Part IV

It 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 eves

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

motherwomen 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 Adele 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.