Edna could not help but think that it was very foolish, very childish,
to have stamped upon her wedding ring and smashed the crystal vase upon
the tiles. She was visited by no more outbursts, moving her to such
futile expedients. She began to do as she liked and to feel as she
liked. She completely abandoned her Tuesdays at home, and did not
return the visits of those who had called upon her. She made no
ineffectual efforts to conduct her household _en bonne ménagère_, going
and coming as it suited her fancy, and, so far as she was able, lending
herself to any passing caprice.
Mr. Pontellier had been a rather courteous husband so long as he met a
certain tacit submissiveness in his wife. But her new and unexpected
line of conduct completely bewildered him. It shocked him. Then her
absolute disregard for her duties as a wife angered him. When Mr.
Pontellier became rude, Edna grew insolent. She had resolved never to
take another step backward.
“It seems to me the utmost folly for a woman at the head of a
household, and the mother of children, to spend in an atelier days
which would be better employed contriving for the comfort of her
family.”
“I feel like painting,” answered Edna. “Perhaps I shan’t always feel
like it.”
“Then in God’s name paint! but don’t let the family go to the devil.
There’s Madame Ratignolle; because she keeps up her music, she doesn’t
let everything else go to chaos. And she’s more of a musician than you
are a painter.”
“She isn’t a musician, and I’m not a painter. It isn’t on account of
painting that I let things go.”
“On account of what, then?”
“Oh! I don’t know. Let me alone; you bother me.”
It sometimes entered Mr. Pontellier’s mind to wonder if his wife were
not growing a little unbalanced mentally. He could see plainly that she
was not herself. That is, he could not see that she was becoming
herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume
like a garment with which to appear before the world.
Her husband let her alone as she requested, and went away to his
office. Edna went up to her atelier—a bright room in the top of the
house. She was working with great energy and interest, without
accomplishing anything, however, which satisfied her even in the
smallest degree. For a time she had the whole household enrolled in the
service of art. The boys posed for her. They thought it amusing at
first, but the occupation soon lost its attractiveness when they
discovered that it was not a game arranged especially for their
entertainment. The quadroon sat for hours before Edna’s palette,
patient as a savage, while the house-maid took charge of the children,
and the drawing-room went undusted. But the house-maid, too, served her
term as model when Edna perceived that the young woman’s back and
shoulders were molded on classic lines, and that her hair, loosened
from its confining cap, became an inspiration. While Edna worked she
sometimes sang low the little air, “_Ah! si tu savais!_”
It moved her with recollections. She could hear again the ripple of the
water, the flapping sail. She could see the glint of the moon upon the
bay, and could feel the soft, gusty beating of the hot south wind. A
subtle current of desire passed through her body, weakening her hold
upon the brushes and making her eyes burn.
There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was
happy to be alive and breathing, when her whole being seemed to be one
with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some
perfect Southern day. She liked then to wander alone into strange and
unfamiliar places. She discovered many a sunny, sleepy corner,
fashioned to dream in. And she found it good to dream and to be alone
and unmolested.
There were days when she was unhappy, she did not know why,—when it did
not seem worth while to be glad or sorry, to be alive or dead; when
life appeared to her like a grotesque pandemonium and humanity like
worms struggling blindly toward inevitable annihilation. She could not
work on such a day, nor weave fancies to stir her pulses and warm her
blood.