drank
another glass of wine. Mrs. Pontellier again declined to accept a glass
when it was offered to her. Mr. Pontellier once more seated himself with
elevated feet, and after a reasonable interval of time smoked some more
cigars.

Edna began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a
delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities
pressing into her soul. The physical need for sleep began to overtake
her; the exuberance which had sustained and exalted her spirit left her
helpless and yielding to the conditions which crowded her in.

The stillest hour of the night had come, the hour before dawn, when the
world seems to hold its breath. The moon hung low, and had turned from
silver to copper in the sleeping sky. The old owl no longer hooted, and
the water-oaks had ceased to moan as they bent their heads.

Edna arose, cramped from lying so long and still in the hammock. She
tottered up the steps, clutching feebly at the post before passing into
the house.

"Are you coming in, Leonce?" she asked, turning her face toward her
husband.

"Yes, dear," he answered, with a glance following a misty puff of smoke.
"Just as soon as I have finished my cigar."




Chapter 12

She slept but a few hours. They were troubled and feverish hours,
disturbed with dreams that were intangible, that eluded her, leaving
only an impression upon her half-awakened senses of something
unattainable. She was up and dressed in the cool of the early morning.
The air was invigorating and steadied somewhat her faculties. However,
she was not seeking refreshment or help from any source, either external
or from within. She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her,
as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her
soul of responsibility.

Most of the people at that early hour were still in bed and asleep.
A few, who intended to go over to the Cheniere for mass, were moving
about. The lovers, who had laid their plans the night before, were
already strolling toward the wharf. The lady in black, with her Sunday
prayer-book, velvet and gold-clasped, and her Sunday silver beads, was
following them at no great distance. Old Monsieur Farival was up, and
was more than half inclined to do anything that suggested itself. He
put on his big straw hat, and taking his umbrella from the stand in the
hall, followed the lady in black, never overtaking her.

The little negro girl who worked Madame Lebrun's sewing-machine was
sweeping the galleries with long, absent-minded strokes of the broom.
Edna sent her up into the house to awaken Robert.

"Tell him I am going to the Cheniere. The boat is ready; tell him to
hurry."

He had soon joined her. She had never sent for him before. She had never
asked for him. She had never seemed to want him before. She did not
appear conscious that she had done anything unusual in commanding
his presence. He was apparently equally unconscious of anything
extraordinary in the situation. But his face was suffused with a quiet
glow when he met her.

They went together back to the kitchen to drink coffee. There was no
time to wait for any nicety of service. They stood outside the window
and the cook passed them their coffee and a roll, which they drank and
ate from the window-sill. Edna said it tasted good.

She had not thought of coffee nor of anything. He told her he had often
noticed that she lacked forethought.

"Wasn't it enough to think of going to the Cheniere and waking you up?"
she laughed. "Do I have to think of everything?--as Leonce says when
he's in a bad humor. I don't blame him; he'd never be in a bad humor if
it weren't for me."

They took a short cut across the sands. At a distance they could see
the curious procession moving toward the wharf--the lovers, shoulder to
shoulder, creeping; the lady in black, gaining steadily upon them; old
Monsieur Farival, losing ground inch by inch, and a young barefooted
Spanish girl, with a red kerchief on her head and a basket on her arm,
bringing up the rear.

Robert knew the girl, and he talked to her a little in the boat. No one
present understood what they said. Her name was Mariequita. She had a
round, sly, piquant face and pretty black eyes. Her hands were small,
and she kept them folded over the handle of her basket. Her feet were
broad and coarse. She did not strive to hide them. Edna looked at her
feet, and noticed the sand and slime between her brown toes.

Beaudelet grumbled because Mariequita was there, taking up so much room.
In reality he was annoyed at having old Monsieur Farival, who considered
himself the better sailor of the two. But he would not quarrel with
so old a man as Monsieur Farival, so he quarreled with Mariequita. The
girl was deprecatory at one moment, appealing to Robert. She was saucy
the next, moving her head up and down, making "eyes" at Robert and
making "mouths" at Beaudelet.

The lovers were all alone. They saw nothing, they heard nothing. The
lady in black was counting her beads for the third time. Old Monsieur
Farival talked incessantly of what he knew about handling a boat, and of
what Beaudelet did not know on the same subject.

Edna liked it all. She looked Mariequita up and down, from her ugly
brown toes to her pretty black eyes, and back again.

"Why does she look at me like that?" inquired the girl of Robert.

"Maybe she thinks you are pretty. Shall I ask her?"

"No. Is she your sweetheart?"

"She's a married lady, and has two children."

"Oh! well! Francisco ran away with Sylvano's wife, who had four
children. They took all his money and one of the children and stole his
boat."

"Shut up!"

"Does she understand?"

"Oh, hush!"

"Are those two married over there--leaning on each other?"

"Of course not," laughed Robert.

"Of course not," echoed Mariequita, with a serious, confirmatory bob of
the head.

The sun was high up and beginning to bite. The swift breeze seemed
to Edna to bury the sting of it into the pores of her face and hands.
Robert held his umbrella over her. As they went cutting sidewise through
the water, the sails bellied taut, with the wind filling and overflowing
them. Old Monsieur Farival laughed sardonically at something as he
looked at the sails, and Beaudelet swore at the old man under his
breath.

Sailing across the bay to the Cheniere Caminada, Edna felt as if she
were being borne away from some anchorage which had held her fast, whose
chains had been loosening--had snapped the night before when the mystic
spirit was abroad, leaving her free to drift whithersoever she chose
to set her sails. Robert spoke to her incessantly; he no longer noticed
Mariequita. The girl had shrimps in her bamboo basket. They were covered
with Spanish moss. She beat the moss down impatiently, and muttered to
herself sullenly.

"Let us go to Grande Terre to-morrow?" said Robert in a low voice.

"What shall we do there?"

"Climb up the hill to the old fort and look at the little wriggling gold
snakes, and watch the lizards sun themselves."

She gazed away toward Grande Terre and thought she would like to be
alone there with Robert, in the sun, listening to the ocean's roar and
watching the slimy lizards writhe in and out among the ruins of the old
fort.

"And the next day or the next we can sail to the Bayou Brulow," he went
on.

"What shall we do there?"

"Anything--cast bait for fish."

"No; we'll go back to Grande Terre. Let the fish alone."

"We'll go wherever you like," he said. "I'll have Tonie come over and
help me patch and trim my boat. We shall not need Beaudelet nor any one.
Are you afraid of the pirogue?"

"Oh, no."

"Then I'll take you some night in the pirogue when the moon shines.
Maybe your Gulf spirit will whisper to you in which of these islands the
treasures are hidden--direct you to the very spot, perhaps."

"And in a day we should be rich!" she laughed. "I'd give it all to you,
the pirate gold and every bit of treasure we could dig up. I think you
would know how to spend it. Pirate gold isn't a thing to be hoarded or
utilized. It is something to squander and throw to the four winds, for
the fun of seeing the golden specks fly."

"We'd share it, and scatter it together," he said. His face flushed.

They all went together up to the quaint little Gothic church of Our Lady
of Lourdes, gleaming all brown and yellow with paint in the sun's glare.

Only Beaudelet remained behind, tinkering at his boat, and Mariequita
walked away with her basket of shrimps, casting a look of childish ill
humor and reproach at Robert from the corner of her eye.




Chapter 13

A feeling of oppression and drowsiness overcame Edna during the service.
Her head began to ache, and the lights on the altar swayed before
her eyes. Another time she might have made an effort to regain her
composure; but her one thought was to quit the stifling atmosphere of
the church and reach the open air. She arose, climbing over Robert's
feet with a muttered apology. Old Monsieur Farival, flurried, curious,
stood up, but upon seeing that Robert had followed Mrs. Pontellier, he
sank back into his seat. He whispered an anxious inquiry of the lady in
black, who did not notice him or reply, but kept her eyes fastened upon
the pages of her velvet prayer-book.

"I felt giddy and almost overcome," Edna said, lifting her hands
instinctively to her head and pushing her straw hat up from her
forehead. "I couldn't have stayed through the service." They were
outside in the shadow of the church. Robert was full of solicitude.

"It was folly to have thought of going in the first place, let alone
staying. Come over to Madame Antoine's; you can rest there." He took her
arm and led her away, looking anxiously and continuously down into her
face.

How still it was, with only the voice of the sea whispering through the
reeds that grew in the salt-water pools! The long line of little gray,
weather-beaten houses nestled peacefully among the orange trees. It must
always have been God's day on that low, drowsy island, Edna thought.
They stopped, leaning over a jagged fence made of sea-drift, to ask
for water. A youth, a mild-faced Acadian, was drawing water from the
cistern, which was nothing more than a rusty buoy, with an opening on
one side, sunk in the ground. The water which the youth handed to them
in a tin pail was not cold to taste, but it was cool to her heated face,
and it greatly revived and refreshed her.

Madame Antoine's cot was at the far end of the village. She welcomed
them with all the native hospitality, as she would have opened her door
to let the sunlight in. She was fat, and walked heavily and clumsily
across the floor. She could speak no English, but when Robert made her
understand that the lady who accompanied him was ill and desired to
rest, she was all eagerness to make Edna feel at home and to dispose of
her comfortably.

The whole place was immaculately clean, and the big, four-posted bed,
snow-white, invited one to repose. It stood in a small side room which
looked out across a narrow grass plot toward the shed, where there was a
disabled boat lying keel upward.

Madame Antoine had not gone to mass. Her son Tonie had, but she supposed
he would soon be back, and she invited Robert to be seated and wait for
him. But he went and sat outside the door and smoked. Madame Antoine
busied herself in the large front room preparing dinner. She was boiling
mullets over a few red coals in the huge fireplace.

Edna, left alone in the little side room, loosened her clothes, removing
the greater part of them. She bathed her face, her neck and arms in
the basin that stood between the windows. She took off her shoes and
stockings and stretched herself in the very center of the high, white
bed. How luxurious it felt to rest thus in a strange, quaint bed,
with its sweet country odor of laurel lingering about the sheets and
mattress! She stretched her strong limbs that ached a little. She ran
her fingers through her loosened hair for a while. She looked at her
round arms as she held them straight up and rubbed them one after the
other, observing closely, as if it were something she saw for the first
time, the fine, firm quality and texture of her flesh. She clasped her
hands easily above her head, and it was thus she fell asleep.

She slept lightly at first, half awake and drowsily attentive to the
things about her. She could hear Madame Antoine's heavy, scraping tread
as she walked back and forth on the sanded floor. Some chickens were
clucking outside the windows, scratching for bits of gravel in the
grass. Later she half heard the voices of Robert and Tonie talking under
the shed. She did not stir. Even her eyelids rested numb and heavily
over her sleepy eyes. The voices went on--Tonie's slow, Acadian drawl,
Robert's quick, soft, smooth French. She understood French imperfectly
unless directly addressed, and the voices were only part of the other
drowsy, muffled sounds lulling her senses.

When Edna awoke it was with the conviction that she had slept long and
soundly. The voices were hushed under the shed. Madame Antoine's step
was no longer to be heard in the adjoining room. Even the chickens had
gone elsewhere to scratch and cluck. The mosquito bar was drawn over
her; the old woman had come in while she slept and let down the bar.
Edna arose quietly from the bed, and looking between the curtains of the
window, she saw by the slanting rays of the sun that the afternoon was
far advanced. Robert was out there under the shed, reclining in the
shade against the sloping keel of the overturned boat. He was reading
from a book. Tonie was no longer with him. She wondered what had become
of the rest of the party. She peeped out at him two or three times as
she stood washing herself in the little basin between the windows.

Madame Antoine had laid some coarse, clean towels upon a chair, and had
placed a box of poudre de riz within easy reach. Edna dabbed the powder
upon her nose and cheeks as she looked at herself closely in the little
distorted mirror which hung on the wall above the basin. Her eyes were
bright and wide awake and her face glowed.

When she had completed her toilet she walked into the adjoining room.
She was very hungry. No one was there. But there was a cloth spread upon
the table that stood against the wall, and a cover was laid for one,
with a crusty brown loaf and a bottle of wine beside the plate. Edna bit
a piece from the brown loaf, tearing it with her strong, white teeth.
She poured some of the wine into the glass and drank it down. Then she
went softly out of doors, and plucking an orange from the low-hanging
bough of a tree, threw it at Robert, who did not know she was awake and
up.

An illumination broke over his whole face when he saw her and joined her
under the orange tree.

"How many years have I slept?" she inquired. "The whole island seems
changed. A new race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only you and
me as past relics. How many ages ago did Madame Antoine and Tonie die?
and when did our people from Grand Isle disappear from the earth?"

He familiarly adjusted a ruffle upon her shoulder.

"You have slept precisely one hundred years. I was left here to guard
your slumbers; and for one hundred years I have been out under the shed
reading a book. The only evil I couldn't prevent was to keep a broiled
fowl from drying up."

"If it has turned to stone, still will I eat it," said Edna, moving with
him into the house. "But really, what has become of Monsieur Farival and
the others?"

"Gone hours ago. When they found that you were sleeping they thought
it best not to awake you. Any way, I wouldn't have let them. What was I
here for?"

"I wonder if Leonce will be uneasy!" she speculated, as she seated
herself at table.

"Of course not; he knows you are with me," Robert replied, as he
busied himself among sundry pans and covered dishes which had been left
standing on the hearth.

"Where are Madame Antoine and her son?" asked Edna.

"Gone to Vespers, and to visit some friends, I believe. I am to take you
back in Tonie's boat whenever you are ready to go."

He stirred the smoldering ashes till the broiled fowl began to sizzle
afresh. He served her with no mean repast, dripping the coffee anew
and sharing it with her. Madame Antoine had cooked little else than
the mullets, but while Edna slept Robert had foraged the island. He was
childishly gratified to discover her appetite, and to see the relish
with which she ate the food which he had procured for her.

"Shall we go right away?" she asked, after draining her glass and
brushing together the crumbs of the crusty loaf.

"The sun isn't as low as it will be in two hours," he answered.

"The sun will be gone in two hours."

"Well, let it go; who cares!"

They waited a good while under the orange trees, till Madame Antoine
came back, panting, waddling, with a thousand apologies to explain
her absence. Tonie did not dare to return. He was shy, and would not
willingly face any woman except his mother.

It was very pleasant to stay there under the orange trees, while the sun
dipped lower and lower, turning the western sky to flaming copper and
gold. The shadows lengthened and crept out like stealthy, grotesque
monsters across the grass.

Edna and Robert both sat upon the ground--that is, he lay upon the
ground beside her, occasionally picking at the hem of her muslin gown.

Madame Antoine seated her fat body, broad and squat, upon a bench beside
the door. She had been talking all the afternoon, and had wound herself
up to the storytelling pitch.

And what stories she told them! But twice in her life she had left the
Cheniere Caminada, and then for the briefest span. All her years she
had squatted and waddled there upon the island, gathering legends of the
Baratarians and the sea. The night came on, with the moon to lighten
it. Edna could hear the whispering voices of dead men and the click of
muffled gold.

When she and Robert stepped into Tonie's boat, with the red lateen sail,
misty spirit forms were prowling in the shadows and among the reeds, and
upon the water were phantom ships, speeding to cover.




Chapter 14

The youngest boy, Etienne, had been very naughty, Madame Ratignolle
said, as she delivered him into the hands of his mother. He had been
unwilling to go to bed and had made a scene; whereupon she had taken
charge of him and pacified him as well as she could. Raoul had been in
bed and asleep for two hours.

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.

Leonce had been very uneasy at first, Madame Ratignolle said, and had
wanted to start at once for the Cheniere. 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. Goodnight."

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.