READ STUDY GUIDE: Chapters I–V |
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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. |
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