Short Fiction Kate Chopin (best e reader for android .txt) đ
- Author: Kate Chopin
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A day or two later, she was there waiting for him again. âYou know, Judge, about that divoâce.â
âYes, yes,â responded the lawyer, well pleased to trace a new determination in her brown eyes and in the curves of her pretty mouth. âI suppose you saw PĂšre DuchĂ©ron and had to brave it out with him, too.â
âOh, foâ that, a perfecâ sermon, I assho you. A talk of giving scandal anâ bad example that I thought would neva enâ! He says, foâ him, he washâ his hands; I musâ go see the bishop.â
âYou wonât let the bishop dissuade you, I trust,â stammered the lawyer more anxiously than he could well understand.
âYou donât know me yet, Judge,â laughed Madame CĂ©lestin with a turn of the head and a flirt of the broom which indicated that the interview was at an end.
âWell, Madame CĂ©lestin! And the bishop!â Lawyer Paxton was standing there holding to a couple of the shaky pickets. She had not seen him. âOh, itâs you, Judge?â and she hastened towards him with an empressement that could not but have been flattering.
âYes, I saw Monseigneur,â she began. The lawyer had already gathered from her expressive countenance that she had not wavered in her determination. âAh, heâs a eloquent man. Itâs not a moâ eloquent man in Natchitoches parish. I was foâced to cry, the way he talked to me about my troubles; how he undastanâs them, anâ feels for me. It would move even you, Judge, to hear how he talkâ about that step I want to take; its danga, its temptation. How it is the duty of a Catholic to stanâ everything till the lasâ extreme. Anâ that life of retirement anâ self-denial I would have to leadâ âhe tole me all that.â
âBut he hasnât turned you from your resolve, I see,â laughed the lawyer complacently.
âFor that, no,â she returned emphatically. âThe bishop donât know wâat it is to be married to a man like CĂ©lestin, anâ have to enduâ that conducâ like I have to enduâ it. The Pope himseâf canât make me stanâ that any longer, if you say I got the right in the law to senâ CĂ©lestin sailing.â
A noticeable change had come over lawyer Paxton. He discarded his workday coat and began to wear his Sunday one to the office. He grew solicitous as to the shine of his boots, his collar, and the set of his tie. He brushed and trimmed his whiskers with a care that had not before been apparent. Then he fell into a stupid habit of dreaming as he walked the streets of the old town. It would be very good to take unto himself a wife, he dreamed. And he could dream of no other than pretty Madame CĂ©lestin filling that sweet and sacred office as she filled his thoughts, now. Old Natchitoches would not hold them comfortably, perhaps; but the world was surely wide enough to live in, outside of Natchitoches town.
His heart beat in a strangely irregular manner as he neared Madame CĂ©lestinâs house one morning, and discovered her behind the rosebushes, as usual plying her broom. She had finished the gallery and steps and was sweeping the little brick walk along the edge of the violet border.
âGood morning, Madame CĂ©lestin.â
âAh, itâs you, Judge? Good morning.â He waited. She seemed to be doing the same. Then she ventured, with some hesitancy, âYou know, Judge, about that divoâce. I been thinkingâ âI reckon you betta neva mine about that divoâce.â She was making deep rings in the palm of her gloved hand with the end of the broom-handle, and looking at them critically. Her face seemed to the lawyer to be unusually rosy; but maybe it was only the reflection of the pink bow at the throat. âYes, I reckon you need nâ mine. You see, Judge, CĂ©lestin came home lasâ night. Anâ heâs promise me on his word anâ honor heâs going to turn ova a new leaf.â
A Matter of PrejudiceMadame Carambeau wanted it strictly understood that she was not to be disturbed by Gustaveâs birthday party. They carried her big rocking-chair from the back gallery, that looked out upon the garden where the children were going to play, around to the front gallery, which closely faced the green levee bank and the Mississippi coursing almost flush with the top of it.
The houseâ âan old Spanish one, broad, low and completely encircled by a wide galleryâ âwas far down in the French quarter of New Orleans. It stood upon a square of ground that was covered thick with a semitropical growth of plants and flowers. An impenetrable board fence, edged with a formidable row of iron spikes, shielded the garden from the prying glances of the occasional passerby.
Madame Carambeauâs widowed daughter, Madame CĂ©cile Lalonde, lived with her. This annual party, given to her little son, Gustave, was the one defiant act of Madame Lalondeâs existence. She persisted in it, to her own astonishment and the wonder of those who knew her and her mother.
For old Madame Carambeau was a woman of many prejudicesâ âso many, in fact, that it would be difficult to name them all. She detested dogs, cats, organ-grinders, white servants and childrenâs noises. She despised Americans, Germans and all people of a different faith from her own. Anything not French had, in her opinion, little right to existence.
She had not spoken to her son Henri for ten years because he had married an American girl from Prytania street. She would not permit green tea to be introduced into her house, and those who could not or would not
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