________________________________________________
_ When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late,
as was her habit, an unusually animated conversation seemed to be
going on. Several persons were talking at once, and Victor's voice
was predominating, even over that of his mother. Edna had returned
late from her bath, had dressed in some haste, and her face was
flushed. Her head, set off by her dainty white gown, suggested a
rich, rare blossom. She took her seat at table between old
Monsieur Farival and Madame Ratignolle.
As she seated herself and was about to begin to eat her soup,
which had been served when she entered the room, several persons
informed her simultaneously that Robert was going to Mexico.
She laid her spoon down and looked about her bewildered.
He had been with her, reading to her all the morning,
and had never even mentioned such a place as Mexico.
She had not seen him during the afternoon; she had heard
some one say he was at the house, upstairs with his mother.
This she had thought nothing of, though she was surprised
when he did not join her later in the afternoon,
when she went down to the beach.
She looked across at him, where he sat beside Madame Lebrun,
who presided. Edna's face was a blank picture of bewilderment,
which she never thought of disguising. He lifted his eyebrows with
the pretext of a smile as he returned her glance. He looked
embarrassed and uneasy. "When is he going?" she asked of everybody
in general, as if Robert were not there to answer for himself.
"To-night!" "This very evening!" "Did you ever!"
"What possesses him!" were some of the replies she gathered,
uttered simultaneously in French and English.
"Impossible!" she exclaimed. "How can a person start off from
Grand Isle to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over
to Klein's or to the wharf or down to the beach?"
"I said all along I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so
for years!" cried Robert, in an excited and irritable tone, with
the air of a man defending himself against a swarm of stinging
insects.
Madame Lebrun knocked on the table with her knife handle.
"Please let Robert explain why he is going, and why he is
going to-night," she called out. "Really, this table is getting to
be more and more like Bedlam every day, with everybody talking at
once. Sometimes--I hope God will forgive me--but positively,
sometimes I wish Victor would lose the power of speech."
Victor laughed sardonically as he thanked his mother for her
holy wish, of which he failed to see the benefit to anybody, except
that it might afford her a more ample opportunity and license to
talk herself.
Monsieur Farival thought that Victor should have been taken
out in mid-ocean in his earliest youth and drowned. Victor thought
there would be more logic in thus disposing of old people with an
established claim for making themselves universally obnoxious.
Madame Lebrun grew a trifle hysterical; Robert called his brother
some sharp, hard names.
"There's nothing much to explain, mother," he said; though he
explained, nevertheless--looking chiefly at Edna--that he could
only meet the gentleman whom he intended to join at Vera Cruz by
taking such and such a steamer, which left New Orleans on such a
day; that Beaudelet was going out with his lugger-load of
vegetables that night, which gave him an opportunity of reaching
the city and making his vessel in time.
"But when did you make up your mind to all this?" demanded
Monsieur Farival.
"This afternoon," returned Robert, with a shade of annoyance.
"At what time this afternoon?" persisted the old gentleman,
with nagging determination, as if he were cross-questioning a
criminal in a court of justice.
"At four o'clock this afternoon, Monsieur Farival," Robert
replied, in a high voice and with a lofty air, which reminded Edna
of some gentleman on the stage.
She had forced herself to eat most of her soup, and now she
was picking the flaky bits of a court bouillon with her fork.
The lovers were profiting by the general conversation on
Mexico to speak in whispers of matters which they rightly
considered were interesting to no one but themselves. The lady in
black had once received a pair of prayer-beads of curious
workmanship from Mexico, with very special indulgence attached to
them, but she had never been able to ascertain whether the
indulgence extended outside the Mexican border. Father Fochel of
the Cathedral had attempted to explain it; but he had not done so
to her satisfaction. And she begged that Robert would interest
himself, and discover, if possible, whether she was entitled to
the indulgence accompanying the remarkably curious Mexican prayer-beads.
Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme
caution in dealing with the Mexicans, who, she considered, were a
treacherous people, unscrupulous and revengeful. She trusted she
did them no injustice in thus condemning them as a race. She had
known personally but one Mexican, who made and sold excellent
tamales, and whom she would have trusted implicitly, so softspoken
was he. One day he was arrested for stabbing his wife. She never
knew whether he had been hanged or not.
Victor had grown hilarious, and was attempting to tell an
anecdote about a Mexican girl who served chocolate one winter in a
restaurant in Dauphine Street. No one would listen to him but old
Monsieur Farival, who went into convulsions over the droll story.
Edna wondered if they had all gone mad, to be talking and
clamoring at that rate. She herself could think of nothing to say
about Mexico or the Mexicans.
"At what time do you leave?" she asked Robert.
"At ten," he told her. "Beaudelet wants to wait for the moon."
"Are you all ready to go?"
"Quite ready. I shall only take a hand-bag, and shall pack my
trunk in the city."
He turned to answer some question put to him by his mother,
and Edna, having finished her black coffee, left the table.
She went directly to her room. The little cottage was close
and stuffy after leaving the outer air. But she did not mind;
there appeared to be a hundred different things demanding her
attention indoors. She began to set the toilet-stand to rights,
grumbling at the negligence of the quadroon, who was in the
adjoining room putting the children to bed. She gathered together
stray garments that were hanging on the backs of chairs, and put
each where it belonged in closet or bureau drawer. She changed her
gown for a more comfortable and commodious wrapper. She rearranged
her hair, combing and brushing it with unusual energy. Then she went in
and assisted the quadroon in getting the boys to bed.
They were very playful and inclined to talk--to do anything
but lie quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her
supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the
children a story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added
to their wakefulness. She left them in heated argument,
speculating about the conclusion of the tale which their mother
promised to finish the following night.
The little black girl came in to say that Madame Lebrun would
like to have Mrs. Pontellier go and sit with them over at the house
till Mr. Robert went away. Edna returned answer that she had
already undressed, that she did not feel quite well, but perhaps
she would go over to the house later. She started to dress again,
and got as far advanced as to remove her peignoir. But
changing her mind once more she resumed the peignoir, and went
outside and sat down before her door. She was overheated and
irritable, and fanned herself energetically for a while. Madame
Ratignolle came down to discover what was the matter.
"All that noise and confusion at the table must have upset
me," replied Edna, "and moreover, I hate shocks and surprises.
The idea of Robert starting off in such a ridiculously sudden
and dramatic way! As if it were a matter of life and death!
Never saying a word about it all morning when he was with me."
"Yes," agreed Madame Ratignolle. "I think it was showing us
all--you especially--very little consideration. It wouldn't have
surprised me in any of the others; those Lebruns are all given to
heroics. But I must say I should never have expected such a thing
from Robert. Are you not coming down? Come on, dear; it doesn't
look friendly."
"No," said Edna, a little sullenly. "I can't go to the
trouble of dressing again; I don't feel like it."
"You needn't dress; you look all right; fasten a belt around
your waist. Just look at me!"
"No," persisted Edna; "but you go on. Madame Lebrun might be
offended if we both stayed away."
Madame Ratignolle kissed Edna good-night, and went away, being
in truth rather desirous of joining in the general and animated
conversation which was still in progress concerning Mexico and the
Mexicans.
Somewhat later Robert came up, carrying his hand-bag.
"Aren't you feeling well?" he asked.
"Oh, well enough. Are you going right away?"
He lit a match and looked at his watch. "In twenty minutes,"
he said. The sudden and brief flare of the match emphasized the
darkness for a while. He sat down upon a stool which the children
had left out on the porch.
"Get a chair," said Edna.
"This will do," he replied. He put on his soft hat and
nervously took it off again, and wiping his face with his
handkerchief, complained of the heat.
"Take the fan," said Edna, offering it to him.
"Oh, no! Thank you. It does no good; you have to stop fanning
some time, and feel all the more uncomfortable afterward."
"That's one of the ridiculous things which men always say. I
have never known one to speak otherwise of fanning. How long will
you be gone?"
"Forever, perhaps. I don't know. It depends upon a good many things."
"Well, in case it shouldn't be forever, how long will it be?"
"I don't know."
"This seems to me perfectly preposterous and uncalled for. I
don't like it. I don't understand your motive for silence and
mystery, never saying a word to me about it this morning." He
remained silent, not offering to defend himself. He only said,
after a moment:
"Don't part from me in any ill humor. I never knew you to be
out of patience with me before."
"I don't want to part in any ill humor," she said. "But can't
you understand? I've grown used to seeing you, to having you with
me all the time, and your action seems unfriendly, even unkind.
You don't even offer an excuse for it. Why, I was planning to be together,
thinking of how pleasant it would be to see you in the city next winter."
"So was I," he blurted. "Perhaps that's the--" He stood up
suddenly and held out his hand. "Good-by, my dear Mrs. Pontellier;
good-by. You won't--I hope you won't completely forget me."
She clung to his hand, striving to detain him.
"Write to me when you get there, won't you, Robert?" she entreated.
"I will, thank you. Good-by."
How unlike Robert! The merest acquaintance would have said
something more emphatic than "I will, thank you; good-by," to such
a request.
He had evidently already taken leave of the people over at the
house, for he descended the steps and went to join Beaudelet, who
was out there with an oar across his shoulder waiting for Robert.
They walked away in the darkness. She could only hear Beaudelet's
voice; Robert had apparently not even spoken a word of greeting to
his companion.
Edna bit her handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back
and to hide, even from herself as she would have hidden from
another, the emotion which was troubling--tearing--her. Her eyes
were brimming with tears.
For the first time she recognized the symptoms of infatuation
which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her
earliest teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did
not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any
suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her;
offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a
mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone
was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with
the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held,
that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened
being demanded. _
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