The Awakening Kate Chopin (best affordable ebook reader .TXT) đ
- Author: Kate Chopin
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Edna hastened upstairs by a private stairway that led from the rear of the store to the apartments above. The children were all sleeping in a back room. Madame Ratignolle was in the salon, whither she had strayed in her suffering impatience. She sat on the sofa, clad in an ample white peignoir, holding a handkerchief tight in her hand with a nervous clutch. Her face was drawn and pinched, her sweet blue eyes haggard and unnatural. All her beautiful hair had been drawn back and plaited. It lay in a long braid on the sofa pillow, coiled like a golden serpent. The nurse, a comfortable looking Griffe woman in white apron and cap, was urging her to return to her bedroom.
âThere is no use, there is no use,â she said at once to Edna. âWe must get rid of Mandelet; he is getting too old and careless. He said he would be here at half-past seven; now it must be eight. See what time it is, Josephine.â
The woman was possessed of a cheerful nature, and refused to take any situation too seriously, especially a situation with which she was so familiar. She urged Madame to have courage and patience. But Madame only set her teeth hard into her under lip, and Edna saw the sweat gather in beads on her white forehead. After a moment or two she uttered a profound sigh and wiped her face with the handkerchief rolled in a ball. She appeared exhausted. The nurse gave her a fresh handkerchief, sprinkled with cologne water.
âThis is too much!â she cried. âMandelet ought to be killed! Where is Alphonse? Is it possible I am to be abandoned like thisâ âneglected by everyone?â
âNeglected, indeed!â exclaimed the nurse. Wasnât she there? And here was Mrs. Pontellier leaving, no doubt, a pleasant evening at home to devote to her? And wasnât Monsieur Ratignolle coming that very instant through the hall? And Josephine was quite sure she had heard Doctor Mandeletâs coupe. Yes, there it was, down at the door.
AdĂšle consented to go back to her room. She sat on the edge of a little low couch next to her bed.
Doctor Mandelet paid no attention to Madame Ratignolleâs upbraidings. He was accustomed to them at such times, and was too well convinced of her loyalty to doubt it.
He was glad to see Edna, and wanted her to go with him into the salon and entertain him. But Madame Ratignolle would not consent that Edna should leave her for an instant. Between agonizing moments, she chatted a little, and said it took her mind off her sufferings.
Edna began to feel uneasy. She was seized with a vague dread. Her own like experiences seemed far away, unreal, and only half remembered. She recalled faintly an ecstasy of pain, the heavy odor of chloroform, a stupor which had deadened sensation, and an awakening to find a little new life to which she had given being, added to the great unnumbered multitude of souls that come and go.
She began to wish she had not come; her presence was not necessary. She might have invented a pretext for staying away; she might even invent a pretext now for going. But Edna did not go. With an inward agony, with a flaming, outspoken revolt against the ways of Nature, she witnessed the scene of torture.
She was still stunned and speechless with emotion when later she leaned over her friend to kiss her and softly say goodbye. AdĂšle, pressing her cheek, whispered in an exhausted voice: âThink of the children, Edna. Oh think of the children! Remember them!â
XXXVIIIEdna still felt dazed when she got outside in the open air. The Doctorâs coupĂ© had returned for him and stood before the porte-cochĂšre. She did not wish to enter the coupĂ©, and told Doctor Mandelet she would walk; she was not afraid, and would go alone. He directed his carriage to meet him at Mrs. Pontellierâs, and he started to walk home with her.
Upâ âaway up, over the narrow street between the tall houses, the stars were blazing. The air was mild and caressing, but cool with the breath of spring and the night. They walked slowly, the Doctor with a heavy, measured tread and his hands behind him; Edna, in an absentminded way, as she had walked one night at Grand Isle, as if her thoughts had gone ahead of her and she was striving to overtake them.
âYou shouldnât have been there, Mrs. Pontellier,â he said. âThat was no place for you. AdĂšle is full of whims at such times. There were a dozen women she might have had with her, unimpressionable women. I felt that it was cruel, cruel. You shouldnât have gone.â
âOh, well!â she answered, indifferently. âI donât know that it matters after all. One has to think of the children some time or other; the sooner the better.â
âWhen is LĂ©once coming back?â
âQuite soon. Some time in March.â
âAnd you are going abroad?â
âPerhapsâ âno, I am not going. Iâm not going to be forced into doing things. I donât want to go abroad. I want to be let alone. Nobody has any rightâ âexcept children, perhapsâ âand even then, it seems to meâ âor it did seemâ ââ She felt that her speech was voicing the incoherency of her thoughts, and stopped abruptly.
âThe trouble is,â sighed the Doctor, grasping her meaning intuitively, âthat youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.â
âYes,â she said. âThe years that are gone seem like dreamsâ âif one might go on sleeping and dreamingâ âbut to wake up and findâ âoh! well! perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to
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