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 good-by 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, _patés_, 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
_patés_ 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.