Edna still felt dazed when she got outside in the open air. The
Doctor’s coupé had returned for him and stood before the _porte
cochère_. She did not wish to enter the coupé, and told Doctor Mandelet
she would walk; she was not afraid, and would go alone. He directed his
carriage to meet him at Mrs. Pontellier’s, and he started to walk home
with her.
Up—away up, over the narrow street between the tall houses, the stars
were blazing. The air was mild and caressing, but cool with the breath
of spring and the night. They walked slowly, the Doctor with a heavy,
measured tread and his hands behind him; Edna, in an absent-minded way,
as she had walked one night at Grand Isle, as if her thoughts had gone
ahead of her and she was striving to overtake them.
“You shouldn’t have been there, Mrs. Pontellier,” he said. “That was no
place for you. Adèle is full of whims at such times. There were a dozen
women she might have had with her, unimpressionable women. I felt that
it was cruel, cruel. You shouldn’t have gone.”
“Oh, well!” she answered, indifferently. “I don’t know that it matters
after all. One has to think of the children some time or other; the
sooner the better.”
“When is Léonce coming back?”
“Quite soon. Some time in March.”
“And you are going abroad?”
“Perhaps—no, I am not going. I’m not going to be forced into doing
things. I don’t want to go abroad. I want to be let alone. Nobody has
any right—except children, perhaps—and even then, it seems to me—or it
did seem—” She felt that her speech was voicing the incoherency of her
thoughts, and stopped abruptly.
“The trouble is,” sighed the Doctor, grasping her meaning intuitively,
“that youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of
Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no
account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create,
and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost.”
“Yes,” she said. “The years that are gone seem like dreams—if one might
go on sleeping and dreaming—but to wake up and find—oh! well! perhaps
it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to
remain a dupe to illusions all one’s life.”
“It seems to me, my dear child,” said the Doctor at parting, holding
her hand, “you seem to me to be in trouble. I am not going to ask for
your confidence. I will only say that if ever you feel moved to give it
to me, perhaps I might help you. I know I would understand. And I tell
you there are not many who would—not many, my dear.”
“Some way I don’t feel moved to speak of things that trouble me. Don’t
think I am ungrateful or that I don’t appreciate your sympathy. There
are periods of despondency and suffering which take possession of me.
But I don’t want anything but my own way. That is wanting a good deal,
of course, when you have to trample upon the lives, the hearts, the
prejudices of others—but no matter—still, I shouldn’t want to trample
upon the little lives. Oh! I don’t know what I’m saying, Doctor. Good
night. Don’t blame me for anything.”
“Yes, I will blame you if you don’t come and see me soon. We will talk
of things you never have dreamt of talking about before. It will do us
both good. I don’t want you to blame yourself, whatever comes. Good
night, my child.”
She let herself in at the gate, but instead of entering she sat upon
the step of the porch. The night was quiet and soothing. All the
tearing emotion of the last few hours seemed to fall away from her like
a somber, uncomfortable garment, which she had but to loosen to be rid
of. She went back to that hour before Adèle had sent for her; and her
senses kindled afresh in thinking of Robert’s words, the pressure of
his arms, and the feeling of his lips upon her own. She could picture
at that moment no greater bliss on earth than possession of the beloved
one. His expression of love had already given him to her in part. When
she thought that he was there at hand, waiting for her, she grew numb
with the intoxication of expectancy. It was so late; he would be asleep
perhaps. She would awaken him with a kiss. She hoped he would be asleep
that she might arouse him with her caresses.
Still, she remembered Adèle’s voice whispering, “Think of the children;
think of them.” She meant to think of them; that determination had
driven into her soul like a death wound—but not to-night. To-morrow
would be time to think of everything.
Robert was not waiting for her in the little parlor. He was nowhere at
hand. The house was empty. But he had scrawled on a piece of paper that
lay in the lamplight:
“I love you. Good-by—because I love you.”
Edna grew faint when she read the words. She went and sat on the sofa.
Then she stretched herself out there, never uttering a sound. She did
not sleep. She did not go to bed. The lamp sputtered and went out. She
was still awake in the morning, when Celestine unlocked the kitchen
door and came in to light the fire.