The Awakening

t 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 eyes 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 mother-women
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 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 Adèle
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. But she did not want to appear unamiable and uninterested,
so she had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the floor of
the gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle’s directions she had cut a
pattern of the impervious garment.

Robert was there, seated as he had been the Sunday before, and Mrs.
Pontellier also occupied her former position on the upper step, leaning
listlessly against the post. Beside her was a box of bonbons, which she
held out at intervals to Madame Ratignolle.

That lady seemed at a loss to make a selection, but finally settled
upon a stick of nougat, wondering if it were not too rich; whether it
could possibly hurt her. Madame Ratignolle had been married seven
years. About every two years she had a baby. At that time she had three
babies, and was beginning to think of a fourth one. She was always
talking about her “condition.” Her “condition” was in no way apparent,
and no one would have known a thing about it but for her persistence in
making it the subject of conversation.

Robert started to reassure her, asserting that he had known a lady who
had subsisted upon nougat during the entire—but seeing the color mount
into Mrs. Pontellier’s face he checked himself and changed the subject.

Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at
home in the society of Creoles; never before had she been thrown so
intimately among them. There were only Creoles that summer at Lebrun’s.
They all knew each other, and felt like one large family, among whom
existed the most amicable relations. A characteristic which
distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly
was their entire absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was at
first incomprehensible to her, though she had no difficulty in
reconciling it with a lofty chastity which in the Creole woman seems to
be inborn and unmistakable.

Never would Edna Pontellier forget the shock with which she heard
Madame Ratignolle relating to old Monsieur Farival the harrowing story
of one of her accouchements, withholding no intimate detail. She was
growing accustomed to like shocks, but she could not keep the mounting
color back from her cheeks. Oftener than once her coming had
interrupted the droll story with which Robert was entertaining some
amused group of married women.

A book had gone the rounds of the pension. When it came her turn to
read it, she did so with profound astonishment. She felt moved to read
the book in secret and solitude, though none of the others had done
so,—to hide it from view at the sound of approaching footsteps. It was
openly criticised and freely discussed at table. Mrs. Pontellier gave
over being astonished, and concluded that wonders would never cease.