Part 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 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 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 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.