The following morning Mr. Pontellier, upon leaving for his office,
asked Edna if she would not meet him in town in order to look at some
new fixtures for the library.
“I hardly think we need new fixtures, Léonce. Don’t let us get anything
new; you are too extravagant. I don’t believe you ever think of saving
or putting by.”
“The way to become rich is to make money, my dear Edna, not to save
it,” he said. He regretted that she did not feel inclined to go with
him and select new fixtures. He kissed her good-by, and told her she
was not looking well and must take care of herself. She was unusually
pale and very quiet.
She stood on the front veranda as he quitted the house, and absently
picked a few sprays of jessamine that grew upon a trellis near by. She
inhaled the odor of the blossoms and thrust them into the bosom of her
white morning gown. The boys were dragging along the banquette a small
“express wagon,” which they had filled with blocks and sticks. The
quadroon was following them with little quick steps, having assumed a
fictitious animation and alacrity for the occasion. A fruit vender was
crying his wares in the street.
Edna looked straight before her with a self-absorbed expression upon
her face. She felt no interest in anything about her. The street, the
children, the fruit vender, the flowers growing there under her eyes,
were all part and parcel of an alien world which had suddenly become
antagonistic.
She went back into the house. She had thought of speaking to the cook
concerning her blunders of the previous night; but Mr. Pontellier had
saved her that disagreeable mission, for which she was so poorly
fitted. Mr. Pontellier’s arguments were usually convincing with those
whom he employed. He left home feeling quite sure that he and Edna
would sit down that evening, and possibly a few subsequent evenings, to
a dinner deserving of the name.
Edna spent an hour or two in looking over some of her old sketches. She
could see their shortcomings and defects, which were glaring in her
eyes. She tried to work a little, but found she was not in the humor.
Finally she gathered together a few of the sketches—those which she
considered the least discreditable; and she carried them with her when,
a little later, she dressed and left the house. She looked handsome and
distinguished in her street gown. The tan of the seashore had left her
face, and her forehead was smooth, white, and polished beneath her
heavy, yellow-brown hair. There were a few freckles on her face, and a
small, dark mole near the under lip and one on the temple, half-hidden
in her hair.
As Edna walked along the street she was thinking of Robert. She was
still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him,
realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like
an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt
upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or
peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which
dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the
mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled
her with an incomprehensible longing.
Edna was on her way to Madame Ratignolle’s. Their intimacy, begun at
Grand Isle, had not declined, and they had seen each other with some
frequency since their return to the city. The Ratignolles lived at no
great distance from Edna’s home, on the corner of a side street, where
Monsieur Ratignolle owned and conducted a drug store which enjoyed a
steady and prosperous trade. His father had been in the business before
him, and Monsieur Ratignolle stood well in the community and bore an
enviable reputation for integrity and clearheadedness. His family lived
in commodious apartments over the store, having an entrance on the side
within the _porte cochère_. There was something which Edna thought very
French, very foreign, about their whole manner of living. In the large
and pleasant salon which extended across the width of the house, the
Ratignolles entertained their friends once a fortnight with a _soirée
musicale_, sometimes diversified by card-playing. There was a friend
who played upon the cello. One brought his flute and another his
violin, while there were some who sang and a number who performed upon
the piano with various degrees of taste and agility. The Ratignolles’
_soirées musicales_ were widely known, and it was considered a
privilege to be invited to them.
Edna found her friend engaged in assorting the clothes which had
returned that morning from the laundry. She at once abandoned her
occupation upon seeing Edna, who had been ushered without ceremony into
her presence.
“’Cité can do it as well as I; it is really her business,” she
explained to Edna, who apologized for interrupting her. And she
summoned a young black woman, whom she instructed, in French, to be
very careful in checking off the list which she handed her. She told
her to notice particularly if a fine linen handkerchief of Monsieur
Ratignolle’s, which was missing last week, had been returned; and to be
sure to set to one side such pieces as required mending and darning.
Then placing an arm around Edna’s waist, she led her to the front of
the house, to the salon, where it was cool and sweet with the odor of
great roses that stood upon the hearth in jars.
Madame Ratignolle looked more beautiful than ever there at home, in a
negligé which left her arms almost wholly bare and exposed the rich,
melting curves of her white throat.
“Perhaps I shall be able to paint your picture some day,” said Edna
with a smile when they were seated. She produced the roll of sketches
and started to unfold them. “I believe I ought to work again. I feel as
if I wanted to be doing something. What do you think of them? Do you
think it worth while to take it up again and study some more? I might
study for a while with Laidpore.”
She knew that Madame Ratignolle’s opinion in such a matter would be
next to valueless, that she herself had not alone decided, but
determined; but she sought the words of praise and encouragement that
would help her to put heart into her venture.
“Your talent is immense, dear!”
“Nonsense!” protested Edna, well pleased.
“Immense, I tell you,” persisted Madame Ratignolle, surveying the
sketches one by one, at close range, then holding them at arm’s length,
narrowing her eyes, and dropping her head on one side. “Surely, this
Bavarian peasant is worthy of framing; and this basket of apples! never
have I seen anything more lifelike. One might almost be tempted to
reach out a hand and take one.”
Edna could not control a feeling which bordered upon complacency at her
friend’s praise, even realizing, as she did, its true worth. She
retained a few of the sketches, and gave all the rest to Madame
Ratignolle, who appreciated the gift far beyond its value and proudly
exhibited the pictures to her husband when he came up from the store a
little later for his midday dinner.
Mr. Ratignolle was one of those men who are called the salt of the
earth. His cheerfulness was unbounded, and it was matched by his
goodness of heart, his broad charity, and common sense. He and his wife
spoke English with an accent which was only discernible through its
un-English emphasis and a certain carefulness and deliberation. Edna’s
husband spoke English with no accent whatever. The Ratignolles
understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings
into one has been accomplished on this sphere it was surely in their
union.
As Edna seated herself at table with them she thought, “Better a dinner
of herbs,” though it did not take her long to discover that it was no
dinner of herbs, but a delicious repast, simple, choice, and in every
way satisfying.
Monsieur Ratignolle was delighted to see her, though he found her
looking not so well as at Grand Isle, and he advised a tonic. He talked
a good deal on various topics, a little politics, some city news and
neighborhood gossip. He spoke with an animation and earnestness that
gave an exaggerated importance to every syllable he uttered. His wife
was keenly interested in everything he said, laying down her fork the
better to listen, chiming in, taking the words out of his mouth.
Edna felt depressed rather than soothed after leaving them. The little
glimpse of domestic harmony which had been offered her, gave her no
regret, no longing. It was not a condition of life which fitted her,
and she could see in it but an appalling and hopeless ennui. She was
moved by a kind of commiseration for Madame Ratignolle,—a pity for that
colorless existence which never uplifted its possessor beyond the
region of blind contentment, in which no moment of anguish ever visited
her soul, in which she would never have the taste of life’s delirium.
Edna vaguely wondered what she meant by “life’s delirium.” It had
crossed her thought like some unsought, extraneous impression.