Part X

At all events Robert proposed it, and there was not a

dissenting voice. There was not one but was ready to follow when

he led the way. He did not lead the way, however, he directed the

way; and he himself loitered behind with the lovers, who had

betrayed a disposition to linger and hold themselves apart. He

walked between them, whether with malicious or mischievous intent

was not wholly clear, even to himself.

The Pontelliers and Ratignolles walked ahead; the women

leaning upon the arms of their husbands. Edna could hear Robert's

voice behind them, and could sometimes hear what he said. She

wondered why he did not join them. It was unlike him not to. Of

late he had sometimes held away from her for an entire day,

redoubling his devotion upon the next and the next, as though to

make up for hours that had been lost. She missed him the days when

some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses

the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun

when it was shining.

The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They

talked and laughed; some of them sang. There was a band playing

down at Klein's hotel, and the strains reached them faintly,

tempered by the distance. There were strange, rare odors abroad—

a tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth,

mingled with the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms

somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon the sea and the

land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no shadows. The

white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the mystery

and the softness of sleep.

Most of them walked into the water as though into a native element.

The sea was quiet now, and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted

into one another and did not break except upon the beach in little

foamy crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents.

Edna had attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had

received instructions from both the men and women; in some

instances from the children. Robert had pursued a system of

lessons almost daily; and he was nearly at the point of

discouragement in realizing the futility of his efforts. A certain

ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there

was a hand near by that might reach out and reassure her.

But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling,

clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for

the first time alone, boldly and with over-confidence. She could

have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping

stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface of the water.

A feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of

significant import had been given her to control the working of her

body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating

her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum

before.

Her unlooked-for achievement was the subject of wonder,

applause, and admiration. Each one congratulated himself that his

special teachings had accomplished this desired end.

"How easy it is!" she thought. "It is nothing," she said

aloud; "why did I not discover before that it was nothing. Think

of the time I have lost splashing about like a baby!" She would not

join the groups in their sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her

newly conquered power, she swam out alone.

She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of

space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and

melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As

she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which

to lose herself.

Once she turned and looked toward the shore, toward the people

she had left there. She had not gone any great distance that is,

what would have been a great distance for an experienced swimmer.

But to her unaccustomed vision the stretch of water behind her

assumed the aspect of a barrier which her unaided strength

would never be able to overcome.

A quick vision of death smote her soul, and for a second of

time appalled and enfeebled her senses. But by an effort she

rallied her staggering faculties and managed to regain the land.

She made no mention of her encounter with death and her flash

of terror, except to say to her husband, "I thought I should have

perished out there alone."

"You were not so very far, my dear; I was watching you", he

told her.

Edna went at once to the bath-house, and she had put on her

dry clothes and was ready to return home before the others had left

the water. She started to walk away alone. They all called to her

and shouted to her. She waved a dissenting hand, and went on,

paying no further heed to their renewed cries which sought to

detain her.

"Sometimes I am tempted to think that Mrs. Pontellier is

capricious," said Madame Lebrun, who was amusing herself immensely

and feared that Edna's abrupt departure might put an end to the

pleasure.

"I know she is," assented Mr. Pontellier; "sometimes, not

often."

Edna had not traversed a quarter of the distance on her way

home before she was overtaken by Robert.

"Did you think I was afraid?" she asked him, without a shade

of annoyance.

"No; I knew you weren't afraid."

"Then why did you come? Why didn't you stay out there with the

others?"

"I never thought of it."

"Thought of what?"

"Of anything. What difference does it make?"

"I'm very tired," she uttered, complainingly.

"I know you are."

"You don't know anything about it. Why should you know? I

never was so exhausted in my life. But it isn't unpleasant. A

thousand emotions have swept through me to-night. I don't

comprehend half of them. Don't mind what I'm saying; I am just

thinking aloud. I wonder if I shall ever be stirred again as

Mademoiselle Reisz's playing moved me to-night. I wonder if any

night on earth will ever again be like this one. It is like a

night in a dream. The people about me are like some uncanny,

half-human beings. There must be spirits abroad to-night."

"There are," whispered Robert, "Didn't you know this was

the twenty-eighth of August?"

"The twenty-eighth of August?"

"Yes. On the twenty-eighth of August, at the hour of

midnight, and if the moon is shining—the moon must be shining—a

spirit that has haunted these shores for ages rises up from the

Gulf. With its own penetrating vision the spirit seeks some one

mortal worthy to hold him company, worthy of being exalted for a

few hours into realms of the semi-celestials. His search has

always hitherto been fruitless, and he has sunk back, disheartened,

into the sea. But to-night he found Mrs. Pontellier. Perhaps he

will never wholly release her from the spell. Perhaps she will

never again suffer a poor, unworthy earthling to walk in the shadow

of her divine presence."

"Don't banter me," she said, wounded at what appeared to be

his flippancy. He did not mind the entreaty, but the tone with its

delicate note of pathos was like a reproach. He could not explain;

he could not tell her that he had penetrated her mood and

understood. He said nothing except to offer her his arm, for, by

her own admission, she was exhausted. She had been walking alone

with her arms hanging limp, letting her white skirts trail along

the dewy path. She took his arm, but she did not lean upon it.

She let her hand lie listlessly, as though her thoughts were

elsewhere—somewhere in advance of her body, and she was striving

to overtake them.

Robert assisted her into the hammock which swung from the post

before her door out to the trunk of a tree.

"Will you stay out here and wait for Mr. Pontellier?" he

asked.

"I'll stay out here. Good-night."

"Shall I get you a pillow?"

"There's one here," she said, feeling about, for they were in

the shadow.

"It must be soiled; the children have been tumbling it about."

"No matter." And having discovered the pillow, she adjusted it

beneath her head. She extended herself in the hammock with a deep

breath of relief. She was not a supercilious or an over-dainty

woman. She was not much given to reclining in the hammock, and

when she did so it was with no cat-like suggestion of voluptuous

ease, but with a beneficent repose which seemed to invade her whole

body.

"Shall I stay with you till Mr. Pontellier comes?" asked

Robert, seating himself on the outer edge of one of the steps and

taking hold of the hammock rope which was fastened to the post.

"If you wish. Don't swing the hammock. Will you get my white

shawl which I left on the window-sill over at the house?"

"Are you chilly?"

"No; but I shall be presently."

"Presently?" he laughed. "Do you know what time it is?

How long are you going to stay out here?"

"I don't know. Will you get the shawl?"

"Of course I will," he said, rising. He went over to the

house, walking along the grass. She watched his figure pass in and

out of the strips of moonlight. It was past midnight. It was very

quiet.

When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her

hand. She did not put it around her.

"Did you say I should stay till Mr. Pontellier came back?"

"I said you might if you wished to."

He seated himself again and rolled a cigarette, which he

smoked in silence. Neither did Mrs. Pontellier speak.

No multitude of words could have been more significant than those

moments of silence, or more pregnant with the first-felt throbbings

of desire.

When the voices of the bathers were heard approaching, Robert

said good-night. She did not answer him. He thought she was

asleep. Again she watched his figure pass in and out of the strips

of moonlight as he walked away.