Complete Works of Kate Chopin

by Kate Chopin

  It must be admitted that this little episode, however graceful, was hardly a fitting prelude to the magnificent “Jewel Song from ‘Faust,’” with which Miss Brainard next consented to regale the company. That Miss Brainard possessed a voice, was a fact that had existed as matter of tradition in the family as far back almost as the days of that young lady’s baby utterances, in which loving ears had already detected the promise which time had so recklessly fulfilled.

  True genius is not to be held in abeyance, though a host of Engfelders would rise to quell it with their mundane protests!

  Miss Brainard’s rendition was a triumphant achievement of sound, and with the proud flush of success moving her to kind condescension, she asked Miss Von Stoltz to “please play something.”

  Paula amiably consented, choosing a selection from the Modern Classic. How little did her auditors appreciate in the performance the results of a life study, of a drilling that had made her amongst the knowing an acknowledged mistress of technique. But to her skill she added the touch and interpretation of the artist; and in hearing her, even Ignorance paid to her genius the tribute of a silent emotion.

  When she arose there was a moment of quiet, which was broken by the black-eyed fairy, always ready to cast herself into a breach, observing, flippantly, “How pretty!” “Just lovely!” from another; and “What wouldn’t I give to play like that.” Each inane compliment falling like a dash of cold water on Paula’s ardor.

  She then became solicitous about the hour, with reference to her car, and George who stood near looked at his watch and informed her that the last car had gone by a full half hour before.

  “But,” he added, “if you are not expecting any one to call for you, I will gladly see you home.”

  “I expect no one, for the car that passes here would have set me down at my door,” and in this avowal of difficulties, she tacitly accepted George’s offer.

  The situation was new. It gave her a feeling of elation to be walking through the quiet night with this handsome young fellow. He talked so freely and so pleasantly. She felt such a comfort in his strong protective nearness. In clinging to him against the buffets of the staggering wind she could feel the muscles of his arms, like steel.

  He was so unlike any man of her acquaintance. Strictly unlike Poldorf, the pianist, the short rotundity of whose person could have been less objectionable, if she had not known its cause to lie in an inordinate consumption of beer. Old Engfelder, with his long hair, his spectacles and his loose, disjointed figure, was hors de combat in comparison. And of Max Kuntzler, the talented composer, her teacher of harmony, she could at the moment think of no positive point of objection against him, save the vague, general, serious one of his unlikeness to George.

  Her new-awakened admiration, though, was not deaf to a little inexplicable wish that he had not been so proficient with the banjo.

  On they went chatting gaily, until turning the corner of the street in which she lived, Paula saw that before the door stood Dr. Sinn’s buggy.

  Brainard could feel the quiver of surprised distress that shook her frame, as she said, hurrying along, “Oh! mamma must be ill — worse; they have called the doctor.”

  Reaching the house, she threw open wide the door that was unlocked, and he stood hesitatingly back. The gas in the small hall burned at its full, and showed Berta at the top of the stairs, speechless, with terrified eyes, looking down at her. And coming to meet her, was a neighbor, who strove with well-meaning solicitude to keep her back, to hold her yet a moment in ignorance of the cruel blow that fate had dealt her whilst she had in happy unconsciousness played her music for the dance.

  III

  Several months had passed since the dreadful night when death had deprived Paula for the second time of a loved parent.

  After the first shock of grief was over, the girl had thrown all her energies into work, with the view of attaining that position in the musical world which her father and mother had dreamed might be hers.

  She had remained in the small home occupying now but the half of it; and here she kept house with the faithful Berta’s aid.

  Friends were both kind and attentive to the stricken girl. But there had been two, whose constant devotion spoke of an interest deeper than mere friendly solicitude.

  Max Kuntzler’s love for Paula was something that had taken hold of his sober middle age with an enduring strength which was not to be lessened or shaken, by her rejection of it. He had asked leave to remain her friend, and while holding the tender, watchful privileges which that comprehensive title may imply, had refrained from further thrusting a warmer feeling on her acceptance.

  Paula one evening was seated in her small sitting-room, working over some musical transpositions, when a ring at the bell was followed by a footstep in the hall which made her hand and heart tremble.

  George Brainard entered the room, and before she could rise to greet him, had seated himself in the vacant chair beside her.

  “What an untiring worker you are,” he said, glancing down at the scores before her. “I always feel that my presence interrupts you; and yet I don’t know that a judicious interruption isn’t the wholesomest thing for you sometimes.”

  “You forget,” she said, smiling into his face, “that I was trained to it. I must keep myself fitted to my calling. Rest would mean deterioration.”

  “Would you not be willing to follow some other calling?” he asked, looking at her with unusual earnestness in his dark, handsome eyes.

  “Oh, never!”

  “Not if it were a calling that asked only for the labor of loving?”

  She made no answer, but kept her eyes fixed on the idle traceries that she drew with her pencil on the sheets before her.

  He arose and made a few impatient turns about the room, then coming again to her side, said abruptly:

  “Paula, I love you. It isn’t telling you something that you don’t know, unless you have been without bodily perceptions. To-day there is something driving me to speak it out in words. Since I have known you,” he continued, striving to look into her face that bent low over the work before her, “I have been mounting into higher and always higher circles of Paradise, under a blessed illusion that you — cared for me. But to-day, a feeling of dread has been forcing itself upon me — dread that with a word you might throw me back into a gulf that would now be one of everlasting misery. Say if you love me, Paula. I believe you do, and yet I wait with indefinable doubts for your answer.”

  He took her hand which she did not withdraw from his.

  “Why are you speechless? Why don’t you say something to me!” he asked desperately.

  “I am speechless with joy and misery,” she answered. “To know that you love me, gives me happiness enough to brighten a lifetime. And I am miserable, feeling that you have spoken the signal that must part us.”

  “You love me, and speak of parting. Never! You will be my wife. From this moment we belong to each other. Oh, my Paula,” he said, drawing her to his side, “my whole existence will be devoted to your happiness.”

  “I can’t marry you,” she said shortly, disengaging his hand from her waist.

  “Why?” he asked abruptly. They stood looking into each other’s eyes.

  “Because it doesn’t enter into the purpose of my life.”

  “I don’t ask you to give up anything in your life. I only beg you to let me share it with you.”

  George had known Paula only as the daughter of the undemonstrative American woman. He had never before seen her with the father’s emotional nature aroused in her. The color mounted into her cheeks, and her blue eyes were almost black with intensity of feeling.

  “Hush,” she said; “don’t tempt me further.” And she cast herself on her knees before the table near which they stood, gathering the music that lay upon it into an armful, and resting her hot cheek upon it.

  “What do you know of my life,” she exclaimed passionately. “What can you guess of it? Is music anything more to you
than the pleasing distraction of an idle moment? Can’t you feel that with me, it courses with the blood through my veins? That it’s something dearer than life, than riches, even than love?” with a quiver of pain.

  “Paula listen to me; don’t speak like a mad woman.”

  She sprang up and held out an arm to ward away his nearer approach.

  “Would you go into a convent, and ask to be your wife a nun who has vowed herself to the service of God?”

  “Yes, if that nun loved me; she would owe to herself, to me and to God to be my wife.”

  Paula seated herself on the sofa, all emotion seeming suddenly to have left her; and he came and sat beside her.

  “Say only that you love me, Paula,” he urged persistently.

  “I love you,” she answered low and with pale lips.

  He took her in his arms, holding her in silent rapture against his heart and kissing the white lips back into red life.

  “You will be my wife?”

  “You must wait. Come back in a week and I will answer you.” He was forced to be content with the delay.

  The days of probation being over, George went for his answer, which was given him by the old lady who occupied the upper story.

  “Ach Gott! Fräulein Von Stoltz ist schon im Leipsic gegangen!” — All that has not been many years ago. George Brainard is as handsome as ever, though growing a little stout in the quiet routine of domestic life. He has quite lost a pretty taste for music that formerly distinguished him as a skilful banjoist. This loss his little black-eyed wife deplores; though she has herself made concessions to the advancing years, and abandoned Virginia break-downs as incompatible with the serious offices of wifehood and matrimony.

  You may have seen in the morning paper, that the renowned pianist, Fräulein Paula Von Stoltz, is resting in Leipsic, after an extended and remunerative concert tour.

  Professor Max Kuntzler is also in Leipsic — with the ever persistent will — the dogged patience that so often wins in the end.

  EMANCIPATION. A LIFE FABLE

  There was once an animal born into this world, and opening his eyes upon Life, he saw above and about him confining walls, and before him were bars of iron through which came air and light from without; this animal was born in a cage.

  Here he grew, and throve in strength and beauty under care of an invisible protecting hand. Hungering, food was ever at hand. When he thirsted water was brought, and when he felt the need of rest, there was provided a bed of straw upon which to lie: and here he found it good, licking his handsome flanks, to bask in the sun beam that he thought existed but to lighten his home.

  Awaking one day from his slothful rest, lo! the door of his cage stood open: accident had opened it. In the corner he crouched, wondering and fearingly. Then slowly did he approach the door, dreading the unaccustomed, and would have closed it, but for such a task his limbs were purposeless. So out the opening he thrust his head, to see the canopy of the sky grow broader, and the world waxing wider.

  Back to his corner but not to rest, for the spell of the Unknown was over him, and again and again he goes to the open door, seeing each time more Light.

  Then one time standing in the flood of it; a deep in-drawn breath — a bracing of strong limbs, and with a bound he was gone.

  On he rushes, in his mad flight, heedless that he is wounding and tearing his sleek sides — seeing, smelling, touching of all things; even stopping to put his lips to the noxious pool, thinking it may be sweet.

  Hungering there is no food but such as he must seek and ofttimes fight for; and his limbs are weighted before he reaches the water that is good to his thirsting throat.

  So does he live, seeking, finding, joying and suffering. The door which accident had opened is open still, but the cage remains forever empty!

  A POINT AT ISSUE!

  MARRIED — On Tuesday, May 11, Eleanor Gail to Charles Faraday.

  Nothing bearing the shape of a wedding announcement could have been less obtrusive than the foregoing hidden in a remote corner of the Plymdale Promulgator, clothed in the palest and smallest of type, and modestly wedged in between the big, black-lettered offer of the Promulgator to mail itself free of extra charge to subscribers leaving home for the summer months, and an equally somber-clad notice (doubtless astray as to place and application) that Hammersmith & Co. were carrying a large and varied assortment of marble and granite monuments!

  Yet notwithstanding its sandwiched condition, that little marriage announcement seemed to Eleanor to parade the whole street.

  Whichever way she turned her eyes, it glowered at her with scornful reproach.

  She felt it to be an indelicate thrusting of herself upon the public notice; and at the sight she was plunged in regret at having made to the proprieties the concession of permitting it.

  She hoped now that the period for making concessions was ended. She had endured long and patiently the trials that beset her path when she chose to diverge from the beaten walks of female Plymdaledom. Had stood stoically enough the questionable distinction of being relegated to a place amid that large and ill-assorted family of “cranks,” feeling the discomfit and attending opprobrium to be far outbalanced by the satisfying consciousness of roaming the heights of free thought, and tasting the sweets of a spiritual emancipation.

  The closing act of Eleanor’s young ladyhood, when she chose to be married without pre-announcement, without the paraphernalia of accessories so dear to a curious public — had been in keeping with previous methods distinguishing her career. The disappointed public cheated of its entertainment, was forced to seek such compensation for the loss as was offered in reflections that while condemning her present, were unsparing of her past, and full with damning prognostic of her future.

  Charles Faraday, who added to his unembellished title that of Professor of Mathematics of the Plymdale University, had found in Eleanor Gail his ideal woman.

  Indeed, she rather surpassed that ideal, which had of necessity been but an adorned picture of woman as he had known her. A mild emphasizing of her merits, a soft toning down of her defects had served to offer to his fancy a prototype of that bequoted creature.

  “Not too good for human nature’s daily food,” yet so good that he had cherished no hope of beholding such a one in the flesh. Until Eleanor had come, supplanting his ideal, and making of that fanciful creation a very simpleton by contrast. In the beginning he had found her extremely good to look at, with her combination of graceful womanly charms, unmarred by self-conscious mannerisms that was as rare as it was engaging. Talking with her, he had caught a look from her eyes into his that he recognized at once as a free masonry of intellect. And the longer he knew her, the greater grew his wonder at the beautiful revelations of her mind that unfurled itself to his, like the curling petals of some hardy blossom that opens to the inviting warmth of the sun. It was not that Eleanor knew many things. According to her own modest estimate of herself, she knew nothing. There were school girls in Plymdale who surpassed her in the amount of their positive knowledge. But she was possessed of a clear intellect: sharp in its reasoning, strong and unprejudiced in its outlook. She was that rara avis, a logical woman — something which Faraday had not encountered in his life before. True, he was not hoary with age. At 30 the types of women he had met with were not legion; but he felt safe in doubting that the hedges of the future would grow logical women for him, more than they had borne such prodigies in the past.

  He found Eleanor ready to take broad views of life and humanity; able to grasp a question and anticipate conclusions by a quick intuition which he himself reached by the slower, consecutive steps of reason.

  During the months that shaped themselves into the cycle of a year these two dwelt together in the harmony of a united purpose.

  Together they went looking for the good things of life, knocking at the closed doors of philosophy; venturing into the open fields of science, she, with uncertain steps, made steady by his help.

  Whithersoever
he led she followed, oftentimes in her eagerness taking the lead into unfamiliar ways in which he, weighted with a lingering conservatism, had hesitated to venture.

  So did they grow in their oneness of thought to belong each so absolutely to the other that the idea seemed not to have come to them that this union might be made faster by marriage. Until one day it broke upon Faraday, like a revelation from the unknown, the possibility of making her his wife.

  When he spoke, eager with the new awakened impulse, she laughingly replied:

  “Why not?” She had thought of it long ago.

  In entering upon their new life they decided to be governed by no precedential methods. Marriage was to be a form, that while fixing legally their relation to each other, was in no wise to touch the individuality of either; that was to be preserved intact. Each was to remain a free integral of humanity, responsible to no dominating exactions of so-called marriage laws. And the element that was to make possible such a union was trust in each other’s love, honor, courtesy, tempered by the reserving clause of readiness to meet the consequences of reciprocal liberty.

  Faraday appreciated the need of offering to his wife advantages for culture which had been of impossible attainment during her girlhood.

  Marriage, which marks too often the closing period of a woman’s intellectual existence, was to be in her case the open portal through which she might seek the embellishments that her strong, graceful mentality deserved.

  An urgent desire with Eleanor was to acquire a thorough speaking knowledge of the French language. They agreed that a lengthy sojourn in Paris could be the only practical and reliable means of accomplishing such an end.