by Kate Chopin
They sat in the drawing-room before the portrait of Gustave, which was draped with his scarf. Above the picture hung his sword, and beneath it was an embankment of flowers. Sépincourt felt an almost irresistible impulse to bend his knee before this altar, upon which he saw foreshadowed the immolation of his hopes.
There was a soft air blowing gently over the marais. It came to them through the open window, laden with a hundred subtle sounds and scents of the springtime. It seemed to remind Madame of something far, far away, for she gazed dreamily out into the blue firmament. It fretted Sépincourt with impulses to speech and action which he found it impossible to control.
“You must know what has brought me,” he began impulsively, drawing his chair nearer to hers. “Through all these months I have never ceased to love you and to long for you. Night and day the sound of your dear voice has been with me; your eyes” —
She held out her hand deprecatingly. He took it and held it. She let it lie unresponsive in his.
“You cannot have forgotten that you loved me not long ago,” he went on eagerly, “that you were ready to follow me anywhere, — anywhere; do you remember? I have come now to ask you to fulfill that promise; to ask you to be my wife, my companion, the dear treasure of my life.”
She heard his warm and pleading tones as though listening to a strange language, imperfectly understood.
She withdrew her hand from his, and leaned her brow thoughtfully upon it.
“Can you not feel — can you not understand, mon ami,” she said calmly, “that now such a thing — such a thought, is impossible to me?”
“Impossible?”
“Yes, impossible. Can you not see that now my heart, my soul, my thought — my very life, must belong to another? It could not be different.”
“Would you have me believe that you can wed your young existence to the dead?” he exclaimed with something like horror. Her glance was sunk deep in the embankment of flowers before her.
“My husband has never been so living to me as he is now,” she replied with a faint smile of commiseration for Sépincourt’s fatuity. “Every object that surrounds me speaks to me of him. I look yonder across the marais, and I see him coming toward me, tired and toil-stained from the hunt. I see him again sitting in this chair or in that one. I hear his familiar voice, his footsteps upon the galleries. We walk once more together beneath the magnolias; and at night in dreams I feel that he is there, there, near me. How could it be different! Ah! I have memories, memories to crowd and fill my life, if I live a hundred years!”
Sépincourt was wondering why she did not take the sword from her altar and thrust it through his body here and there. The effect would have been infinitely more agreeable than her words, penetrating his soul like fire. He arose confused, enraged with pain.
“Then, Madame,” he stammered, “there is nothing left for me but to take my leave. I bid you adieu.”
“Do not be offended, mon ami,” she said kindly, holding out her hand. “You are going to Paris, I suppose?”
“What does it matter,” he exclaimed desperately, “where I go?”
“Oh, I only wanted to wish you bon voyage,” she assured him amiably.
Many days after that Sépincourt spent in the fruitless mental effort of trying to comprehend that psychological enigma, a woman’s heart.
Madame still lives on Bayou St. John. She is rather an old lady now, a very pretty old lady, against whose long years of widowhood there has never been a breath of reproach. The memory of Gustave still fills and satisfies her days. She has never failed, once a year, to have a solemn high mass said for the repose of his soul.
A NIGHT IN ACADIE
The Chicago publisher, Way & Williams, published A Night in Acadie, Kate Chopin’s second collection of short stories, in 1897. Like its predecessor, Bayou Folk, the collection features stories taking place in Louisiana, but often with bolder themes. One of its better known stories, “Athenaise,” tells the tale of a restless young woman who leaves her husband and life on a plantation after two months of marriage. Her experiences in New Orleans lead to self-discovery and ultimately, a return to her husband, Cazeau. Some critics point to the story as a precursor to themes Chopin developed more fully in her masterpiece, The Awakening. Other stories focus on the emerging passions of unusual women who battle the conventional norms of society. Although Chopin’s fellow 19th-century French and American realists strongly influenced her writing style, her immersion in local color and her closely observed, compassionate renderings of women characters mark her work as among the most insightful and original of its time.
The first edition
The original title page
Kate Chopin in 1893
CONTENTS
A NIGHT IN ACADIE
ATHÉNAÏSE
AFTER THE WINTER
POLYDORE
REGRET
A MATTER OF PREJUDICE
CALINE
A DRESDEN LADY IN DIXIE
NÉG CRÉOL
THE LILIES
AZÉLIE
MAMOUCHE
A SENTIMENTAL SOUL
DEAD MEN’S SHOES
AT CHÊNIÈRE CAMINADA
ODALIE MISSES MASS
CAVANELLE
TANTE CAT’RINETTE
A RESPECTABLE WOMAN
RIPE FIGS
OZÈME’S HOLIDAY
The original frontispiece image
A NIGHT IN ACADIE
There was nothing to do on the plantation so Telèsphore, having a few dollars in his pocket, thought he would go down and spend Sunday in the vicinity of Marksville.
There was really nothing more to do in the vicinity of Marksville than in the neighborhood of his own small farm; but Elvina would not be down there, nor Amaranthe, nor any of Ma’me Valtour’s daughters to harass him with doubt, to torture him with indecision, to turn his very soul into a weather-cock for love’s fair winds to play with.
Telèsphore at twenty-eight had long felt the need of a wife. His home without one was like an empty temple in which there is no altar, no offering. So keenly did he realize the necessity that a dozen times at least during the past year he had been on the point of proposing marriage to almost as many different young women of the neighborhood. Therein lay the difficulty, the trouble which Telèsphore experienced in making up his mind. Elvina’s eyes were beautiful and had often tempted him to the verge of a declaration. But her skin was over swarthy for a wife; and her movements were slow and heavy; he doubted she had Indian blood, and we all know what Indian blood is for treachery. Amaranthe presented in her person none of these obstacles to matrimony. If her eyes were not so handsome as Elvina’s, her skin was fine, and being slender to a fault, she moved swiftly about her household affairs, or when she walked the country lanes in going to church or to the store. Telèsphore had once reached the point of believing that Amaranthe would make him an excellent wife. He had even started out one day with the intention of declaring himself, when, as the god of chance would have it, Ma’me Valtour espied him passing in the road and enticed him to enter and partake of coffee and “baignés.” He would have been a man of stone to have resisted, or to have remained insensible to the charms and accomplishments of the Valtour girls. Finally there was Ganache’s widow, seductive rather than handsome, with a good bit of property in her own right. While Telèsphore was considering his chances of happiness or even success with Ganache’s widow, she married a younger man.
From these embarrassing conditions, Telèsphore sometimes felt himself forced to escape; to change his environment for a day or two and thereby gain a few new insights by shifting his point of view.
It was Saturday morning that he decided to spend Sunday in the vicinity of Marksville, and the same afternoon found him waiting at the country station for the south-bound train.
He was a robust young fellow with good, strong features and a somewhat determined expression — despite his vacillations in the choice of a wife. He was dressed rather carefully
in navy-blue “store clothes” that fitted well because anything would have fitted Telèsphore. He had been freshly shaved and trimmed and carried an umbrella. He wore — a little tilted over one eye — a straw hat in preference to the conventional gray felt; for no other reason than that his uncle Telèsphore would have worn a felt, and a battered one at that. His whole conduct of life had been planned on lines in direct contradistinction to those of his uncle Telèsphore, whom he was thought in early youth to greatly resemble. The elder Telèsphore could not read nor write, therefore the younger had made it the object of his existence to acquire these accomplishments. The uncle pursued the avocations of hunting, fishing and moss-picking; employments which the nephew held in detestation. And as for carrying an umbrella, “None” Telèsphore would have walked the length of the parish in a deluge before he would have so much as thought of one. In short, Telèsphore, by advisedly shaping his course in direct opposition to that of his uncle, managed to lead a rather orderly, industrious, and respectable existence.
It was a little warm for April but the car was not uncomfortably crowded and Telèsphore was fortunate enough to secure the last available window-seat on the shady side. He was not too familiar with railway travel, his expeditions being usually made on horse-back or in a buggy, and the short trip promised to interest him.
There was no one present whom he knew well enough to speak to: the district attorney, whom he knew by sight, a French priest from Natchitoches and a few faces that were familiar only because they were native.
But he did not greatly care to speak to anyone. There was a fair stand of cotton and corn in the fields and Telèsphore gathered satisfaction in silent contemplation of the crops, comparing them with his own.
It was toward the close of his journey that a young girl boarded the train. There had been girls getting on and off at intervals and it was perhaps because of the bustle attending her arrival that this one attracted Telèsphore’s attention.
She called good-bye to her father from the platform and waved goodbye to him through the dusty, sun-lit window pane after entering, for she was compelled to seat herself on the sunny side. She seemed inwardly excited and preoccupied save for the attention which she lavished upon a large parcel that she carried religiously and laid reverentially down upon the seat before her.
She was neither tall nor short, nor stout nor slender; nor was she beautiful, nor was she plain. She wore a figured lawn, cut a little low in the back, that exposed a round, soft nuque with a few little clinging circlets of soft, brown hair. Her hat was of white straw, cocked up on the side with a bunch of pansies, and she wore gray lisle-thread gloves. The girl seemed very warm and kept mopping her face. She vainly sought her fan, then she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and finally made an attempt to open the window. She might as well have tried to move the banks of Red river.
Telèsphore had been unconsciously watching her the whole time and perceiving her straight he arose and went to her assistance. But the window could not be opened. When he had grown red in the face and wasted an amount of energy that would have driven the plow for a day, he offered her his seat on the shady side. She demurred — there would be no room for the bundle. He suggested that the bundle be left where it was and agreed to assist her in keeping an eye upon it. She accepted Telèsphore’s place at the shady window and he seated himself beside her.
He wondered if she would speak to him. He feared she might have mistaken him for a Western drummer, in which event he knew that she would not; for the women of the country caution their daughters against speaking to strangers on the trains. But the girl was not one to mistake an Acadian farmer for a Western traveling man. She was not born in Avoyelles parish for nothing.
“I wouldn’ want anything to happen to it,” she said.
“It’s all right w’ere it is,” he assured her, following the direction of her glance, that was fastened upon the bundle.
“The las’ time I came over to Foché’s ball I got caught in the rain on my way up to my cousin’s house, an’ my dress! J’ vous réponds! it was a sight. Li’le mo’, I would miss the ball. As it was, the dress looked like I’d wo’ it weeks without doin’-up.”
“No fear of rain to-day,” he reassured her, glancing out at the sky, “but you can have my umbrella if it does rain; you jus’ as well take it as not.”
“Oh, no! I wrap’ the dress roun’ in toile-cirée this time. You goin’ to Foché’s ball? Didn’ I meet you once yonda on Bayou Derbanne? Looks like I know yo’ face. You mus’ come f’om Natchitoches pa’ish.”
“My cousins, the Fédeau family, live yonda. Me, I live on my own place in Rapides since ‘92.”
He wondered if she would follow up her inquiry relative to Foché’s ball. If she did, he was ready with an answer, for he had decided to go to the ball. But her thoughts evidently wandered from the subject and were occupied with matters that did not concern him, for she turned away and gazed silently out of the window.
It was not a village; it was not even a hamlet at which they descended. The station was set down upon the edge of a cotton field. Near at hand was the post office and store; there was a section house; there were a few cabins at wide intervals, and one in the distance the girl informed him was the home of her cousin, Jules Trodon. There lay a good bit of road before them and she did not hesitate to accept Telèsphore’s offer to bear her bundle on the way.
She carried herself boldly and stepped out freely and easily, like a negress. There was an absence of reserve in her manner; yet there was no lack of womanliness. She had the air of a young person accustomed to decide for herself and for those about her.
“You said yo’ name was Fédeau?” she asked, looking squarely at Telèsphore. Her eyes were penetrating — not sharply penetrating, but earnest and dark, and a little searching. He noticed that they were handsome eyes; not so large as Elvina’s, but finer in their expression. They started to walk down the track before turning into the lane leading to Trodon’s house. The sun was sinking and the air was fresh and invigorating by contrast with the stifling atmosphere of the train.
“You said yo’ name was Fédeau?” she asked.
“No,” he returned. “My name is Telèsphore Baquette.”
“An’ my name; it’s Zaïda Trodon. It looks like you ought to know me; I don’ know w’y.”
“It looks that way to me, somehow,” he replied. They were satisfied to recognize this feeling — almost conviction — of pre-acquaintance, without trying to penetrate its cause.
By the time they reached Trodon’s house he knew that she lived over on Bayou de Glaize with her parents and a number of younger brothers and sisters. It was rather dull where they lived and she often came to lend a hand when her cousin’s wife got tangled in domestic complications; or, as she was doing now, when Foché’s Saturday ball promised to be unusually important and brilliant. There would be people there even from Marksville, she thought; there were often gentlemen from Alexandria. Telèsphore was as unreserved as she, and they appeared like old acquaintances when they reached Trodon’s gate.
Trodon’s wife was standing on the gallery with a baby in her arms, watching for Zaïda; and four little bare-footed children were sitting in a row on the step, also waiting; but terrified and struck motionless and dumb at sight of a stranger. He opened the gate for the girl but stayed outside himself. Zaïda presented him formally to her cousin’s wife, who insisted upon his entering.
“Ah, b’en, pour ça! you got to come in. It’s any sense you goin’ to walk yonda to Foché’s! Ti Jules, run call yo’ pa.” As if Ti Jules could have run or walked even, or moved a muscle!
But Telèsphore was firm. He drew forth his silver watch and looked at it in a business-like fashion. He always carried a watch; his uncle Telèsphore always told the time by the sun, or by instinct, like an animal. He was quite determined to walk on to Foché’s, a couple of miles away, where he expected to secure supper and a lodging, as well as the pleasing distraction of the ball.
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br /> “Well, I reckon I see you all to-night,” he uttered in cheerful anticipation as he moved away.
“You’ll see Zaïda; yes, an’ Jules,” called out Trodon’s wife good-humoredly. “Me, I got no time to fool with balls, J’ vous réponds! with all them chil’ren.”
“He’s good-lookin’; yes,” she exclaimed, when Telèsphore was out of ear-shot. “An’ dressed! it’s like a prince. I didn’ know you knew any Baquettes, you, Zaïda.”
“It’s strange you don’ know ‘em yo’ se’f, cousine.” Well, there had been no question from Ma’me Trodon, so why should there be an answer from Zaïda?
Telèsphore wondered as he walked why he had not accepted the invitation to enter. He was not regretting it; he was simply wondering what could have induced him to decline. For it surely would have been agreeable to sit there on the gallery waiting while Zaïda prepared herself for the dance; to have partaken of supper with the family and afterward accompanied them to Foché’s. The whole situation was so novel, and had presented itself so unexpectedly that Telèsphore wished in reality to become acquainted with it, accustomed to it. He wanted to view it from this side and that in comparison with other, familiar situations. The girl had impressed him — affected him in some way; but in some new, unusual way, not as the others always had. He could not recall details of her personality as he could recall such details of Amaranthe or the Valtours, of any of them. When Telèsphore tried to think of her he could not think at all. He seemed to have absorbed her in some way and his brain was not so occupied with her as his senses were. At that moment he was looking forward to the ball; there was no doubt about that. Afterwards, he did not know what he would look forward to; he did not care; afterward made no difference. If he had expected the crash of doom to come after the dance at Foché’s, he would only have smiled in his thankfulness that it was not to come before.