Short Fiction Kate Chopin (best e reader for android .txt) đ
- Author: Kate Chopin
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âWâat you doinâ, Mr. âPolyte?â she cried, struggling. âLeave me âlone, I say! Leave me go!â
âI love you, I love you, I love you!â he stammered helplessly over and over in her face.
âYou musâ losâ yoâ head,â she told him, red from the effort of the struggle, when he released her.
âYou right, AzĂ©lie; I bâlieve I losâ my head,â and he climbed up the bank of the bayou as fast as he could.
After that his behavior was shameful, and he knew it, and he did not care. He invented pretexts that would enable him to touch her hand with his. He wanted to kiss her again, and told her she might come into the store as she used to do. There was no need for her to unhook a window now; he gave her whatever she asked for, charging it always to his own account on the books. She permitted his caresses without returning them, and yet that was all he seemed to live for now. He gave her a little gold ring.
He was looking eagerly forward to the close of the season, when ArsĂšne would go back to Little River. He had arranged to ask AzĂ©lie to marry him. He would keep her with him when the others went away. He longed to rescue her from what he felt to be the demoralizing influences of her family and her surroundings. âPolyte believed he would be able to awaken AzĂ©lie to finer, better impulses when he should have her apart to himself.
But when the time came to propose it, AzĂ©lie looked at him in amazement. âAh, bâen, no. I ainât goinâ to stay yere wid you, Mr. âPolyte; Iâm goinâ yonda on Liâle river wid my popa.â
This resolve frightened him, but he pretended not to believe it.
âYou jokinâ, AzĂ©lie; you musâ care a liâle about me. It looked to me all along like you cared some about me.â
âAnâ my popa, done? Ah, bâen, no.â
âYou donâ rememba how lonesome it is on Liâle river, AzĂ©lie,â he pleaded. âWâenever I think âbout Liâle river it always make me sadâ âlike I think about a graveyard. To me itâs like a person musâ die, one way or otha, wâen they go on Liâle river. Oh, I hate it! Stay with me, AzĂ©lie; donâ go âway fâom me.â
She said little, one way or the other, after that, when she had fully understood his wishes, and her reserve led him to believe, since he hoped it, that he had prevailed with her and that she had determined to stay with him and be his wife.
It was a cool, crisp morning in December that they went away. In a ramshackle wagon, drawn by an ill-mated team, ArsĂšne PauchĂ© and his family left Mr. Mathurinâs plantation for their old familiar haunts on Little river. The grandmother, looking like a witch, with a black shawl tied over her head, sat upon a roll of bedding in the bottom of the wagon. Sauterelleâs bead-like eyes glittered with mischief as he peeped over the side. AzĂ©lie, with the pink sunbonnet completely hiding her round young face, sat beside her father, who drove.
âPolyte caught one glimpse of the group as they passed in the road. Turning, he hurried into his room, and locked himself in.
It soon became evident that âPolyteâs services were going to count for little. He himself was the first to realize this. One day he approached the planter, and said: âMr. Mathurin, befoâ we start anotha year togetha, I betta tell you Iâm goinâ to quit.â âPolyte stood upon the steps, and leaned back against the railing. The planter was a little above on the gallery.
âWâat in the name oâ sense are you talking about, âPolyte!â he exclaimed in astonishment.
âItâs jusâ that; Iâm bounâ to quit.â
âYou had a better offer?â
âNo; I ainât had no offa.â
âThen explain yoâseâf, my frienââ âexplain yoâseâf,â requested Mr. Mathurin, with something of offended dignity. âIf you leave me, wâere are you going?â
âPolyte was beating his leg with his limp felt hat. âI reckon I jusâ as well go yonda on Liâle riverâ âwâere AzĂ©lie,â he said.
A Lady of Bayou St. JohnThe days and the nights were very lonely for Madame Delisle. Gustave, her husband, was away yonder in Virginia somewhere, with Beauregard, and she was here in the old house on Bayou St. John, alone with her slaves.
Madame was very beautiful. So beautiful, that she found much diversion in sitting for hours before the mirror, contemplating her own loveliness; admiring the brilliancy of her golden hair, the sweet languor of her blue eyes, the graceful contours of her figure, and the peach-like bloom of her flesh. She was very young. So young that she romped with the dogs, teased the parrot, and could not fall asleep at night unless old black Manna-Loulou sat beside her bed and told her stories.
In short, she was a child, not able to realize the significance of the tragedy whose unfolding kept the civilized world in suspense. It was only the immediate effect of the awful drama that moved her: the gloom that, spreading on all sides, penetrated her own existence and deprived it of joyousness.
SĂ©pincourt found her looking very lonely and disconsolate one day when he stopped to talk with her. She was pale, and her blue eyes were dim with unwept tears. He was a Frenchman who lived near by. He shrugged his shoulders over this strife between brothers, this quarrel which was none of his; and he resented it chiefly upon the ground that it made life uncomfortable; yet he was young enough to have had quicker and hotter blood in his veins.
When he left Madame Delisle that day, her eyes were no longer dim, and a something of the dreariness that weighted her had been lifted away. That mysterious,
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