“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.”
”
It was growing late, and there was a general disposition to disband.
But some one, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath at that mystic
hour and under that mystic moon.
X
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.
“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.”
”
“I have forgotten nothing at Grand Isle,” he said, not looking at her,
but rolling a cigarette. His tobacco pouch, which he laid upon the
table, was a fantastic embroidered silk affair, evidently the handiwork
of a woman.
“You used to carry your tobacco in a rubber pouch,” said Edna, picking
up the pouch and examining the needlework.
“Yes; it was lost.”
“Where did you buy this one? In Mexico?”
“It was given to me by a Vera Cruz girl; they are very generous,” he
replied, striking a match and lighting his cigarette.
“They are very handsome, I suppose, those Mexican women; very
picturesque, with their black eyes and their lace scarfs.”
“Some are; others are hideous, just as you find women everywhere.”
“What was she like—the one who gave you the pouch? You must have known
her very well.”
“She was very ordinary. She wasn’t of the slightest importance. I knew
her well enough.”
“Did you visit at her house? Was it interesting? I should like to know
and hear about the people you met, and the impressions they made on
you.”
“There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the
imprint of an oar upon the water.”
“Was she such a one?”
“It would be ungenerous for me to admit that she was of that order and
kind.” He thrust the pouch back in his pocket, as if to put away the
subject with the trifle which had brought it up.
Arobin dropped in with a message from Mrs. Merriman, to say that the
card party was postponed on account of the illness of one of her
children.
“How do you do, Arobin?” said Robert, rising from the obscurity.
“Oh! Lebrun. To be sure! I heard yesterday you were back. How did they
treat you down in Mexique?”
“Fairly well.”
“But not well enough to keep you there. Stunning girls, though, in
Mexico. I thought I should never get away from Vera Cruz when I was
down there a couple of years ago.”
“Did they embroider slippers and tobacco pouches and hat-bands and
things for you?” asked Edna.
“Oh! my! no! I didn’t get so deep in their regard. I fear they made
more impression on me than I made on them.”
“You were less fortunate than Robert, then.”
“I am always less fortunate than Robert.
“But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!”
The sun was low in the west and the
breeze was soft and warm.
VI
Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach
with Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the
second place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory
impulses which impelled her.
A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,—the light
which, showing the way, forbids it.
At that early period it served but to bewilder her. It moved her to
dreams, to thoughtfulness, to the shadowy anguish which had overcome
her the midnight when she had abandoned herself to tears.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the
universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an
individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a
ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of
twenty-eight—perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased
to vouchsafe to any woman.
But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily
vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever
emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering,
clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in
abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is
sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
VII
Mrs. Pontellier was not a woman given to confidences, a characteristic
hitherto contrary to her nature. Even as a child she had lived her own
small life all within herself. At a very early period she had
apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which
conforms, the inward life which questions.
That summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little the mantle of
reserve that had always enveloped her. There may have been—there must
have been—influences, both subtle and apparent, working in their
several ways to induce her to do this; but the most obvious was the
influence of Adèle Ratignolle. The excessive physical charm of the
Creole had first attracted her, for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility
to beauty.
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,—the light
which, showing the way, forbids it.
At that early period it served but to bewilder her. It moved her to
dreams, to thoughtfulness, to the shadowy anguish which had overcome
her the midnight when she had abandoned herself to tears.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the
universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an
individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a
ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of
twenty-eight—perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased
to vouchsafe to any woman.
But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily
vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever
emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering,
clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in
abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is
sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.
VII
Mrs. Pontellier was not a woman given to confidences, a characteristic
hitherto contrary to her nature. Even as a child she had lived her own
small life all within herself. At a very early period she had
apprehended instinctively the dual life—that outward existence which
conforms, the inward life which questions.
That summer at Grand Isle she began to loosen a little the mantle of
reserve that had always enveloped her. There may have been—there must
have been—influences, both subtle and apparent, working in their
several ways to induce her to do this; but the most obvious was the
influence of Adèle Ratignolle. The excessive physical charm of the
Creole had first attracted her, for Edna had a sensuous susceptibility
to beauty. Then the candor of the woman’s whole existence, which every
one might read, and which formed so striking a contrast to her own
habitual reserve—this might have furnished a link. Who can tell what
metals the gods use in forging the subtle bond which we call sympathy,
which we might as well call love.
“He greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a rare lace curtain -- no matter what -- after he had bought it and placed it among his household gods.”
agreed Mademoiselle Reisz, with a shrug, “rather pleasant, if
it hadn’t been for the mosquitoes and the Farival twins.”
XVII
The Pontelliers possessed a very charming home on Esplanade Street in
New Orleans. It was a large, double cottage, with a broad front
veranda, whose round, fluted columns supported the sloping roof. The
house was painted a dazzling white; the outside shutters, or jalousies,
were green. In the yard, which was kept scrupulously neat, were flowers
and plants of every description which flourishes in South Louisiana.
Within doors the appointments were perfect after the conventional type.
The softest carpets and rugs covered the floors; rich and tasteful
draperies hung at doors and windows. There were paintings, selected
with judgment and discrimination, upon the walls. The cut glass, the
silver, the heavy damask which daily appeared upon the table were the
envy of many women whose husbands were less generous than Mr.
Pontellier.
Mr. Pontellier was very fond of walking about his house examining its
various appointments and details, to see that nothing was amiss. He
greatly valued his possessions, chiefly because they were his, and
derived genuine pleasure from contemplating a painting, a statuette, a
rare lace curtain—no matter what—after he had bought it and placed it
among his household gods.
On Tuesday afternoons—Tuesday being Mrs. Pontellier’s reception
day—there was a constant stream of callers—women who came in carriages
or in the street cars, or walked when the air was soft and distance
permitted. A light-colored mulatto boy, in dress coat and bearing a
diminutive silver tray for the reception of cards, admitted them. A
maid, in white fluted cap, offered the callers liqueur, coffee, or
chocolate, as they might desire. Mrs. Pontellier, attired in a handsome
reception gown, remained in the drawing-room the entire afternoon
receiving her visitors. Men sometimes called in the evening with their
wives.
This had been the programme which Mrs. Pontellier had religiously
followed since her marriage, six years before. Certain evenings during
the week she and her husband attended the opera or sometimes the play.
Mr. Pontellier left his home in the mornings between nine and ten
o’clock, and rarely returned before half-past six or seven in the
evening—dinner being served at half-past seven.
“And moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul . . . the brave soul. The soul that dares and defies.”
“I trust it will not be giving away professional secrets to say that many readers would be surprised, perhaps shocked, at the questions which some newspaper editors will put to a defenseless woman under the guise of flattery.”
“I wonder if anyone else has an ear so tuned and sharpened as I have, to detect the music, not of the spheres, but of earth, subtleties of major and minor chord that the wind strikes upon the tree branches. Have you ever heard the earth breathe . . . ?”
There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.
...when he possessed her, they seemed to swoon together at the very borderland of life’s mystery.
The morning was full of sunlight and hope.
She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.
What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! Free! Body and soul free! She kept whispering.
She liked then to wander alone into strange and unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner, fashioned to dream in.
…there would be no powerful will binding hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature…And yet she had loved him- sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being.
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.
So does he live, seeking, finding, joying and suffering.
Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without love as an excuse.
Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
It sometimes entered Mr. Pontelliers mind to wonder if his wife were not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.
