Complete Works of Kate Chopin

by Kate Chopin

  Tante Elodie coughed painfully and looked blankly as though she had only heard her name and had been inattentive to what was said.

  “For pity sake leave Tante Elodie out of this! it’s bad enough she has to listen, suffering as she is. Gabriel spent the evening here, on Tante Elodie’s sofa, very sick with cramps. You will have to pursue your detective work in some other quarter, my dear.”

  A little girl came in with a huge bunch of blossoms. There was some bustle attending the arrangement of the flowers in vases, and in the midst of it, two or three ladies took their leave.

  “I wonder if they’re going to send the body off to-night, or if they’re going to keep it for the morning train,” Fifine was heard to speculate, before the door closed upon her.

  Tante Elodie could not sleep that night. The following day she had some fever and Madame Nicolas insisted upon her seeing the doctor. He gave her a sleeping draught and some fever drops and said she would be all right in a few days; for he could find nothing alarming in her condition.

  By a supreme effort of the will she got up on the third day hoping in the accustomed routine of her daily life to get rid, in part, of the uneasiness and unhappiness that possessed her.

  The sun shone warm in the afternoon and she went and stood on the gallery watching for Gabriel to pass. He had not been near her. She was wounded, alarmed, miserable at his silence and absence; but determined to see him. He came down the street, presently, never looking up, with his hat drawn over his eyes.

  “Gabriel!” she called. He gave a start and glanced around.

  “Come up; I want to see you a moment.”

  “I haven’t time now, Tante Elodie.”

  “Come in!” she said sharply.

  “All right, you’ll have to fix it up with Morrison,” and he opened the gate and went in. She was back in her room by the time he reached it, and in her chair, trembling a little and feeling sick again.

  “Gabriel, if you ‘ave no heart, it seems to me you would ‘ave some intelligence; a moment’s reflection would show you the folly of altering your ‘abits so suddenly. Did you not know I was sick? did you not guess my uneasiness?”

  “I haven’t guessed anything or known anything but a taste of hell,” he said, not looking at her. Her heart bled afresh for him and went out to him in full forgiveness. “You were right,” he went on, “it would have been horrible to saying anything. There is no suspicion. I’ll never say anything unless some one should be falsely accused.”

  “There will be no possible evidence to accuse anyone,” she assured him. “Forget it, forget it. Keep on as though it was something you had dreamed. Not only for the outside, but within yourself. Do not accuse yourself of that act, but the actions, the conduct, the ungovernable temper that made it possible. Promise me it will be a lesson to you, Gabriel; and God, who reads men’s hearts, will not call it a crime, but an accident which your unbridled nature invited. I will forget it. You must forget it. ‘Ave you been to the office?”

  “To-day; not yesterday. I don’t know what I did yesterday, but look for the knife — after they — I couldn’t go while he was there — and I thought every minute some one was coming to accuse me. And when I realized they weren’t — I don’t know — I drank too much, I think. Reading law! I might as well have been reading Hebrew. If Morrison thinks — See here Tante Elodie, are there any spots on this coat? Can you see anything here in the light?”

  “There are no spots anywhere. Stop thinking of it, I implore you.” But he pulled off the coat and flung it across a chair. He went to the closet to get his other coat which he knew hung there. Tante Elodie, still feeble and suffering, in the depths of her chair, was not quick enough, could think of no way to prevent it. She had at first put the knife in his pocket with the intention of returning it to him. But now she dreaded to have him find it, and thus discover the part she had played in the sickening dream.

  He buttoned up his coat briskly and started away.

  “Please burn it,” he said, looking at the garment on the chair, “I never want to see it again.”

  VI

  When it became distinctly evident that no slightest suspicion would be attached to him for the killing of Everson; when he plainly realized that there was no one upon whom the guilt could be fastened, Gabriel thought he would regain his lost equilibrium. If in no other way, he fancied he could reason himself back into it. He was suffering, but he someway had no fear that his present condition of mind would last. He thought it would pass away like a malignant fever. It would have to pass away or it would have to kill him.

  From Tante Elodie’s he went over to Morrison’s office where he was reading law. Morrison and his partner were out of town and he had the office to himself. He had been there all morning. There was nothing for him to do now but to see anyone who called on business, and to go on with his reading. He seated himself and spread his book before him, but he looked into the street through the open door. Then he got up and shut the door. He again fastened his eyes upon the pages before him, but his mind was traveling other ways. For the hundredth time he was going over every detail of the fatal night, and trying to justify himself in his own heart.

  If it had been an open and fair fight there would have been no trouble in squaring himself with his conscience; if the man had shown the slightest disposition to do him bodily harm, but he had not. On the other hand, he asked himself, what constituted a murder? Why, there was Morrison himself who had once fired at Judge Filips on that very street. His ball had gone wide of the mark, and subsequently he and Filips had adjusted their difficulties and become friends. Was Morrison any less a murderer because his weapon had missed?

  Suppose the knife had swerved, had penetrated the arm, had inflicted a harmless scratch or flesh wound, would he be sitting there now, calling himself names? But he would try to think it all out later. He could not bear to be there alone, he never liked to be alone, and now he could not endure it. He closed the book without the slightest recollection of a line his eyes had followed. He went and gazed up and down the street, then he locked the office and walked away.

  The fact of Everson having been robbed was very puzzling to Gabriel. He thought about it as he walked along the street.

  The complete change that had taken place in his emotions, his sentiments, did not astonish him in the least: we accept such phenomena without question. A week ago — not so long as that — he was in love with the fair-haired girl up at the Normal. He was undeniably in love with her. He knew the symptoms. He wanted to marry her and meant to ask her whenever his position justified him in doing so.

  Now, where had that love gone? He thought of her with indifference. Still, he was seeking her at that moment, through habit, without any special motive. He had no positive desire to see her; to see any one; and yet he could not endure to be alone. He had no desire to see Tante Elodie. She wanted him to forget and her presence made him remember.

  The girl was walking under the beautiful trees, and she stood and waited for him, when she saw him mounting the hill. As he looked at her, his fondness for her and his intentions toward her, appeared now, like child’s play. Life was something terrible of which she had no conception. She seemed to him as harmless, as innocent, as insignificant as a little bird.

  “Oh! Gabriel,” she exclaimed. “I had just written you a note. Why haven’t you been here? It was foolish to get offended. I wanted to explain: I couldn’t get out of it the other night, at Tante Elodie’s, when he asked me. You know I couldn’t, and that I would rather have come with you.” Was it possible he would have taken this seriously a week ago?

  “Delonce is a good fellow; he’s a decent fellow. I don’t blame you. That’s all right.” She was hurt at his easy complaisance. She did not wish to offend him, and here she was grieved because he was not offended.

  “Will you come indoors to the fire?” she asked.

  “No; I just strolled up for a minute.” He leaned against a tree and looked bored, or rather, preoccupie
d with other things than herself. It was not a week ago that he wanted to see her every day; when he said the hours were like minutes that he passed beside her. “I just strolled up to tell you that I am going away.”

  “Oh! going away?” and the pink deepened in her cheeks, and she tried to look indifferent and to clasp her glove tighter. He had not the slightest intention of going away when he mounted the hill. It came to him like an inspiration.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Going to look for work in the city.”

  “And what about your law studies?”

  “I have no talent for the law; it’s about time I acknowledged it. I want to get into something that will make me hustle. I wouldn’t mind — I’d like to get something to do on a railroad that would go tearing through the country night and day. What’s the matter?” he asked, perceiving the tears that she could not conceal.

  “Nothing’s the matter,” she answered with dignity, and a sense of seeming proud.

  He took her word for it and, instead of seeking to console her, went rambling on about the various occupations in which he should like to engage for a while.

  “When are you going?”

  “Just as soon as I can.”

  “Shall I see you again?”

  “Of course. Good-bye. Don’t stay out here too long; you might take cold.” He listlessly shook hands with her and descended the hill with long rapid strides.

  He would not intentionally have hurt her. He did not realize that he was wounding her. It would have been as difficult for him to revive his passion for her as to bring Everson back to life. Gabriel knew there could be fresh horror added to the situation. Discovery would have added to it; a false accusation would have deepened it. But he never dreamed of the new horror coming as it did, through Tante Elodie, when he found the knife in his pocket. It took a long time to realize what it meant; and then he felt as if he never wanted to see her again. In his mind, her action identified itself with his crime, and made itself a hateful, hideous part of it, which he could not endure to think of, and of which he could not help thinking.

  It was the one thing which had saved him, and yet he felt no gratitude. The great love which had prompted the deed did not soften him. He could not believe that any man was worth loving to such length, or worth saving at such a price. She seemed, to his imagination, less a woman than a monster, capable of committing, in cold-blood, deeds, which he himself could only accomplish in blind rage. For the first time, Gabriel wept. He threw himself down upon the ground in the deepening twilight and wept as he never had before in his life. A terrible sense of loss overpowered him; as if someone dearer than a mother had been taken out of the reach of his heart; as if a refuge had gone from him. The last spark of human affection was dead within him. He knew it as he was losing it. He wept at the loss which left him alone with his thoughts.

  VII

  Tante Elodie was always chilly. It was warm for the last of April, and the women at Madame Nicolas’ wedding were all in airy summer attire. All but Tante Elodie, who wore her black silk, her old silk with a white lace fichu, and she held an embroidered handkerchief and a fan in her hand.

  Fifine Delonce had been over in the morning to take up the seams in the dress, for, as she expressed herself, it was miles too loose for Tante Elodie’s figure. She appeared to be shrivelling away to nothing. She had not again been sick in bed since that little spell in February; but she was plainly wasting and was very feeble. Her eyes, though, were as bright as ever; sometimes they looked as hard as flint. The doctor, whom Madame Nicolas insisted upon her seeing occasionally, gave a name to her disease; it was a Greek name and sounded convincing. She was taking a tonic especially prepared for her, from a large bottle, three times a day.

  Fifine was a great gossip. When and how she gathered her news nobody could tell. It was always said she knew ten times more than the weekly paper would dare to print. She often visited Tante Elodie, and she told her news of everyone; among others of Gabriel.

  It was she who told that he had abandoned the study of the law. She told Tante Elodie when he started for the city to look for work and when he came back from the fruitless search.

  “Did you know that Gabriel is working on the railroad, now? Fireman! Think of it! What a comedown from reading law in Morrison’s office. If I were a man, I’d try to have more strength of character than to go to the dogs on account of a girl; an insignificant somebody from Kansas! Even if she is going to marry my brother, I must say it was no way to treat a boy — leading him on, especially a boy like Gabriel, that any girl would have been glad — Well, it’s none of my business; only I’m sorry he took it like he did. Drinking himself to death, they say.”

  That morning, as she was taking up the seams of the silk dress, there was fresh news of Gabriel. He was tired of the railroad, it seemed. He was down on his father’s place herding cattle, breaking in colts, drinking like a fish.

  “I wouldn’t have such a thing on my conscience! Goodness me! I couldn’t sleep at nights if I was that girl.”

  Tante Elodie always listened with a sad, resigned smile. It did not seem to make any difference whether she had Gabriel or not. He had broken her heart and he was killing her. It was not his crime that had broken her heart; it was his indifference to her love and his turning away from her.

  It was whispered about that Tante Elodie had grown indifferent to her religion. There was no truth in it. She had not been to confession for two months; but otherwise she followed closely the demands made upon her; redoubling her zeal in church work and attending mass each morning.

  At the wedding she was holding quite a little reception of her own in the corner of the gallery. The air was mild and pleasant. Young people flocked about her and occasionally the radiant bride came out to see if she were comfortable and if there was anything she wanted to eat or drink.

  A young girl leaning over the railing suddenly exclaimed “Tiens! someone is dead. I didn’t know any one was sick.” She was watching the approach of a man who was coming down the street, distributing, according to the custom of the country, a death notice from door to door.

  He wore a long black coat and walked with a measured tread. He was as expressionless as an automaton; handing the little slips of paper at every door; not missing one. The girl, leaning over the railing, went to the head of the stairs to receive the notice when he entered Tante Elodie’s gate.

  The small, single sheet, which he gave her, was bordered in black and decorated with an old-fashioned wood cut of a weeping willow beside a grave. It was an announcement on the part of Monsieur Justin Lucaze of the death of his only son, Gabriel, who had been instantly killed, the night before, by a fall from his horse.

  If the automaton had had any sense of decency, he might have skipped the house of joy, in which there was a wedding feast, in which there was the sound of laughter, the click of glasses, the hum of merry voices, and a vision of sweet women with their thoughts upon love and marriage and earthly bliss. But he had no sense of decency. He was as indifferent and relentless as Death, whose messenger he was.

  The sad news, passed from lip to lip, cast a shadow as if a cloud had flitted across the sky. Tante Elodie alone stayed in its shadow. She sank deeper down into the rocker, more shrivelled than ever. They all remembered Tante Elodie’s romance and respected her grief.

  She did not speak any more, or even smile, but wiped her forehead with the old lace handkerchief and sometimes closed her eyes. When she closed her eyes she pictured Gabriel dead, down there on the plantation, with his father watching beside him. He might have betrayed himself had he lived. There was nothing now to betray him. Even the shining gold watch lay deep in a gorged ravine where she had flung it when she once walked through the country alone at dusk.

  She thought of her own place down there beside Justin’s, all dismantled, with bats beating about the eaves and negroes living under the falling roof.

  Tante Elodie did not seem to want go in doors again. The bride a
nd groom went away. The guests went away, one by one, and all the little children. She stayed there alone in the corner, under the deep shadow of the oaks while the stars came out to keep her company.

  THE STORM

  A SEQUEL TO “THE ‘CADIAN BALL”

  I

  The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobinôt, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer’s store and decided to remain there till the storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was four years old and looked very wise.

  “Mama’ll be ‘fraid, yes,” he suggested with blinking eyes.

  “She’ll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helpin’ her this evenin’,” Bobinôt responded reassuringly.

  “No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin’ her yistiday,” piped Bibi.

  Bobinôt arose and going across to the counter purchased a can of shrimps, of which Calixta was very fond. Then he returned to his perch on the keg and sat stolidly holding the can of shrimps while the storm burst. It shook the wooden store and seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant field. Bibi laid his little hand on his father’s knee and was not afraid.

  II

  Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors.