The Awakening and Selected Short Stories(苏醒)

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The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

The Awakening and

Selected Short Stories

by Kate Chopin

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

THE AWAKENING

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept

repeating over and over:

"Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!"

He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody

understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the other side of

the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the breeze with maddening

persistence.

Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree of

comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust.

He walked down the gallery and across the narrow "bridges" which

connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He had been seated

before the door of the main house. The parrot and the mockingbird were

the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the right to make all the

noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the privilege of quitting their

society when they ceased to be entertaining.

He stopped before the door of his own cottage, which was the fourth

one from the main building and next to the last. Seating himself in a

wicker rocker which was there, he once more applied himself to the task

of reading the newspaper. The day was Sunday; the paper was a day old.

The Sunday papers had not yet reached Grand Isle. He was already

acquainted with the market reports, and he glanced restlessly over the

editorials and bits of news which he had not had time to read before

quitting New Orleans the day before.

Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium

height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown

and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely

trimmed.

Once in a while he withdrew his glance from the newspaper and

looked about him. There was more noise than ever over at the house.

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

The main building was called "the house," to distinguish it from the

cottages. The chattering and whistling birds were still at it. Two young

girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet from "Zampa" upon the piano.

Madame Lebrun was bustling in and out, giving orders in a high key to a

yard-boy whenever she got inside the house, and directions in an equally

high voice to a dining-room servant whenever she got outside. She was a

fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves. Her

starched skirts crinkled as she came and went. Farther down, before one

of the cottages, a lady in black was walking demurely up and down, telling

her beads. A good many persons of the pension had gone over to the

Cheniere Caminada in Beaudelet's lugger to hear mass. Some young

people were out under the wateroaks playing croquet. Mr. Pontellier's

two children were there sturdy little fellows of four and five. A quadroon

nurse followed them about with a faraway, meditative air.

Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper

drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that

was advancing at snail's pace from the beach. He could see it plainly

between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks and across the stretch of

yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting hazily into the blue

of the horizon. The sunshade continued to approach slowly. Beneath

its pink-lined shelter were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert

Lebrun. When they reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with

some appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each

other, each leaning against a supporting post.

"What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat!" exclaimed Mr.

Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why

the morning seemed long to him.

"You are burnt beyond recognition," he added, looking at his wife as

one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered

some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely hands, and

surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves above the wrists.

Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which she had given to her

husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached out to him,

and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then

clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The

rings sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile.

"What is it?" asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from one to

the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out there in the

water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It did not seem half so

amusing when told. They realized this, and so did Mr. Pontellier. He

yawned and stretched himself. Then he got up, saying he had half a mind

to go over to Klein's hotel and play a game of billiards.

"Come go along, Lebrun," he proposed to Robert. But Robert

admitted quite frankly that he preferred to stay where he was and talk to

Mrs. Pontellier.

"Well, send him about his business when he bores you, Edna,"

instructed her husband as he prepared to leave.

"Here, take the umbrella," she exclaimed, holding it out to him. He

accepted the sunshade, and lifting it over his head descended the steps and

walked away.

"Coming back to dinner?" his wife called after him. He halted a

moment and shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his vest pocket; there was

a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know; perhaps he would return for the

early dinner and perhaps he would not. It all depended upon the company

which he found over at Klein's and the size of "the game." He did not say

this, but she understood it, and laughed, nodding good-by to him.

Both children wanted to follow their father when they saw him starting

out. He kissed them and promised to bring them back bonbons and

peanuts.

Mrs. Pontellier's eyes were quick and bright; they were a yellowish

brown, about the color of her hair. She had a way of turning them swiftly

upon an object and holding them there as if lost in some inward maze of

contemplation or thought.

Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were thick and

almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes. She was rather

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

handsome than beautiful. Her face was captivating by reason of a certain

frankness of expression and a contradictory subtle play of features. Her

manner was engaging.

Robert rolled a cigarette. He smoked cigarettes because he could not

afford cigars, he said. He had a cigar in his pocket which Mr. Pontellier

had presented him with, and he was saving it for his after-dinner smoke.

This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. In coloring he was

not unlike his companion. A clean-shaved face made the resemblance

more pronounced than it would otherwise have been. There rested no

shadow of care upon his open countenance. His eyes gathered in and

reflected the light and languor of the summer day.

Mrs. Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on the porch

and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his lips light puffs

from his cigarette. They chatted incessantly: about the things around

them; their amusing adventure out in the water-it had again assumed its

entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees, the people who had gone to

the Cheniere; about the children playing croquet under the oaks, and the

Farival twins, who were now performing the overture to "The Poet and the

Peasant."

Robert talked a good deal about himself. He was very young, and did

not know any better. Mrs. Pontellier talked a little about herself for the

same reason. Each was interested in what the other said. Robert spoke

of his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn, where fortune awaited him.

He was always intending to go to Mexico, but some way never got there.

Meanwhile he held on to his modest position in a mercantile house in New

Orleans, where an equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish gave

him no small value as a clerk and correspondent.

He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with his

mother at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could remember,

"the house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns. Now, flanked by its

dozen or more cottages, which were always filled with exclusive visitors

from the "Quartier Francais," it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the

easy and comfortable existence which appeared to be her birthright.

Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi plantation and her

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass country. She was an

American woman, with a small infusion of French which seemed to have

been lost in dilution. She read a letter from her sister, who was away in

the East, and who had engaged herself to be married. Robert was

interested, and wanted to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what

the father was like, and how long the mother had been dead.

When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to dress for

the early dinner.

"I see Leonce isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in the

direction whence her husband had disappeared. Robert supposed he was

not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein's.

When Mrs. Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man

descended the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players, where,

during the half-hour before dinner, he amused himself with the little

Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.

III

It was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned from

Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits, and very

talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed and fast asleep

when he came in. He talked to her while he undressed, telling her

anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that he had gathered during the day.

From his trousers pockets he took a fistful of crumpled bank notes and a

good deal of silver coin, which he piled on the bureau indiscriminately

with keys, knife, handkerchief, and whatever else happened to be in his

pockets. She was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half

utterances.

He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the sole object

of his existence, evinced so little interest in things which concerned him,

and valued so little his conversation.

Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the boys.

Notwithstanding he loved them very much, and went into the adjoining

room where they slept to take a look at them and make sure that they were

resting comfortably. The result of his investigation was far from

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

satisfactory. He turned and shifted the youngsters about in bed. One of

them began to kick and talk about a basket full of crabs.

Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that Raoul had

a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit a cigar and went and

sat near the open door to smoke it.

Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to

bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had ailed him all day. Mr.

Pontellier was too well acquainted with fever symptoms to be mistaken.

He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room.

He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the

children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on

earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage business.

He could not be in two places at once; making a living for his family on

the street, and staying at home to see that no harm befell them. He talked

in a monotonous, insistent way.

Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room. She

soon came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head down on

the pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he

questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he went to bed, and in

half a minute he was fast asleep.

Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry

a little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out the

candle, which her husband had left burning, she slipped her bare feet into

a pair of satin mules at the foot of the bed and went out on the porch,

where she sat down in the wicker chair and began to rock gently to and

fro.

It was then past midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint

light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound

abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the

everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour. It

broke like a mournful lullaby upon the night.

The tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier's eyes that the damp sleeve of

her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back of her

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

chair with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the shoulder of

her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and wet, into the

bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring any longer to

dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told why she was

crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her

married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the

abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion which had

come to be tacit and self-understood.

An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some

unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague

anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's

summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not

sit there inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had

directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just

having a good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her,

biting her firm, round arms and nipping at her bare insteps.

The little stinging, buzzing imps succeeded in dispelling a mood which

might have held her there in the darkness half a night longer.

The following morning Mr. Pontellier was up in good time to take the

rockaway which was to convey him to the steamer at the wharf. He was

returning to the city to his business, and they would not see him again at

the Island till the coming Saturday. He had regained his composure,

which seemed to have been somewhat impaired the night before. He was

eager to be gone, as he looked forward to a lively week in Carondelet

Street.

Mr. Pontellier gave his wife half of the money which he had brought

away from Klein's hotel the evening before. She liked money as well as

most women, and, accepted it with no little satisfaction.

"It will buy a handsome wedding present for Sister Janet!" she

exclaimed, smoothing out the bills as she counted them one by one.

"Oh! we'll treat Sister Janet better than that, my dear," he laughed, as

he prepared to kiss her good-by.

The boys were tumbling about, clinging to his legs, imploring that

numerous things be brought back to them. Mr. Pontellier was a great

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

favorite, and ladies, men, children, even nurses, were always on hand to

say goodby to him. His wife stood smiling and waving, the boys

shouting, as he disappeared in the old rockaway down the sandy road.

A few days later a box arrived for Mrs. Pontellier from New Orleans.

It was from her husband. It was filled with friandises, with luscious and

toothsome bits--the finest of fruits, pates, a rare bottle or two, delicious

syrups, and bonbons in abundance.

Mrs. Pontellier was always very generous with the contents of such a

box; she was quite used to receiving them when away from home. The

pates and fruit were brought to the dining-room; the bonbons were passed

around. And the ladies, selecting with dainty and discriminating fingers

and a little greedily, all declared that Mr. Pontellier was the best husband

in the world. Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit that she knew of none

better.

It would have been a difficult matter for Mr. Pontellier to define to his

own satisfaction or any one else's wherein his wife failed in her duty

toward their children. It was something which he felt rather than

perceived, and he never voiced the feeling without subsequent regret and

ample atonement.

If one of the little Pontellier boys took a tumble whilst at play, he was

not apt to rush crying to his mother's arms for comfort; he would more

likely pick himself up, wipe the water out of his eves and the sand out of

his mouth, and go on playing. Tots as they were, they pulled together

and stood their ground in childish battles with doubled fists and uplifted

voices, which usually prevailed against the other mother-tots. The

quadroon nurse was looked upon as a huge encumbrance, only good to

button up waists and panties and to brush and part hair; since it seemed to

be a law of society that hair must be parted and brushed.

In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The

motherwomen seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy

to know them, fluttering about with extended, protecting wings when any

harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood. They were

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and

esteemed it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow

wings as ministering angels.

Many of them were delicious in the role; one of them was the

embodiment of every womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not

adore her, he was a brute, deserving of death by slow torture. Her name

was Adele Ratignolle. There are no words to describe her save the old

ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine of romance

and the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing subtle or hidden

about her charms; her beauty was all there, flaming and apparent: the

spun-gold hair that comb nor confining pin could restrain; the blue eyes

that were like nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted, that were so red

one could only think of cherries or some other delicious crimson fruit in

looking at them. She was growing a little stout, but it did not seem to

detract an iota from the grace of every step, pose, gesture. One would

not have wanted her white neck a mite less full or her beautiful arms more

slender. Never were hands more exquisite than hers, and it was a joy to

look at them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her gold thimble to

her taper middle finger as she sewed away on the little night-drawers or

fashioned a bodice or a bib.

Madame Ratignolle was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she

took her sewing and went over to sit with her in the afternoons. She was

sitting there the afternoon of the day the box arrived from New Orleans.

She had possession of the rocker, and she was busily engaged in sewing

upon a diminutive pair of night-drawers.

She had brought the pattern of the drawers for Mrs. Pontellier to cut

out--a marvel of construction, fashioned to enclose a baby's body so

effectually that only two small eyes might look out from the garment, like

an Eskimo's. They were designed for winter wear, when treacherous

drafts came down chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold found

their way through key-holes.

Mrs. Pontellier's mind was quite at rest concerning the present material

needs of her children, and she could not see the use of anticipating and

making winter night garments the subject of her summer meditations.

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TheAwakeningandSelectedShortStories1TheAwakeningandSelectedShortStoriesbyKateChopinTheAwakeningandSelectedShortStories2THEAWAKENINGIAgreenandyellowparrot,whichhunginacageoutsidethedoor,keptrepeatingoverandover:"Allezvous-en!Allezvous-en!Sapristi!That'sallright!"HecouldspeakalittleSpanish,andalsoalan...

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