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Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please
see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding
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A Night in Acadie
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[Illustration]
A NIGHT IN ACADIE
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_By KATE CHOPIN_
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AUTHOR OF “BAYOU FOLK”
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[Illustration: Published by Way & Williams, CHICAGO]
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MDCCCXCVII
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Copyright, 1897, by Way & Williams.
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Contents
PAGE
I. A NIGHT IN ACADIE 1
II. ATHÉNAÏSE 39
III. AFTER THE WINTER 107
IV. POLYDORE 127
V. REGRET 145
VI. A MATTER OF PREJUDICE 155
VII. CALINE 173
VIII. A DRESDEN LADY IN DIXIE 181
IX. NÉG CRÉOL 199
X. THE LILIES 215
XI. AZÉLIE 229
XII. MAMOUCHE 251
XIII. A SENTIMENTAL SOUL 271
XIV. DEAD MEN’S SHOES 295
XV. AT CHENIÈRE CAMINADA 315
XVI. ODALIE MISSES MASS 341
XVII. CAVANELLE 355
XVIII. TANTE CAT’RINETTE 369
XIX. A RESPECTABLE WOMAN 389
XX. RIPE FIGS 399
XXI. OZÈME’S HOLIDAY 403
A Night in Acadie
A Night in Acadie
There was nothing to do on the plantation so Telèsphore, having a few
dollars in his pocket, thought he would go down and spend Sunday in the
vicinity of Marksville.
There was really nothing more to do in the vicinity of Marksville than
in the neighborhood of his own small farm; but Elvina would not be down
there, nor Amaranthe, nor any of Ma’me Valtour’s daughters to harass him
with doubt, to torture him with indecision, to turn his very soul into a
weather-cock for love’s fair winds to play with.
Telèsphore at twenty-eight had long felt the need of a wife. His home
without one was like an empty temple in which there is no altar, no
offering. So keenly did he realize the necessity that a dozen times at
least during the past year he had been on the point of proposing
marriage to almost as many different young women of the neighborhood.
Therein lay the difficulty, the trouble which Telèsphore experienced in
making up his mind. Elvina’s eyes were beautiful and had often tempted
him to the verge of a declaration. But her skin was over swarthy for a
wife; and her movements were slow and heavy; he doubted she had Indian
blood, and we all know what Indian blood is for treachery. Amaranthe
presented in her person none of these obstacles to matrimony. If her
eyes were not so handsome as Elvina’s, her skin was fine, and being
slender to a fault, she moved swiftly about her household affairs, or
when she walked the country lanes in going to church or to the store.
Telèsphore had once reached the point of believing that Amaranthe would
make him an excellent wife. He had even started out one day with the
intention of declaring himself, when, as the god of chance would have
it, Ma’me Valtour espied him passing in the road and enticed him to
enter and partake of coffee and “baignés.” He would have been a man of
stone to have resisted, or to have remained insensible to the charms and
accomplishments of the Valtour girls. Finally there was Ganache’s widow,
seductive rather than handsome, with a good bit of property in her own
right. While Telèsphore was considering his chances of happiness or even
success with Ganache’s widow, she married a younger man.
From these embarrassing conditions, Telèsphore sometimes felt himself
forced to escape; to change his environment for a day or two and thereby
gain a few new insights by shifting his point of view.
It was Saturday morning that he decided to spend Sunday in the vicinity
of Marksville, and the same afternoon found him waiting at the country
station for the south-bound train.
He was a robust young fellow with good, strong features and a somewhat
determined expression--despite his vacillations in the choice of a wife.
He was dressed rather carefully in navy-blue “store clothes” that fitted
well because anything would have fitted Telèsphore. He had been freshly
shaved and trimmed and carried an umbrella. He wore—a little tilted over
one eye—a straw hat in preference to the conventional gray felt; for no
other reason than that his uncle Telèsphore would have worn a felt, and
a battered one at that. His whole conduct of life had been planned on
lines in direct contradistinction to those of his uncle Telèsphore, whom
he was thought in early youth to greatly resemble. The elder Telèsphore
could not read nor write, therefore the younger had made it the object
of his existence to acquire these accomplishments. The uncle pursued the
avocations of hunting, fishing and moss-picking; employments which the
nephew held in detestation. And as for carrying an umbrella, “Nonc“
Telèsphore would have walked the length of the parish in a deluge before
he would have so much as thought of one. In short, Telèsphore, by
advisedly shaping his course in direct opposition to that of his uncle,
managed to lead a rather orderly, industrious, and respectable
existence.
It was a little warm for April but the car was not uncomfortably crowded
and Telèsphore was fortunate enough to secure the last available
window-seat on the shady side. He was not too familiar with railway
travel, his expeditions being usually made on horse-back or in a buggy,
and the short trip promised to interest him.
There was no one present whom he knew well enough to speak to: the
district attorney, whom he knew by sight, a French priest from
Natchitoches and a few faces that were familiar only because they were
native.
But he did not greatly care to speak to anyone. There was a fair stand
of cotton and corn in the fields and Telèsphore gathered satisfaction in
silent contemplation of the crops, comparing them with his own.
It was toward the close of his journey that a young girl boarded the
train. There had been girls getting on and off at intervals and it was
perhaps because of the bustle attending her arrival that this one
attracted Telèsphore’s attention.
She called good-bye to her father from the platform and waved good-bye
to him through the dusty, sun-lit window pane after entering, for she
was compelled to seat herself on the sunny side. She seemed inwardly
excited and preoccupied save for the attention which she lavished upon a
large parcel that she carried religiously and laid reverentially down
upon the seat before her.
She was neither tall nor short, nor stout nor slender; nor was she
beautiful, nor was she plain. She wore a figured lawn, cut a little low
in the back, that exposed a round, soft nuque with a few little clinging
circlets of soft, brown hair. Her hat was of white straw, cocked up on
the side with a bunch of pansies, and she wore gray lisle-thread gloves.
The girl seemed very warm and kept mopping her face. She vainly sought
her fan, then she fanned herself with her handkerchief, and finally made
an attempt to open the window. She might as well have tried to move the
banks of Red river.
Telèsphore had been unconsciously watching her the whole time and
perceiving her straight he arose and went to her assistance. But the
window could not be opened. When he had grown red in the face and wasted
an amount of energy that would have driven the plow for a day, he
offered her his seat on the shady side. She demurred—there would be no
room for the bundle. He suggested that the bundle be left where it was
and agreed to assist her in keeping an eye upon it. She accepted
Telèsphore’s place at the shady window and he seated himself beside her.
He wondered if she would speak to him. He feared she might have mistaken
him for a Western drummer, in which event he knew that she would not;
for the women of the country caution their daughters against speaking to
strangers on the trains. But the girl was not one to mistake an Acadian
farmer for a Western traveling man. She was not born in Avoyelles parish
for nothing.
“I wouldn’ want anything to happen to it,” she said.
“It’s all right w’ere it is,” he assured her, following the direction of
her glance, that was fastened upon the bundle.
“The las’ time I came over to Foché’s ball I got caught in the rain on
my way up to my cousin’s house, an’ my dress! J’ vous réponds! it was a
sight. Li’le mo’, I would miss the ball. As it was, the dress looked
like I’d wo’ it weeks without doin’-up.”
“No fear of rain to-day,” he reassured her, glancing out at the sky,
“but you can have my umbrella if it does rain; you jus’ as well take it
as not.”
“Oh, no! I wrap’ the dress roun’ in toile-cirée this time. You goin’ to
Foché’s ball? Didn’ I meet you once yonda on Bayou Derbanne? Looks like
I know yo’ face. You mus’ come f’om Natchitoches pa’ish.”
“My cousins, the Fédeau family, live yonda. Me, I live on my own place
in Rapides since ’92.”
He wondered if she would follow up her inquiry relative to Foché’s ball.
If she did, he was ready with an answer, for he had decided to go to the
ball. But her thoughts evidently wandered from the subject and were
occupied with matters that did not concern him, for she turned away and
gazed silently out of the window.
It was not a village; it was not even a hamlet at which they descended.
The station was set down upon the edge of a cotton field. Near at hand
was the post office and store; there was a section house; there were a
few cabins at wide intervals, and one in the distance the girl informed
him was the home of her cousin, Jules Trodon. There lay a good bit of
road before them and she did not hesitate to accept Telèsphore’s offer
to bear her bundle on the way.
She carried herself boldly and stepped out freely and easily, like a
negress. There was an absence of reserve in her manner; yet there was no
lack of womanliness. She had the air of a young person accustomed to
decide for herself and for those about her.
“You said yo’ name was Fédeau?” she asked, looking squarely at
Telèsphore. Her eyes were penetrating—not sharply penetrating, but
earnest and dark, and a little searching. He noticed that they were
handsome eyes; not so large as Elvina’s, but finer in their expression.
They started to walk down the track before turning into the lane leading
to Trodon’s house. The sun was sinking and the air was fresh and
invigorating by contrast with the stifling atmosphere of the train.
“You said yo’ name was Fédeau?” she asked.
“No,” he returned. “My name is Telèsphore Baquette.”
“An’ my name; it’s Zaïda Trodon. It looks like you ought to know me; I
don’ know w’y.”
“It looks that way to me, somehow,” he replied. They were satisfied to
recognize this feeling—almost conviction—of pre-acquaintance, without
trying to penetrate its cause.
By the time they reached Trodon’s house he knew that she lived over on
Bayou de Glaize with her parents and a number of younger brothers and
sisters. It was rather dull where they lived and she often came to lend
a hand when her cousin’s wife got tangled in domestic complications; or,
as she was doing now, when Foché’s Saturday ball promised to be
unusually important and brilliant. There would be people there even from
Marksville, she thought; there were often gentlemen from Alexandria.
Telèsphore was as unreserved as she, and they appeared like old
acquaintances when they reached Trodon’s gate.
Trodon’s wife was standing on the gallery with a baby in her arms,
watching for Zaïda; and four little bare-footed children were sitting in
a row on the step, also waiting; but terrified and struck motionless and
dumb at sight of a stranger. He opened the gate for the girl but stayed
outside himself. Zaïda presented him formally to her cousin’s wife, who
insisted upon his entering.
“Ah, b’en, pour ça! you got to come in. It’s any sense you goin’ to walk
yonda to Foché’s! Ti Jules, run call yo’ pa.” As if Ti Jules could have
run or walked even, or moved a muscle!
But Telèsphore was firm. He drew forth his silver watch and looked at it
in a business-like fashion. He always carried a watch; his uncle
Telèsphore always told the time by the sun, or by instinct, like an
animal. He was quite determined to walk on to Foché’s, a couple of miles
away, where he expected to secure supper and a lodging, as well as the
pleasing distraction of the ball.
“Well, I reckon I see you all to-night,” he uttered in cheerful
anticipation as he moved away.
“You’ll see Zaïda; yes, an’ Jules,” called out Trodon’s wife
good-humoredly. “Me, I got no time to fool with balls, J’ vous réponds!
with all them chil’ren.”
“He’s good-lookin’; yes,” she exclaimed, when Telèsphore was out of
ear-shot. “An’ dressed! it’s like a prince. I didn’ know you knew any
Baquettes, you, Zaïda.”
“It’s strange you don’ know ’em yo’ se’f, cousine.” Well, there had been
no question from Ma’me Trodon, so why should there be an answer from
Zaïda?
Telèsphore wondered as he walked why he had not accepted the invitation
to enter. He was not regretting it; he was simply wondering what could
have induced him to decline. For it surely would have been agreeable to
sit there on the gallery waiting while Zaïda prepared herself for the
dance; to have partaken of supper with the family and afterward
accompanied them to Foché’s. The whole situation was so novel, and had
presented itself so unexpectedly that Telèsphore wished in reality to
become acquainted with it, accustomed to it. He wanted to view it from
this side and that in comparison with other, familiar situations. The
girl had impressed him—affected him in some way; but in some new,
unusual way, not as the others always had. He could not recall details
of her personality as he could recall such details of Amaranthe or the
Valtours, of any of them. When Telèsphore tried to think of her he could
not think at all. He seemed to have absorbed her in some way and his
brain was not so occupied with her as his senses were. At that moment he
was looking forward to the ball; there was no doubt about that.
Afterwards, he did not know what he would look forward to; he did not
care; afterward made no difference. If he had expected the crash of doom
to come after the dance at Foché’s, he would only have smiled in his
thankfulness that it was not to come before.
There was the same scene every Saturday at Foché’s! A scene to have
aroused the guardians of the peace in a locality where such commodities
abound. And all on account of the mammoth pot of gumbo that bubbled,
bubbled, bubbled out in the open air. Foché in shirt-sleeves, fat, red
and enraged, swore and reviled, and stormed at old black Douté for her
extravagance. He called her every kind of a name of every kind of animal
that suggested itself to his lurid imagination. And every fresh
invective that he fired at her she hurled it back at him while into the
pot went the chickens and the pans-full of minced ham, and the
fists-full of onion and sage and piment rouge and piment vert. If he
wanted her to cook for pigs he had only to say so. She knew how to cook
for pigs and she knew how to cook for people of les Avoyelles.
The gumbo smelled good, and Telèsphore would have liked a taste of it.
Douté was dragging from the fire a stick of wood that Foché had
officiously thrust beneath the simmering pot, and she muttered as she
hurled it smouldering to one side:
“Vaux mieux y s’méle ces affairs, lui; si non!” But she was all courtesy
as she dipped a steaming plate for Telèsphore; though she assured him it
would not be fit for a Christian or a gentleman to taste till midnight.
Telèsphore having brushed, “spruced” and refreshed himself, strolled
about, taking a view of the surroundings. The house, big, bulky and
weather-beaten, consisted chiefly of galleries in every stage of
decrepitude and dilapidation. There were a few chinaberry trees and a
spreading live oak in the yard. Along the edge of the fence, a good
distance away, was a line of gnarled and distorted mulberry trees; and
it was there, out in the road, that the people who came to the ball tied
their ponies, their wagons and carts.
Dusk was beginning to fall and Telèsphore, looking out across the
prairie, could see them coming from all directions. The little Creole
ponies galloping in a line looked like hobby horses in the faint
distance; the mule-carts were like toy wagons. Zaïda might be among
those people approaching, flying, crawling ahead of the darkness that
was creeping out of the far wood. He hoped so, but he did not believe
so; she would hardly have had time to dress.
Foché was noisily lighting lamps, with the assistance of an inoffensive
mulatto boy whom he intended in the morning to butcher, to cut into
sections, to pack and salt down in a barrel, like the Colfax woman did
to her old husband—a fitting destiny for so stupid a pig as the mulatto
boy. The negro musicians had arrived: two fiddlers and an accordion
player, and they were drinking whiskey from a black quart bottle which
was passed socially from one to the other. The musicians were really
never at their best till the quart bottle had been consumed.
The girls who came in wagons and on ponies from a distance wore, for the
most part, calico dresses and sun-bonnets. Their finery they brought
along in pillow-slips or pinned up in sheets and towels. With these they
at once retired to an upper room; later to appear be-ribboned and
be-furbelowed; their faces masked with starch powder, but never a touch
of rouge.
Most of the guests had assembled when Zaïda arrived—“dashed up” would
better express her coming—in an open, two-seated buckboard, with her
cousin Jules driving. He reined the pony suddenly and viciously before
the time-eaten front steps, in order to produce an impression upon those
who were gathered around. Most of the men had halted their vehicles
outside and permitted their women folk to walk up from the mulberry
trees.
But the real, the stunning effect was produced when Zaïda stepped upon
the gallery and threw aside her light shawl in the full glare of half a
dozen kerosene lamps. She was white from head to foot—literally, for her
slippers even were white. No one would have believed, let alone
suspected that they were a pair of old black ones which she had covered
with pieces of her first communion sash. There is no describing her
dress, it was fluffy, like a fresh powder-puff, and stood out. No wonder
she had handled it so reverentially! Her white fan was covered with
spangles that she herself had sewed all over it; and in her belt and in
her brown hair were thrust small sprays of orange blossom.
Two men leaning against the railing uttered long whistles expressive
equally of wonder and admiration.
“Tiens! t’es pareille comme ain mariée, Zaïda;” cried out a lady with a
baby in her arms. Some young women tittered and Zaïda fanned herself.
The women’s voices were almost without exception shrill and piercing;
the men’s, soft and low-pitched.
The girl turned to Telèsphore, as to an old and valued friend:
“Tiens! c’est vous?” He had hesitated at first to approach, but at this
friendly sign of recognition he drew eagerly forward and held out his
hand. The men looked at him suspiciously, inwardly resenting his stylish
appearance, which they considered intrusive, offensive and demoralizing.
How Zaïda’s eyes sparkled now! What very pretty teeth Zaïda had when she
laughed, and what a mouth! Her lips were a revelation, a promise;
something to carry away and remember in the night and grow hungry
thinking of next day. Strictly speaking, they may not have been quite
all that; but in any event, that is the way Telèsphore thought about
them. He began to take account of her appearance: her nose, her eyes,
her hair. And when she left him to go in and dance her first dance with
cousin Jules, he leaned up against a post and thought of them: nose,
eyes, hair, ears, lips and round, soft throat.
Later it was like Bedlam.
The musicians had warmed up and were scraping away indoors and calling
the figures. Feet were pounding through the dance; dust was flying. The
women’s voices were piped high and mingled discordantly, like the
confused, shrill clatter of waking birds, while the men laughed
boisterously. But if some one had only thought of gagging Foché, there
would have been less noise. His good humor permeated everywhere, like an
atmosphere. He was louder than all the noise; he was more visible than
the dust. He called the young mulatto (destined for the knife) “my boy”
and sent him flying hither and thither. He beamed upon Douté as he
tasted the gumbo and congratulated her: “C’est toi qui s’y connais, ma
fille! ’cré tonnerre!”
Telèsphore danced with Zaïda and then he leaned out against the post;
then he danced with Zaïda, and then he leaned against the post. The
mothers of the other girls decided that he had the manners of a pig.
It was time to dance again with Zaïda and he went in search of her. He
was carrying her shawl, which she had given him to hold.
“W’at time it is?” she asked him when he had found and secured her. They
were under one of the kerosene lamps on the front gallery and he drew
forth his silver watch. She seemed to be still laboring under some
suppressed excitement that he had noticed before.
“It’s fo’teen minutes pas’ twelve,” he told her exactly.
“I wish you’d fine out w’ere Jules is. Go look yonda in the card-room if
he’s there, an’ come tell me.” Jules had danced with all the prettiest
girls. She knew it was his custom after accomplishing this agreeable
feat, to retire to the card-room,
“You’ll wait yere till I come back?” he asked.
“I’ll wait yere; you go on.” She waited but drew back a little into the
shadow. Telèsphore lost no time.
“Yes, he’s yonda playin’ cards with Foché an’ some others I don’ know,”
he reported when he had discovered her in the shadow. There had been a
spasm of alarm when he did not at once see her where he had left her
under the lamp.
“Does he look—look like he’s fixed yonda fo’ good?”
“He’s got his coat off. Looks like he’s fixed pretty comf’table fo’ the
nex’ hour or two.”
“Gi’ me my shawl.”
“You cole?” offering to put it around her.
“No, I ain’t cole.” She drew the shawl about her shoulders and turned as
if to leave him. But a sudden generous impulse seemed to move her, and
she added:
“Come along yonda with me.”
They descended the few rickety steps that led down to the yard. He
followed rather than accompanied her across the beaten and trampled
sward. Those who saw them thought they had gone out to take the air. The
beams of light that slanted out from the house were fitful and
uncertain, deepening the shadows. The embers under the empty gumbo-pot
glared red in the darkness. There was a sound of quiet voices coming
from under the trees.
Zaïda, closely accompanied by Telèsphore, went out where the vehicles
and horses were fastened to the fence. She stepped carefully and held up
her skirts as if dreading the least speck of dew or of dust.
“Unhitch Jules’ ho’se an’ buggy there an’ turn ’em ’roun’ this way,
please.” He did as instructed, first backing the pony, then leading it
out to where she stood in the half-made road.
“You goin’ home?” he asked her, “betta let me water the pony.”
“Neva mine.” She mounted and seating herself grasped the reins. “No, I
aint goin’ home,” she added. He, too, was holding the reins gathered in
one hand across the pony’s back.
“W’ere you goin’?” he demanded.
“Neva you mine w’ere I’m goin’.”
“You ain’t goin’ anyw’ere this time o’ night by yo’se’f?”
“W’at you reckon I’m ’fraid of?” she laughed. “Turn loose that ho’se,”
at the same time urging the animal forward. The little brute started
away with a bound and Telèsphore, also with a bound, sprang into the
buckboard and seated himself beside Zaïda.
“You ain’t goin’ anyw’ere this time o’ night by yo’se’f.” It was not a
question now, but an assertion, and there was no denying it. There was
even no disputing it, and Zaïda recognizing the fact drove on in
silence.
There is no animal that moves so swiftly across a ’Cadian prairie as the
little Creole pony. This one did not run nor trot; he seemed to reach
out in galloping bounds. The buckboard creaked, bounced, jolted and
swayed. Zaïda clutched at her shawl while Telèsphore drew his straw hat
further down over his right eye and offered to drive. But he did not
know the road and she would not let him. They had soon reached the
woods.
If there is any animal that can creep more slowly through a wooded road
than the little Creole pony, that animal has not yet been discovered in
Acadie. This particular animal seemed to be appalled by the darkness of
the forest and filled with dejection. His head drooped and he lifted his
feet as if each hoof were weighted with a thousand pounds of lead. Any
one unacquainted with the peculiarities of the breed would sometimes
have fancied that he was standing still. But Zaïda and Telèsphore knew
better. Zaïda uttered a deep sigh as she slackened her hold on the reins
and Telèsphore, lifting his hat, let it swing from the back of his head.
“How you don’ ask me w’ere I’m goin’?” she said finally. These were the
first words she had spoken since refusing his offer to drive.
“Oh, it don’ make any diff’ence w’ere you goin’.”
“Then if it don’ make any diff’ence w’ere I’m goin’, I jus’ as well tell
you.” She hesitated, however. He seemed to have no curiosity and did not
urge her.
“I’m goin’ to get married,” she said.
He uttered some kind of an exclamation; it was nothing articulate—more
like the tone of an animal that gets a sudden knife thrust. And now he
felt how dark the forest was. An instant before it had seemed a sweet,
black paradise; better than any heaven he had ever heard of.
“W’y can’t you get married at home?” This was not the first thing that
occurred to him to say, but this was the first thing he said.
“Ah, b’en oui! with perfec’ mules fo’ a father an’ mother! it’s good
enough to talk.”
“W’y couldn’ he come an’ get you? W’at kine of a scound’el is that to
let you go through the woods at night by yo’se’f?”
“You betta wait till you know who you talkin’ about. He didn’ come an’
get me because he knows I ain’t ’fraid; an’ because he’s got too much
pride to ride in Jules Trodon’s buckboard afta he done been put out o’
Jules Trodon’s house.”
“W’at’s his name an’ w’ere you goin’ to fine ’im?”
“Yonda on the other side the woods up at ole Wat Gibson’s—a kine of
justice the peace or something. Anyhow he’s goin’ to marry us. An’ afta
we done married those têtes-de-mulets yonda on bayou de Glaize can say
w’at they want.”
“W’at’s his name?”
“André Pascal.”
The name meant nothing to Telèsphore. For all he knew, André Pascal
might be one of the shining lights of Avoyelles; but he doubted it.
“You betta turn ’roun’,” he said. It was an unselfish impulse that
prompted the suggestion. It was the thought of this girl married to a
man whom even Jules Trodon would not suffer to enter his house.
“I done give my word,” she answered.
“W’at’s the matta with ’im? W’y don’t yo’ father and mother want you to
marry ’im?”
“W’y? Because it’s always the same tune! W’en a man’s down eve’ybody’s
got stones to throw at ’im. They say he’s lazy. A man that will walk
from St. Landry plumb to Rapides lookin’ fo’ work; an’ they call that
lazy! Then, somebody’s been spreadin’ yonda on the Bayou that he drinks.
I don’ b’lieve it. I neva saw ’im drinkin’, me. Anyway, he won’t drink
afta he’s married to me; he’s too fon’ of me fo’ that. He say he’ll blow
out his brains if I don’ marry ’im.”
“I reckon you betta turn roun’.”
“No, I done give my word.” And they went creeping on through the woods
in silence.
“W’at time is it?” she asked after an interval. He lit a match and
looked at his watch.
“It’s quarta to one. W’at time did he say?”
“I tole ’im I’d come about one o’clock. I knew that was a good time to
get away f’om the ball.”
She would have hurried a little but the pony could not be induced to do
so. He dragged himself, seemingly ready at any moment to give up the
breath of life. But once out of the woods he made up for lost time. They
were on the open prairie again, and he fairly ripped the air; some
flying demon must have changed skins with him.
It was a few minutes of one o’clock when they drew up before Wat
Gibson’s house. It was not much more than a rude shelter, and in the dim
starlight it seemed isolated, as if standing alone in the middle of the
black, far-reaching prairie. As they halted at the gate a dog within set
up a furious barking; and an old negro who had been smoking his pipe at
that ghostly hour, advanced toward them from the shelter of the gallery.
Telèsphore descended and helped his companion to alight.
“We want to see Mr. Gibson,” spoke up Zaïda. The old fellow had already
opened the gate. There was no light in the house.
“Marse Gibson, he yonda to ole Mr. Bodel’s playin’ kairds. But he neva’
stay atter one o’clock. Come in, ma’am; come in, suh; walk right ’long
in.” He had drawn his own conclusions to explain their appearance. They
stood upon the narrow porch waiting while he went inside to light the
lamp.
Although the house was small, as it comprised but one room, that room
was comparatively a large one. It looked to Telèsphore and Zaïda very
large and gloomy when they entered it. The lamp was on a table that
stood against the wall, and that held further a rusty looking ink
bottle, a pen and an old blank book. A narrow bed was off in the corner.
The brick chimney extended into the room and formed a ledge that served
as mantel shelf. From the big, low-hanging rafters swung an assortment
of fishing tackle, a gun, some discarded articles of clothing and a
string of red peppers. The boards of the floor were broad, rough and
loosely joined together.
Telèsphore and Zaïda seated themselves on opposite sides of the table
and the negro went out to the wood pile to gather chips and pieces of
bois-gras with which to kindle a small fire.
It was a little chilly; he supposed the two would want coffee and he
knew that Wat Gibson would ask for a cup the first thing on his arrival.
“I wonder w’at’s keepin’ ’im,” muttered Zaïda impatiently. Telèsphore
looked at his watch. He had been looking at it at intervals of one
minute straight along.
“It’s ten minutes pas’ one,” he said. He offered no further comment.
At twelve minutes past one Zaïda’s restlessness again broke into speech.
“I can’t imagine, me, w’at’s become of André! He said he’d be yere sho’
at one.” The old negro was kneeling before the fire that he had kindled,
contemplating the cheerful blaze. He rolled his eyes toward Zaïda.
“You talkin’ ’bout Mr. André Pascal? No need to look fo’ him. Mr. Andre
he b’en down to de P’int all day raisin’ Cain.”
“That’s a lie,” said Zaïda. Telèsphore said nothing.
“Tain’t no lie, ma’am; he b’en sho’ raisin’ de ole Nick.” She looked at
him, too contemptuous to reply.
The negro told no lie so far as his bald statement was concerned. He was
simply mistaken in his estimate of André Pascal’s ability to “raise
Cain” during an entire afternoon and evening and still keep a rendezvous
with a lady at one o’clock in the morning. For André was even then at
hand, as the loud and menacing howl of the dog testified. The negro
hastened out to admit him.
André did not enter at once; he stayed a while outside abusing the dog
and communicating to the negro his intention of coming out to shoot the
animal after he had attended to more pressing business that was awaiting
him within.
Zaïda arose, a little flurried and excited when he entered. Telèsphore
remained seated.
Pascal was partially sober. There had evidently been an attempt at
dressing for the occasion at some early part of the previous day, but
such evidences had almost wholly vanished. His linen was soiled and his
whole appearance was that of a man who, by an effort, had aroused
himself from a debauch. He was a little taller than Telèsphore, and more
loosely put together. Most women would have called him a handsomer man.
It was easy to imagine that when sober, he might betray by some subtle
grace of speech or manner, evidences of gentle blood.
“W’y did you keep me waitin’, André? w’en you knew—” she got no further,
but backed up against the table and stared at him with earnest, startled
eyes.
“Keep you waiting, Zaïda? my dear li’le Zaïdé, how can you say such a
thing! I started up yere an hour ago an’ that—w’ere’s that damned ole
Gibson?” He had approached Zaïda with the evident intention of embracing
her, but she seized his wrist and held him at arm’s length away. In
casting his eyes about for old Gibson his glance alighted upon
Telèsphore.
The sight of the ’Cadian seemed to fill him with astonishment. He stood
back and began to contemplate the young fellow and lose himself in
speculation and conjecture before him, as if before some unlabeled wax
figure. He turned for information to Zaïda.
“Say, Zaïda, w’at you call this? Wat kine of damn fool you got sitting
yere? Who let him in? W’at you reckon he’s lookin’ fo’? trouble?”
Telèsphore said nothing; he was awaiting his cue from Zaïda.
“André Pascal,” she said, “you jus’ as well take the do’ an’ go. You
might stan’ yere till the day o’ judgment on yo’ knees befo’ me; an’
blow out yo’ brains if you a mine to. I ain’t neva goin’ to marry you.”
“The hell you ain’t!”
He had hardly more than uttered the words when he lay prone on his back.
Telèsphore had knocked him down. The blow seemed to complete the process
of sobering that had begun in him. He gathered himself together and rose
to his feet; in doing so he reached back for his pistol. His hold was
not yet steady, however, and the weapon slipped from his grasp and fell
to the floor. Zaïda picked it up and laid it on the table behind her.
She was going to see fair play.
The brute instinct that drives men at each other’s throat was awake and
stirring in these two. Each saw in the other a thing to be wiped out of
his way—out of existence if need be. Passion and blind rage directed the
blows which they dealt, and steeled the tension of muscles and clutch of
fingers. They were not skillful blows, however.
The fire blazed cheerily; the kettle which the negro had placed upon the
coals was steaming and singing. The man had gone in search of his
master. Zaïda had placed the lamp out of harm’s way on the high mantel
ledge and she leaned back with her hands behind her upon the table.
She did not raise her voice or lift her finger to stay the combat that
was acting before her. She was motionless, and white to the lips; only
her eyes seemed to be alive and burning and blazing. At one moment she
felt that André must have strangled Telèsphore; but she said nothing.
The next instant she could hardly doubt that the blow from Telèsphore’s
doubled fist could be less than a killing one; but she did nothing.
How the loose boards swayed and creaked beneath the weight of the
struggling men! the very old rafters seemed to groan; and she felt that
the house shook.
The combat, if fierce, was short, and it ended out on the gallery
whither they had staggered through the open door—or one had dragged the
other—she could not tell. But she knew when it was over, for there was a
long moment of utter stillness. Then she heard one of the men descend
the steps and go away, for the gate slammed after him. The other went
out to the cistern; the sound of the tin bucket splashing in the water
reached her where she stood. He must have been endeavoring to remove
traces of the encounter.
Presently Telèsphore entered the room. The elegance of his apparel had
been somewhat marred; the men over at the ’Cadian ball would hardly have
taken exception now to his appearance.
“W’ere is André?” the girl asked.
“He’s gone,” said Telèsphore.
She had never changed her position and now when she drew herself up her
wrists ached and she rubbed them a little. She was no longer pale; the
blood had come back into her cheeks and lips, staining them crimson. She
held out her hand to him. He took it gratefully enough, but he did not
know what to do with it; that is, he did not know what he might dare to
do with it, so he let it drop gently away and went to the fire.
“I reckon we betta be goin’, too,” she said. He stooped and poured some
of the bubbling water from the kettle upon the coffee which the negro
had set upon the hearth.
“I’ll make a li’le coffee firs’,” he proposed, “an’ anyhow we betta wait
till ole man w’at’shis-name comes back. It wouldn’t look well to leave
his house that way without some kine of excuse or explanation.”
She made no reply, but seated herself submissively beside the table.
Her will, which had been overmastering and aggressive, seemed to have
grown numb under the disturbing spell of the past few hours. An illusion
had gone from her, and had carried her love with it. The absence of
regret revealed this to her. She realized, but could not comprehend it,
not knowing that the love had been part of the illusion. She was tired
in body and spirit, and it was with a sense of restfulness that she sat
all drooping and relaxed and watched Telèsphore make the coffee.
He made enough for them both and a cup for old Wat Gibson when he should
come in, and also one for the negro. He supposed the cups, the sugar and
spoons were in the safe over there in the corner, and that is where he
found them.
When he finally said to Zaïda, “Come, I’m going to take you home now,”
and drew her shawl around her, pinning it under the chin, she was like a
little child and followed whither he led in all confidence.
It was Telèsphore who drove on the way back, and he let the pony cut no
capers, but held him to a steady and tempered gait. The girl was still
quiet and silent; she was thinking tenderly—a little tearfully of those
two old têtes-de-mulets yonder on Bayou de Glaize.
How they crept through the woods! and how dark it was and how still!
“W’at time it is?” whispered Zaïda. Alas! he could not tell her; his
watch was broken. But almost for the first time in his life, Telèsphore
did not care what time it was.
Athénaïse
Athénaïse
I.
Athénaïse went away in the morning to make a visit to her parents, ten
miles back on rigolet de Bon Dieu. She did not return in the evening,
and Cazeau, her husband, fretted not a little. He did not worry much
about Athénaïse, who, he suspected, was resting only too content in the
bosom of her family; his chief solicitude was manifestly for the pony
she had ridden. He felt sure those “lazy pigs,” her brothers, were
capable of neglecting it seriously. This misgiving Cazeau communicated
to his servant, old Félicité, who waited upon him at supper.
His voice was low pitched, and even softer than Félicité’s. He was tall,
sinewy, swarthy, and altogether severe looking. His thick black hair
waved, and it gleamed like the breast of a crow. The sweep of his
mustache, which was not so black, outlined the broad contour of the
mouth. Beneath the under lip grew a small tuft which he was much given
to twisting, and which he permitted to grow, apparently for no other
purpose. Cazeau’s eyes were dark blue, narrow and overshadowed. His
hands were coarse and stiff from close acquaintance with farming tools
and implements, and he handled his fork and knife clumsily. But he was
distinguished looking, and succeeded in commanding a good deal of
respect, and even fear sometimes.
He ate his supper alone, by the light of a single coal-oil lamp that but
faintly illuminated the big room, with its bare floor and huge rafters,
and its heavy pieces of furniture that loomed dimly in the gloom of the
apartment. Félicité, ministering to his wants, hovered about the table
like a little, bent, restless shadow.
She served him with a dish of sunfish fried crisp and brown. There was
nothing else set before him beside the bread and butter and the bottle
of red wine which she locked carefully in the buffet after he had poured
his second glass. She was occupied with her mistress’s absence, and kept
reverting to it after he had expressed his solicitude about the pony.
“Dat beat me! on’y marry two mont’, an’ got de head turn’ a’ready to go
’broad. C’est pas Chrétien, ténez!”
Cazeau shrugged his shoulders for answer, after he had drained his glass
and pushed aside his plate. Félicité’s opinion of the unchristian-like
behavior of his wife in leaving him thus alone after two months of
marriage weighed little with him. He was used to solitude, and did not
mind a day or a night or two of it. He had lived alone ten years, since
his first wife died, and Félicité might have known better than to
suppose that he cared. He told her she was a fool. It sounded like a
compliment in his modulated, caressing voice. She grumbled to herself as
she set about clearing the table, and Cazeau arose and walked outside on
the gallery; his spur, which he had not removed upon entering the house,
jangled at every step.
The night was beginning to deepen, and to gather black about the
clusters of trees and shrubs that were grouped in the yard. In the beam
of light from the open kitchen door a black boy stood feeding a brace of
snarling, hungry dogs; further away, on the steps of a cabin, some one
was playing the accordion; and in still another direction a little negro
baby was crying lustily. Cazeau walked around to the front of the house,
which was square, squat and one-story.
A belated wagon was driving in at the gate, and the impatient driver was
swearing hoarsely at his jaded oxen. Félicité stepped out on the
gallery, glass and polishing towel in hand, to investigate, and to
wonder, too, who could be singing out on the river. It was a party of
young people paddling around, waiting for the moon to rise, and they
were singing Juanita, their voices coming tempered and melodious through
the distance and the night.
Cazeau’s horse was waiting, saddled, ready to be mounted, for Cazeau had
many things to attend to before bed-time; so many things that there was
not left to him a moment in which to think of Athénaïse. He felt her
absence, though, like a dull, insistent pain.
However, before he slept that night he was visited by the thought of
her, and by a vision of her fair young face with its drooping lips and
sullen and averted eyes. The marriage had been a blunder; he had only to
look into her eyes to feel that, to discover her growing aversion. But
it was a thing not by any possibility to be undone. He was quite
prepared to make the best of it, and expected no less than a like effort
on her part. The less she revisited the rigolet, the better. He would
find means to keep her at home hereafter.
These unpleasant reflections kept Cazeau awake far into the night,
notwithstanding the craving of his whole body for rest and sleep. The
moon was shining, and its pale effulgence reached dimly into the room,
and with it a touch of the cool breath of the spring night. There was an
unusual stillness abroad; no sound to be heard save the distant,
tireless, plaintive notes of the accordion.
II.
Athénaïse did not return the following day, even though her husband sent
her word to do so by her brother, Montéclin, who passed on his way to
the village early in the morning.
On the third day Cazeau saddled his horse and went himself in search of
her. She had sent no word, no message, explaining her absence, and he
felt that he had good cause to be offended. It was rather awkward to
have to leave his work, even though late in the afternoon,—Cazeau had
always so much to do; but among the many urgent calls upon him, the task
of bringing his wife back to a sense of her duty seemed to him for the
moment paramount.
The Michés, Athénaïse’s parents, lived on the old Gotrain place. It did
not belong to them; they were “running” it for a merchant in Alexandria.
The house was far too big for their use. One of the lower rooms served
for the storing of wood and tools; the person “occupying” the place
before Miché having pulled up the flooring in despair of being able to
patch it. Upstairs, the rooms were so large, so bare, that they offered
a constant temptation to lovers of the dance, whose importunities Madame
Miché was accustomed to meet with amiable indulgence. A dance at Miché’s
and a plate of Madame Miché’s gumbo filé at midnight were pleasures not
to be neglected or despised, unless by such serious souls as Cazeau.
Long before Cazeau reached the house his approach had been observed, for
there was nothing to obstruct the view of the outer road; vegetation was
not yet abundantly advanced, and there was but a patchy, straggling
stand of cotton and corn in Miché’s field.
Madame Miché, who had been seated on the gallery in a rocking-chair,
stood up to greet him as he drew near. She was short and fat, and wore a
black skirt and loose muslin sack fastened at the throat with a hair
brooch. Her own hair, brown and glossy, showed but a few threads of
silver. Her round pink face was cheery, and her eyes were bright and
good humored. But she was plainly perturbed and ill at ease as Cazeau
advanced.
Montéclin, who was there too, was not ill at ease, and made no attempt
to disguise the dislike with which his brother-in-law inspired him. He
was a slim, wiry fellow of twenty-five, short of stature like his
mother, and resembling her in feature. He was in shirtsleeves, half
leaning, half sitting, on the insecure railing of the gallery, and
fanning himself with his broad-rimmed felt hat.
“Cochon!” he muttered under his breath as Cazeau mounted the
stairs,—“sacré cochon!”
“Cochon” had sufficiently characterized the man who had once on a time
declined to lend Montéclin money. But when this same man had had the
presumption to propose marriage to his well-beloved sister, Athénaïse,
and the honor to be accepted by her, Montéclin felt that a qualifying
epithet was needed fully to express his estimate of Cazeau.
Miché and his oldest son were absent. They both esteemed Cazeau highly,
and talked much of his qualities of head and heart, and thought much of
his excellent standing with city merchants.
Athénaïse had shut herself up in her room. Cazeau had seen her rise and
enter the house at perceiving him. He was a good deal mystified, but no
one could have guessed it when he shook hands with Madame Miché. He had
only nodded to Montéclin, with a muttered “Comment ça va?”
“Tiens! something tole me you were coming to-day!” exclaimed Madame
Miché, with a little blustering appearance of being cordial and at ease,
as she offered Cazeau a chair.
He ventured a short laugh as he seated himself.
“You know, nothing would do,” she went on, with much gesture of her
small, plump hands, “nothing would do but Athénaïse mus’ stay las’ night
fo’ a li’le dance. The boys wouldn’ year to their sister leaving.”
Cazeau shrugged his shoulders significantly, telling as plainly as words
that he knew nothing about it.
“Comment. Montéclin didn’ tell you we were going to keep Athénaïse?”
Montéclin had evidently told nothing.
“An’ how about the night befo’,” questioned Cazeau, “an’ las’ night? It
isn’t possible you dance every night out yere on the Bon Dieu!”
Madame Miché laughed, with amiable appreciation of the sarcasm; and
turning to her son, “Montéclin, my boy, go tell yo’ sister that Monsieur
Cazeau is yere.”
Montéclin did not stir except to shift his position and settle himself
more securely on the railing.
“Did you year me, Montéclin?”
“Oh yes, I yeard you plain enough,” responded her son, “but you know as
well as me it’s no use to tell ’Thénaïse anything. You been talkin’ to
her yo’se’f since Monday; an’ pa’s preached himse’f hoa’se on the
subject; an’ you even had uncle Achille down yere yesterday to reason
with her. Wen ’Thénaïse said she wasn’ goin’ to set her foot back in
Cazeau’s house, she meant it.”
This speech, which Montéclin delivered with thorough unconcern, threw
his mother into a condition of painful but dumb embarrassment. It
brought two fiery red spots to Cazeau’s cheeks, and for the space of a
moment he looked wicked.