by Kate Chopin
Georgie stationed herself on the opposite side of the street, on the corner, and waited there as though she had appointed to meet some one.
The first to approach her was a kind-looking old gentleman, very much muffled for the pleasant spring day. Georgie did not hesitate an instant to accost him:
“I beg pardon, sir. Will you kindly tell me whose house that is?” pointing to her own domicile across the way.
“That is Mr. Horace McEnder’s residence, Madame,” replied the old gentleman, lifting his hat politely.
“Could you tell me how he made the money with which to build so magnificent a home?”
“You should not ask indiscreet questions, my dear young lady,” answered the mystified old gentleman, as he bowed and walked away.
The girl let one or two persons pass her. Then she stopped a plumber, who was going cheerily along with his bag of tools on his shoulder.
“I beg pardon,” began Georgie again; “but may I ask whose residence that is across the street?”
“Yes’um. That’s the McEnderses.”
“Thank you; and can you tell me how Mr. McEnders made such an immense fortune?”
“Oh, that ain’t my business; but they say he made the biggest pile of it in the Whisky Ring.”
So the truth would come to her somehow! These were the people from whom to seek it — who had not learned to veil their thoughts and opinions in polite subterfuge.
When a careless little news-boy came strolling along, she stopped him with the apparent intention of buying a paper from him.
“Do you know whose house that is?” she asked him, handing him a piece of money and nodding over the way.
“W’y, dats ole MicAndrus’ house.”
“I wonder where he got the money to build such a fine house.”
“He stole it; dats w’ere he got it. Thank you,” pocketing the change which Georgie declined to take, and he whistled a popular air as he disappeared around the corner.
Georgie had heard enough. Her heart was beating violently now, and her cheeks were flaming. So everybody knew it ; even to the street gamins! The men and women who visited her and broke bread at her father’s table, knew it. Her co-workers, who strove with her in Christian endeavor, knew. The very servants who waited upon her doubtless knew this, and had their jests about it.
She shrank within herself as she climbed the stairway to her room.
Upon the table there she found a box of exquisite white spring blossoms that a messenger had brought from Meredith Holt, during her absence. Without an instant’s hesitation, Georgie cast the spotless things into the wide, sooty, fire-place. Then she sank into a chair and wept bitterly.
AN IDLE FELLOW
I am tired. At the end of these years I am very tired. I have been studying in books the languages of the living and those we call dead. Early in the fresh morning I have studied in books, and throughout the day when the sun was shining; and at night when there were stars, I have lighted my oil-lamp and studied in books. Now my brain is weary and I want rest.
I shall sit here on the door-step beside my friend Paul. He is an idle fellow with folded hands. He laughs when I upbraid him, and bids me, with a motion, hold my peace. He is listening to a thrush’s song that comes from the blur of yonder apple-tree. He tells me the thrush is singing a complaint. She wants her mate that was with her last blossom-time and builded a nest with her. She will have no other mate. She will call for him till she hears the notes of her beloved-one’s song coming swiftly towards her across forest and field.
Paul is a strange fellow. He gazes idly at a billowy white cloud that rolls lazily over and over along the edge of the blue sky.
He turns away from me and the words with which I would instruct him, to drink deep the scent of the clover-field and the thick perfume from the rose-hedge.
We rise from the door-step and walk together down the gentle slope of the hill; past the apple-tree, and the rose-hedge; and along the border of the field where wheat is growing. We walk down to the foot of the gentle slope where women and men and children are living.
Paul is a strange fellow. He looks into the faces of people who pass us by. He tells me that in their eyes he reads the story of their souls. He knows men and women and the little children, and why they look this way and that way. He knows the reasons that turn them to and fro and cause them to go and come. I think I shall walk a space through the world with my friend Paul. He is very wise, he knows the language of God which I have not learned.
A LITTLE FREE-MULATTO
M’sié Jean-Ba’ — that was Aurélia’s father — was so especially fine and imposing when he went down to the city, with his glossy beard, his elegant clothes, and gold watch-chain, that he could easily have ridden in the car “For Whites.” No one would ever have known the difference. But M’sié Jean-Ba’ was too proud to do that. He was very proud. So was Ma’ame Jean-Ba’. And because of that unyielding pride, little Aurélia’s existence ‘ was not altogether a happy one.
She was not permitted to play with the white children up at the big-house, who would often willingly have had her join their games. Neither was she allowed to associate in any way with the little darkies who frolicked all day long as gleefully as kittens before their cabin doors. There seemed nothing for her to do in the world but to have her shiny hair plaited, or to sit at her mother’s knee learning to spell or to patch quilt pieces.
It was well enough so long as she was a baby and crawled about the gallery satisfied to play with a sun-beam. But growing older she pined for some more real companionship.
“La p’tite, ‘pear tu me lack she gittin’ po’, yere lately,” remarked M’sié Jean-Ba’ solicitously to his wife one day when he noted his little daughter’s drooping mien.
“You right, Jean-Ba’; Aurélia a’n’t pick up none, the las’ year.” And they watched the child carefully after that. She seemed to fade like a flower that wants the sun.
Of course M’sié Jean-Ba’ could not stand that. So when December came, and his contract with the planter had ceased, he gathered his family and all his belongings and went away to live — in paradise.
That is, little Aurélia thinks it is paradise, the change is so wonderful.
There is a constant making and receiving of visits, now. She trudges off every morning to the convent where numbers of little children just like herself are taught by the sisters. Even in the church in which she, her mamma and papa make their Sunday devotions, they breathe an atmosphere which is native to them. And then, such galloping about the country on little creole ponies!
Well, there is no question about it. The happiest little Free-Mulatto in all Louisiana is Aurélia, since her father has moved to “L’Isle des Mulâtres.”
THE STORY OF AN HOUR
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath
of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will — as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him — sometimes. Often she had not. 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.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door — you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. 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.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of joy that kills.
LILACS
Mme. Adrienne Farival never announced her coming; but the good nuns knew very well when to look for her. When the scent of the lilac blossoms began to permeate the air, Sister Agathe would turn many times during the day to the window; upon her face the happy, beatific expression with which pure and simple souls watch for the coming of those they love.
But it was not Sister Agathe; it was Sister Marceline who first espied her crossing the beautiful lawn that sloped up to the convent. Her arms were filled with great bunches of lilacs which she had gathered along her path. She was clad all in brown; like one of the birds that come with the spring, the nuns used to say. Her figure was rounded and graceful, and she walked with a happy, buoyant step. The cabriolet which had conveyed her to the convent moved slowly up the gravel drive that led to the imposing entrance. Beside the driver was her modest little black trunk, with her name and address printed in white letters upon it: “Mme. A. Farival, Paris.” It was the crunching of the gravel which had attracted Sister Marceline’s attention. And then the commotion began.
White-capped heads appeared suddenly at the windows; she waved her parasol and her bunch of lilacs at them. Sister Marceline and Sister Marie Anne appeared, fluttered and expectant at the doorway. But Sister Agathe, more daring and impulsive than all, descended the steps and flew across the grass to meet her. What embraces, in which the lilacs were crushed between them! What ardent kisses! What pink flushes of happiness mounting the cheeks of the two women!
Once within the convent Adrienne’s soft brown eyes moistened with tenderness as they dwelt caressingly upon the familiar objects about her, and noted the most trifling details. The white, bare boards of the floor had lost nothing of their luster. The stiff, wooden chairs, standing in rows against the walls of hall and parlor, seemed to have taken on an extra polish since she had seen them, last lilac time. And there was a new picture of the Sacré-Coeur hanging over the hall table. What had they done with Ste. Catherine de Sienne, who had occupied that position of honor for so many years? In the chapel — it was no use trying to deceive her — she saw at a glance that St. Joseph’s mantle had been embellished with a new coat of blue, and the aureole about his head freshly gilded. And the Blessed Virgin there neglected! Still wearing her garb of last spring, which looked almost dingy by contrast. It was not just — such partiality! The Holy Mother had reason to be jealous and to complain.
But Adrienne did not delay to pay her respects to the Mother Superior, whose dignity would not permit her to so much as step outside the door of her private apartments to welcome this old pupil. Indeed, she was dignity in person; large, uncompromising, unbending. She kissed Adrienne without warmth, and discussed conventional themes learnedly and prosaically during the quarter of an hour which the young woman remained in her company.
It was then that Adrienne’s latest gift was brought in for inspection. For Adrienne always brought a handsome present for the chapel in her little black trunk. Last year it was a necklace of gems for the Blessed Virgin, which the Good Mother was only permitted to wear on extra occasions, such as great feast days of obligation. The year before it had been a precious crucifix — an ivory figure of Christ suspended from an ebony cross, whose extremities were tipped with wrought silver. This time it was a linen embroidered altar cloth of such rare and delicate workmanship that the Mother Superior, who knew the value of such things, chided Adrienne for the extravagance.
“But, dear Mother, you know it is the greatest pleasure I have in life — to be with you all once a year, and to bring some such trifling token of my regard.”
The Mother Superior dismissed her with the rejoinder: “Make yourself at home, my child. Sister Thérèse will see to your wants. You will occupy Sister Marceline’s bed in the end room, over the chapel. You will share the room with Sister Agathe.”
Ther
e was always one of the nuns detailed to keep Adrienne company during her fortnight’s stay at the convent. This had become almost a fixed regulation. It was only during the hours of recreation that she found herself with them all together. Those were hours of much harmless merrymaking under the trees or in the nuns’ refectory.
This time it was Sister Agathe who waited for her outside of the Mother Superior’s door. She was taller and slenderer than Adrienne, and perhaps ten years older. Her fair blonde face flushed and paled with every passing emotion that visited her soul. The two women linked arms and went together out into the open air.
There was so much which Sister Agathe felt that Adrienne must see. To begin with, the enlarged poultry yard, with its dozens upon dozens of new inmates. It took now all the time of one of the lay sisters to attend to them. There had been no change made in the vegetable garden, but — yes there had; Adrienne’s quick eye at once detected it. Last year old Philippe had planted his cabbages in a large square to the. fight. This year they were set out in an oblong bed to the left. How it made Sister Agathe laugh to think Adrienne should have noticed such a trifle! And old Philippe, who was nailing a broken trellis not far off, was called forward to be told about it.
He never failed to tell Adrienne how well she looked, and how she was growing younger each year. And it was his delight to recall certain of her youthful and mischievous escapades. Never would he forget that day she disappeared; and the whole convent in a hubbub about it! And how at last it was he who discovered her perched among the tallest branches of the highest tree on the grounds, where she had climbed to see if she could get a glimpse of Paris! And her punishment afterwards! — half of the Gospel of Palm Sunday to learn by heart!
“We may laugh over it, my good Philippe, but we must remember that Madame is older and wiser now.”
“I know well, Sister Agathe, that one ceases to commit follies after the first days of youth.” And Adrienne seemed greatly impressed by the wisdom of Sister Agathe and old Philippe, the convent gardener.