The Awakening

hen Mr. Pontellier learned of his wife’s intention to abandon her home
and take up her residence elsewhere, he immediately wrote her a letter
of unqualified disapproval and remonstrance. She had given reasons
which he was unwilling to acknowledge as adequate. He hoped she had not
acted upon her rash impulse; and he begged her to consider first,
foremost, and above all else, what people would say. He was not
dreaming of scandal when he uttered this warning; that was a thing
which would never have entered into his mind to consider in connection
with his wife’s name or his own. He was simply thinking of his
financial integrity. It might get noised about that the Pontelliers had
met with reverses, and were forced to conduct their ménage on a
humbler scale than heretofore. It might do incalculable mischief to his
business prospects.

But remembering Edna’s whimsical turn of mind of late, and foreseeing
that she had immediately acted upon her impetuous determination, he
grasped the situation with his usual promptness and handled it with his
well-known business tact and cleverness.

The same mail which brought to Edna his letter of disapproval carried
instructions—the most minute instructions—to a well-known architect
concerning the remodeling of his home, changes which he had long
contemplated, and which he desired carried forward during his temporary
absence.

Expert and reliable packers and movers were engaged to convey the
furniture, carpets, pictures—everything movable, in short—to places of
security. And in an incredibly short time the Pontellier house was
turned over to the artisans. There was to be an addition—a small
snuggery; there was to be frescoing, and hardwood flooring was to be
put into such rooms as had not yet been subjected to this improvement.

Furthermore, in one of the daily papers appeared a brief notice to the
effect that Mr. and Mrs. Pontellier were contemplating a summer sojourn
abroad, and that their handsome residence on Esplanade Street was
undergoing sumptuous alterations, and would not be ready for occupancy
until their return. Mr. Pontellier had saved appearances!

Edna admired the skill of his maneuver, and avoided any occasion to
balk his intentions. When the situation as set forth by Mr. Pontellier
was accepted and taken for granted, she was apparently satisfied that
it should be so.

The pigeon house pleased her. It at once assumed the intimate character
of a home, while she herself invested it with a charm which it
reflected like a warm glow. There was with her a feeling of having
descended in the social scale, with a corresponding sense of having
risen in the spiritual. Every step which she took toward relieving
herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an
individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and to
apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content
to “feed upon opinion” when her own soul had invited her.

After a little while, a few days, in fact, Edna went up and spent a
week with her children in Iberville. They were delicious February days,
with all the summer’s promise hovering in the air.

How glad she was to see the children! She wept for very pleasure when
she felt their little arms clasping her; their hard, ruddy cheeks
pressed against her own glowing cheeks. She looked into their faces
with hungry eyes that could not be satisfied with looking. And what
stories they had to tell their mother! About the pigs, the cows, the
mules! About riding to the mill behind Gluglu; fishing back in the lake
with their Uncle Jasper; picking pecans with Lidie’s little black
brood, and hauling chips in their express wagon. It was a thousand
times more fun to haul real chips for old lame Susie’s real fire than
to drag painted blocks along the banquette on Esplanade Street!

She went with them herself to see the pigs and the cows, to look at the
darkies laying the cane, to thrash the pecan trees, and catch fish in
the back lake. She lived with them a whole week long, giving them all
of herself, and gathering and filling herself with their young
existence. They listened, breathless, when she told them the house in
Esplanade Street was crowded with workmen, hammering, nailing, sawing,
and filling the place with clatter. They wanted to know where their bed
was; what had been done with their rocking-horse; and where did Joe
sleep, and where had Ellen gone, and the cook? But, above all, they
were fired with a desire to see the little house around the block. Was
there any place to play? Were there any boys next door? Raoul, with
pessimistic foreboding, was convinced that there were only girls next
door. Where would they sleep, and where would papa sleep? She told them
the fairies would fix it all right.

The old Madame was charmed with Edna’s visit, and showered all manner
of delicate attentions upon her. She was delighted to know that the
Esplanade Street house was in a dismantled condition. It gave her the
promise and pretext to keep the children indefinitely.

It was with a wrench and a pang that Edna left her children. She
carried away with her the sound of their voices and the touch of their
cheeks. All along the journey homeward their presence lingered with her
like the memory of a delicious song. But by the time she had regained
the city the song no longer echoed in her soul. She was again alone.