1897
ATHENAISE
by Kate Chopin
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
I
Athenaise 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 Athenaise, 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 Felicite, who waited
upon him at supper.
His voice was low pitched, and even softer than Felicite'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. Felicite, 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 Chretien, tenez!"
Cazeau shrugged his shoulders for answer, after he had drained his
glass and pushed aside his plate. Felicite's opinion of the
unchristianlike 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 Felicite 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.
Felicite 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 bedtime; so many things that there
was not left to him a moment in which to think of Athenaise. 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 dropping 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 note of the accordion.
II
Athenaise did not return the following day, even though her
husband sent her word to do so by her brother, Monteclin, 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 Miches, Athenaise'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 Miche 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 Miche was accustomed to meet
with amiable indulgence. A dance at Miche's and a plate of Madame
Miche's gumbo file at midnight were pleasure 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 Miche's field.
Madame Miche, 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.
Monteclin, 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
shirt-sleeves, 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 is Cazeau mounted the stairs,
"sacre cochon!"
"Cochon" had sufficiently characterized the man who had once on a
time declined to lend Monteclin money. But when this same man had
had the presumption to propose marriage to his well-beloved sister,
Athenaise, and the honor to be accepted by her, Monteclin felt that
a qualifying epithet was needed fully to express his estimate of
Cazeau.
Miche 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.
Athenaise 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 Miche. He had only nodded to Monteclin, with a muttered
"Comment sa va?"
"Tiens! something tole me you were coming to-day!" exclaimed
Madame Miche, 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 Athenaise 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! Monteclin didn' tell you we were going to keep Athenaise?"
Monteclin had evidently told nothing.
"An' how about the night bef'," questioned Cazeau, "an' las'
night? It isn't possible you dance every night out yere on the Bon
Dieu!"
Madame Miche laughed, with amiable appreciation of the sarcasm;
and turning to her son, "Monteclin, my boy, go tell yo' sister that
Monsieur Cazeau is yere."
Monteclin did not stir except to shift his position and settle
himself more securely on the railing.
"Did you year me, Monteclin?"
"Oh yes, I yeard you plain enough," responded her son, "but you know
as well as me it's no use to tell 'Thenaise 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. W'en 'Thenaise said she wasn' goin' to set her foot
back in Cazeau's house, she meant it."
This speech, which Monteclin 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.
What Monteclin had spoken was quite true, though his taste in the
manner and choice of time and place in saying it were not of the best.
Athenaise, upon the first day of her arrival, had announced that she
came to stay, having no intention of returning under Cazeau's roof.
The announcement had scattered consternation, as she knew it would.
She had been implored, scolded, entreated, stormed at, until she
felt herself like a dragging sail that all the winds of heaven had
beaten upon. Why in the name of God had she married Cazeau? Her father
had lashed her with the question a dozen times. Why indeed? It was
difficult now for her to understand why, unless because she supposed
it was customary for girls to marry when the right opportunity came.
Cazeau, she knew, would make life more comfortable for her; and again,
she had liked him, and had even been rather flustered when he
pressed her hands and kissed them, and kissed her lips and cheeks
and eyes, when she accepted him.
Monteclin himself had taken her aside to talk the thing over. The
turn of affairs was delighting him.
"Come, now, 'Thenaise, you mus' explain to me all about it, so we
can settle on a good cause, an' secu' a separation fo' you. Has he
been mistreating an' abusing you, the sacre cochon?" They were alone
together in her room, whither she had taken refuge from the angry
domestic elements.
"You please to reserve yo' disgusting expressions, Monteclin. No, he
has not abused me in any way that I can think."
"Does he drink? Come 'Thenaise, think well over it. Does he ever get
drunk?"
"Drunk! Oh, mercy, no,- Cazeau never gets drunk."
"I see; it's jus' simply you feel like me; you hate him."
"No, I don't hate him," she returned reflectively, adding with a
sudden impulse, "It's jus' being married that I detes' an' despise.
I hate being Mrs. Cazeau, an' would want to be Athenaise Miche
again. I can't stan' to live with a man, to have him always there, his
coats an' pantaloons hanging in my room, his ugly bare feet- washing
them in my tub, befo' my very eyes, ugh!" She shuddered with
recollections, and resumed, with a sigh that was almost a sob: "Mon
Dieu, mon Dieu! Sister Marie Angelique knew w'at she was saying; she
knew me better than myse'f w'en she said God had sent me a vocation
an' I was turning deaf ears. W'en I think of a blessed life in the
convent, at peace! Oh, w'at was I dreaming of!" and then the tears
came.
Monteclin felt disconcerted and greatly disappointed at having
obtained evidence that would carry no weight with a court of
justice. The day had not come when a young woman might ask the court's
permission to return to her mamma on the sweeping ground of a
constitutional disinclination for marriage. But if there was no way of
untying this Gordian knot of marriage, there was surely a way of
cutting it.
"Well, 'Thenaise, I'm mightly durn sorry you got no better groun's
'an w'at you say. But you can count on me to stan' by you w'atever you
do. God knows I don' blame you fo' not wantin' to live with Cazeau."
And now there was Cazeau himself, with the red spots flaming in
his swarthy cheeks, looking and feeling as if he wanted to thrash
Monteclin into some semblance of decency. He arose abruptly, and
approaching the room which he had seen his wife enter, thrust open the
door after a hasty preliminary knock. Athenaise, who was standing
erect at a far window, turned at his entrance.
She appeared neither angry nor frightened, but thoroughly unhappy,
with an appeal in her soft dark eyes and a tremor on her lips that
seemed to him expressions of unjust reproach, that wounded and
maddened him at once. But whatever he might feel, Cazeau knew only one
way to act toward a woman.
"Athenaise, you are not ready?" he asked in his quiet tones. "It's
getting late; we havin' any time to lose."
She knew that Monteclin had spoken out, and she had hoped for a
wordy interview, a stormy scene, in which she might have held her
own as she had held it for the past three days against her family,
with Monteclin's aid. But she had no weapon with which to combat
subtlety. Her husband's looks, his tones, his mere presence, brought
to her a sudden sense of hopelessness, and instinctive realization
of the futility of rebellion against a social and sacred institution.
Cazeau said nothing further, but stood waiting in the doorway.
Madame Miche had walked to the far end of the gallery, and pretended
to be occupied with having a chicken driven from her parterre.
Monteclin stood by, exasperated, fuming, ready to burst out.
Athenaise went and reached for her riding skirt that hung against
the wall. She was rather tall, with a figure which, though not robust,
seemed perfect in its fine proportions. "La fille de son pere," she
was often called, which was a great compliment to Miche. Her brown
hair was brushed all fluffily back from her temples and low
forehead, and about her features and expression lurked a softness, a
prettiness, a dewiness, that were perhaps too childlike, that
savored of immaturity.
She slipped the riding skirt, which was of black alpaca, over her
head, and with impatient fingers hooked it at the waist over her
pink linenlawn. Then she fastened on her white sunbonnet and reached
for her gloves on the mantel piece.
"If you don' wan' to go, you know w'at you got to do, 'Thenaise,"
fumed Monteclin. "You don' set yo' feet back on Cane River, by God,
unless you want to,- not w'ile I'm alive."
Cazeau looked at him as if he were a monkey whose antics fell
short of being amusing.
Athenaise still made no reply, said not a word. She walked rapidly
past her husband, past her brother, bidding good-by to no one, not
even to her mother. She descended the stairs, and without assistance
from any one mounted the pony, which Cazeau had ordered to be
saddled upon his arrival. In this way she obtained a fair start of her
husband, whose departure was far more leisurely, and for the greater
part of the way she managed to keep an appreciable gap between them.
She rode almost madly at first, with the wind inflating her skirt
balloonlike about her knees, and her sunbonnet falling back between
her shoulders.
At no time did Cazeau make an effort to overtake her until
traversing an old fallow meadow that was level and hard as a table.
The sight of a great solitary oak tree, with its seemingly immutable
outlines, that had been a landmark for ages- or was it the odor of
elderberry stealing up from the gully to the south? or what was it
that brought vividly back to Cazeau, by some association of ideas, a
scene of many years ago? He had passed that old live-oak hundreds of
times, but it was only now that the memory of one day came back to
him. He was a very small boy that day, seated before his father on
horseback. They were proceeding slowly, and Black Gabe was moving on
before them at a little dogtrot. Black Gabe had run away, and had been
discovered back in the Gotrain swamp. They had halted beneath this big
oak to enable the negro to take breath; for Cazeau's father was a kind
and considerate master, and every one had agreed at the time that
Black Gabe was a fool, a great idiot indeed, for wanting to run away
from him.
The whole impression was for some reason hideous, and to dispel it
Cazeau spurred his horse to a swift gallop. Overtaking his wife, he
rode the remainder of the way at her side in silence.
It was late when they reached home. Felicite was standing on the
grassy edge of the road, in the moonlight, waiting for them.
Cazeau once more ate his supper alone, for Athenaise went to her
room, and there she was crying again.
III
Athenaise was not one to accept the inevitable with patient
resignation, a talent born in the souls of many women; neither was she
the one to accept it with philosophical resignation, like her husband.
Her sensibilities were alive and keen and responsive. She met the
pleasurable things of life with frank, open appreciation, and
against distasteful conditions she rebelled. Dissimulation was as
foreign to her nature as guile to the breast of a babe, and her
rebellious outbreaks, by no means rare, had hitherto been quite open
and aboveboard. People often said that Athenaise would know her own
mind some day, which was equivalent to saying that she was at
present unacquainted with it. If she ever came to such knowledge, it
would be by no intellectual research, by no subtle analyses or tracing
the motives of actions to their source. It would come to her as the
song to the bird, the perfume and color to the flower.
Her parents had hoped- not without reason and justice- that marriage
would bring the poise, the desirable pose, so glaringly lacking in
Athenaise's character. Marriage they knew to be a wonderful and
powerful agent in the development and formation of a woman's
character; they had seen its effect too often to doubt it.
"And if this marriage does nothing else," exclaimed Miche in an
outburst of sudden exasperation, "it will rid us of Athenaise, for I
am at the end of my patience with her! You have never had the firmness
to manage her"- he was speaking to his wife- "I have not had the time,
the leisure, to devote to her training; and what good we might have
accomplished, that maudit Monteclin- Well, Cazeau is the one! It takes
just such a steady hand to guide a disposition like Athenaise's, a
master hand, a strong will that compels obedience."
And now, when they had hoped for so much, here was Athenaise, with
gathered and fierce vehemence, beside which her former outbursts
appeared mild, declaring that she would not, and she would not, and
she would not continue to enact the role of wife to Cazeau. If she had
had a reason! as Madame Miche lamented; but it could not be discovered
that she had any sane one. He had never scolded, or called names, or
deprived her of comforts, or been guilty of any of the many
reprehensible acts commonly attributed to objectionable husbands. He
did not slight nor neglect her. Indeed, Cazeau's chief offense
seemed to be that he loved her, and Athenaise was not the woman to
be loved against her will. She called marriage a trap set for the feet
of unwary and unsuspecting girls, and in round, unmeasured terms
reproached her mother with treachery and deceit.
"I told you Cazeau was the man," chuckled Miche, when his wife had
related the scene that had accompanied and influenced Athenaise's
departure.
Athenaise again hoped, in the morning, that Cazeau would scold or
make some sort of a scene, but he apparently did not dream of it. It
was exasperating that he should take her acquiescence so for
granted. It is true he had been up and over the fields and across
the river and back long before she was out of bed, and he may have
been thinking of something else, which was no excuse, which was even
in some sense an aggravation. But he did say to her at breakfast,
"That brother of yo's, that Monteclin, is unbearable."
"Monteclin? Par exemple!"
Athenaise, seated opposite to her husband, was attired in a white
morning wrapper. She wore a somewhat abused, long face, it is true- an
expression of countenance familiar to some husbands- but the
expression was not sufficiently pronounced to mar the charm of her
youthful freshness. She had little heart to eat, only playing with the
food before her, and she felt a pang of resentment at her husband's
healthy appetite.
"Yes, Monteclin," he reasserted. "He's developed into a
first-class nuisance; an' you better tell him, Athenaise- unless you
want me to tell him- to confine his energies after this to matters
that concern him. I have no use fo' him or fo' his interference in
w'at regards you an' me alone."
This was said with unusual asperity. It was the little breach that
Athenaise had been watching for, and she charged rapidly: "It's
strange, if you detes' Monteclin so heartily, that you would desire to
marry his sister." She knew it was a silly thing to say, and was not
surprised when he told her so. It gave her a little foothold for
further attack, however. "I don't see, anyhow, w'at reason you had
to marry me, w'en there were so many others," she complained, as if
accusing him of persecution and injury. "There was Marianne running
after you fo' the las' five years till it was disgraceful; an' any one
of the Dortrand girls would have been glad to marry you. But no,
nothing would do; you mus' come out on the rigolet fo' me." Her
complaint was pathetic, and at the same time so amusing that Cazeau
was forced to smile.
"I can't see w'at the Dortrand girls or Marianne have to do with
it," he rejoined; adding, with no trace of amusement, "I married you
because I loved you; because you were the woman I wanted to marry, an'
the only one. I reckon I tole you that befo'. I thought- of co'se I
was a fool fo' taking things fo' granted- but I did think that I might
make you happy in making things easier an' mo' comfortable fo' you.
I expected- I was even that big a fool- I believed that yo' coming
yere to me would be like the sun shining out of the clouds, an' that
our days would be like w'at the story-books promise after the wedding.
I was mistaken. But I can't imagine w'at induced you to marry me.
W'atever it was, I reckon you foun' out you made a mistake, too. I
don' see anything to do but make the best of a bad bargain, an'
shake han's over it." He had arisen from the table, and,
approaching, held out his hand to her. What he had said was
commonplace enough, but it was significant, coming from Cazeau, who
was not often so unreserved in expressing himself.
Athenaise ignored the hand held out to her. She was resting her chin
in her palm, and kept her eyes fixed moodily upon the table. He rested
his hand, that she would not touch, upon her head of an instant, and
walked away out of the room.
She heard him giving orders to workmen who had been waiting for
him out on the gallery, and she heard him mount his horse and ride
away. A hundred things would distract him and engage his attention
during the day. She felt that he had perhaps put her and her grievance
from his thoughts when he crossed the threshold; whilst she-
Old Felicite was standing there holding a shining tin pail, asking
for flour and lard and eggs from the storeroom, and meal for the
chicks.
Athenaise seized the bunch of keys which hung from her belt and
flung them at Felicite's feet.
"Tiens! tu vas les garder comme tu as jadis fait. Je ne veux plus de
ce train la, moi!"
The old woman stooped and picked up the keys from the floor. It
was really all one to her that her mistress returned them to her
keeping, and refused to take further account of the menage.
IV
It seemed now to Athenaise that Monteclin was the only friend left
to her in the world. Her father and mother had turned from her in what
appeared to be her hour of need. Her friends laughed at her, and
refused to take seriously the hints which she threw out- feeling her
way to discover if marriage were as distasteful to other women as to
herself. Monteclin alone understood her. He alone had always been
ready to act for her and with her, to comfort and solace her with
his sympathy and his support. Her only hope for rescue from her
hateful surroundings lay in Monteclin. Of herself she felt powerless
to plan, to act, even to conceive a way out of this pitfall into which
the whole world seemed to have conspired to push her.
She had a great desire to see her brother and wrote asking him to
come to her. But it better suited Monteclin's spirit of adventure to
appoint a meeting place at the turn of the lane, where Athenaise might
appear to be walking leisurely for health and recreation, and where he
might seem to be riding along, bent on some errand of business or
pleasure.
There had been a shower, a sudden downpour, short as it was
sudden, that had laid the dust in the road. It had freshened the
pointed leaves of the live oaks, and brightened up the big fields of
cotton on either side of the lane till they seemed carpeted with
green, glittering gems.
Athenaise walked along the grassy edge of the road, lifting her
crisp skirts with one hand, and with the other twirling a gay sunshade
over her bare head. The scent of the fields after the rain was
delicious. She inhaled long breaths of their freshness and perfume,
that soothed and quieted her for the moment. There were birds
splashing and spluttering in the pools, pluming themselves on the
fence-rails, and sending out little sharp cries, twitters, and
shrill rhapsodies of delight.
She saw Monteclin approaching from a great distance- almost as far
away as the turn of the woods. But she could not feel sure it was
he; it appeared too tall for Monteclin, but that was because he was
riding a large horse. She waved her parasol to him; she was so glad to
see him. She had never been so glad to see Monteclin before, not
even the day when he had taken her out of the convent, against her
parents' wishes, because she had expressed a desire to remain there no
longer. He seemed to her, as he drew near, the embodiment of kindness,
of bravery, of chivalry, even of wisdom, for she had never known
Monteclin at a loss to extricate himself from a disagreeable
situation.
He dismounted, and, leading his horse by the bridle, started to walk
beside her, after he had kissed her affectionately and asked her
what she was crying about. She protested that she was not crying,
for she was laughing, though drying her eyes at the same time on her
handkerchief, rolled in a soft mop for the purpose.
She took Monteclin's arm, and they strolled slowly down the lane;
they could not seat themselves for a comfortable chat, as they would
have liked, with the grass all sparkling and bristling wet.
Yes, she was quite as wretched as ever, she told him. The week which
had gone by since she saw him had in no wise lightened the burden of
her discontent. There had even been some additional provocations
laid upon her, and she told Monteclin all about them- about the
keys, for instance, which in a fit of temper she had returned to
Felicite's keeping; and she told how Cazeau had brought them back to
her as if they were something she had accidentally lost, and he had
recovered; and how he had said, in that aggravating tone of his,
that it was not the custom on Cane river for the Negro servants to
carry the keys, when there was a mistress at the head of the
household.
But Athenaise could not tell Monteclin anything to increase the
disrespect which he already entertained for his brother-in-law; and it
was then he unfolded to her a plan which he had conceived and worked
out for her deliverance from this galling matrimonial yoke.
It was not a plan which met with instant favor, which she was at
once ready to accept, for it involved secrecy and dissimulation,
hateful alternatives, both of them. But she was filled with admiration
for Monteclin's resources and wonderful talent for contrivance. She
accepted the plan; not with the immediate determination to act upon
it, rather with the intention to sleep and to dream upon it.
Three days later' she wrote to Monteclin that she had abandoned
herself to his counsel. Displeasing as it might be to her sense of
honesty, it would yet be less trying than to live on with a soul
full of bitterness and revolt, as she had done for the past two
months.
V
When Cazeau awoke, one morning at his usual very early hour, it
was to find the place at his side vacant. This did not surprise him
until he discovered that Athenaise was not in the adjoining room,
where he had often found her sleeping in the morning on the lounge.
She had perhaps gone out for an early stroll, he reflected, for her
jacket and hat were not on the rack where she had hung them the
night before. But there were other things absent- a gown or two from
the armoire; and there was a great gap in the piles of lingerie on the
shelf; and her traveling-bag was missing, and so were her bits of
jewelry from the toilet tray- and Athenaise was gone!
But the absurdity of going during the night, as if she had been a
prisoner, and he the keeper of a dungeon! So much secrecy and mystery,
to go sojourning out on the Bon Dieu! Well, the Miches might keep
their daughter after this. For the companionship of no woman on
earth would he again undergo the humiliating sensation of baseness
that had overtaken him in passing the old oak-tree in the fallow
meadow.
But a terrible sense of loss overwhelmed Cazeau. It was not new or
sudden; he had felt it for weeks growing upon him, and it seemed to
culminate with Athenaise's flight from home. He knew that he could
again compel her return as he had done once before- compel her to
return to the shelter of his roof, compel her cold and unwilling
submission to his love and passionate transports; but the loss of
self-respect seemed to him too dear a price to pay for a wife.
He could not comprehend why she had seemed to prefer him above
others; why she had attracted him with eyes, with voice, with a
hundred womanly ways, and finally distracted him with love which she
seemed, in her timid, maidenly fashion, to return. The great sense
of loss came from the realization of having missed a chance for
happiness- a chance that would come his way again only through a
miracle. He could not think of himself loving any other woman, and
could not think of Athenaise ever- even at some remote date- caring
for him.
He wrote her a letter, in which he disclaimed any further
intention of forcing his commands upon her. He did not desire her
presence ever again in his home unless she came of her free will,
uninfluenced by family or friends; unless she could be the companion
he had hoped for in marrying her, and in some measure return affection
and respect for the love which he continued and would always
continue to feel for her. This letter he sent out to the rigolet by
a messenger early in the day. But she was not out on the rigolet,
and had not been there.
The family turned instinctively to Monteclin, and almost literally
fell upon him for an explanation; he had been absent from home all
night. There was much mystification in his answers, and a plain desire
to mislead in his assurances of ignorance and innocence.
But with Cazeau there was no doubt or speculation when he accosted
the young fellow. "Monteclin, w'at have you done with Athenaise?" he
questioned bluntly. They had met in the open road on horseback, just
as Cazeau ascended the river bank before his house.
"W'at have you done to Athenaise?" returned Monteclin for answer.
"I don't reckon you've considered yo' conduct by any light of
decency an' propriety in encouraging yo' sister to such an action, but
let me tell you-"
"Voyons! you can let me alone with yo' decency an' morality an'
fiddlesticks. I know you mus' 'a' done Athenaise pretty mean that
she can't live with you; an' fo' my part, I'm mighty durn glad she had
the spirit to quit you."
"I ain't in the humor to take any notice of yo' impertinence,
Monteclin; but let me remine you that Athenaise is nothing but a chile
in character; besides that, she's my wife, an' I hole you
responsible fo' her safety an' welfare. If any harm of any description
happens to her, I'll strangle you, by God, like a rat, and fling you
in Cane river, if I have to hang fo' it!" He had not lifted his voice.
The only sign of anger was a savage gleam in his eyes.
"I reckon you better keep yo' big talk fo' the women, Cazeau,"
replied Monteclin, riding away.
But he went doubly armed after that, and intimated that the
precaution was not needless, in view of the threats and menaces that
were abroad touching his personal safety.
VI
Athenaise reached her destination sound of skin and limb, but a good
deal flustered, a little frightened, and altogether excited and
interested by her unusual experiences.
Her destination was the house of Sylvie, on Dauphine Street, in
New Orleans- a three-story gray brick, standing directly on the
banquette, with three broad stone steps leading to the deep front
entrance. From the second-story balcony swung a small sign,
conveying to passers-by the intelligence that within were «"chambres
garnies."»
It was one morning in the last week of April that Athenaise
presented herself at the Dauphine Street house. Sylvie was expecting
her, and introduced her at once to her apartment, which was in the
second story of the back ell, and accessible by an open, outside
gallery. There was a yard below, paved with broad stone flagging; many
fragrant flowering shrubs and plants grew in a bed along the side of
the opposite wall, and others were distributed about in tubs and green
boxes.
It was a plain but large enough room into which Athenaise was
ushered, with matting on the floor, green shades and Nottingham lace
curtains at the windows that looked out on the gallery, and
furnished with a cheap walnut suit. But everything looked
exquisitely clean, and the whole place smelled of cleanliness.
Athenaise at once fell into the rocking-chair, with the air of
exhaustion and intense relief of one who has come to the end of her
troubles. Sylvie, entering behind her, laid the big traveling-bag on
the floor and deposited the jacket on the bed.
She was a portly quadroon of fifty or thereabout, clad in an ample
«volante» of the old-fashioned purple calico so much affected by her
class. She wore large golden hoop-earrings, and her hair was combed
plainly, with every appearance of effort to smooth out the kinks.
She had broad, coarse features, with a nose that turned up, exposing
the wide nostrils, and that seemed to emphasize the loftiness and
command of her bearing- a dignity that in the presence of white people
assumed a character of respectfulness, but never of obsequiousness.
Sylvie believed firmly in maintaining the colorline, and would not
suffer a white person, even a child, to call her "Madame Sylvie"- a
title which she exacted religiously, however, from those of her own
race.
"I hope you be please' wid yo' room, madame," she observed
amiably. "Dat's de same room w'at yo' brother, M'sieur Miche, all time
like w'en he come to New Orlean'. He well, M'sieur Miche? I receive'
his letter las' week, an' dat same day a gent'man want I give 'im
dat room. I say, 'No, dat room already ingage'.' Ev-body like dat room
on 'count it so quite (quiet). M'sieur Gouvernail, dere in nax'
room, you can't pay 'im! He been stay t'ree year' in dat room; but all
fix' up fine wid his own furn'ture an' books, 'tel you can't see! I
say to 'im plenty time', 'M'sieur Gouvernail, w'y you don't take dat
t'ree-story front, now, long it's empty?' He tells me, 'Leave me
'lone, Sylvie; I know a good room w'en I fine it, me.'"
She had been moving slowly and majestically about the apartment,
straightening and smoothing down bed and pillows, peering into ewer
and basin, evidently casting an eye around to make sure that
everything was as it should be.
"I sen' you some fresh water, Madame," she offered upon retiring
from the room. "An' w'en you want an't'ing, you jus' go out on de
gall'ry an' call Pousette: she year you plain- she right down dere
in de kitchen."
Athenaise was really not so exhausted as she had every reason to
be after that interminable and circuitous way by which Monteclin had
seen fit to have her conveyed to the city.
Would she ever forget that dark and truly dangerous midnight ride
along the "coast" to the mouth of Cane river! There Monteclin had
parted with her, after seeing her aboard the St. Louis and
Shreveport packet which he knew would pass there before dawn. She
had received instructions to disembark at the mouth of Red river,
and there transfer to the first south-bound steamer for New Orleans,
all of which instructions she had followed implicitly, even to
making her way at once to Sylvie's upon her arrival in the city.
Monteclin had enjoined secrecy and much caution; the clandestine
nature of the affair gave it a savor of adventure which was highly
pleasing to him. Eloping with his sister was only a little less
engaging than eloping with some one else's sister.
But Monteclin did not do the «grand seigneur» by halves. He had
paid Sylvie a whole month in advance for Athenaise's board and lodging.
Part of the sum he had been forced to borrow, it is true, but he was
not niggardly.
Athenaise was to take her meals in the house, which none of the
other lodgers did; the one exception being that Mr. Gouvernail was
served with breakfast on Sunday mornings.
Sylvie's clientele came chiefly from the southern parishes; for
the most part, people spending but a few days in the city. She
prided herself upon the quality and highly respectable character of
her patrons, who came and went unobtrusively.
The large parlor opening upon the front balcony was seldom used. Her
guests were permitted to entertain in this sanctuary of elegance-
but they never did. She often rented it for the night to parties of
respectable and discreet gentlemen desiring to enjoy a quiet game of
cards outside the bosom of their families. The second-story hall
also led by a long window out on the balcony. And Sylvie advised
Athenaise, when she grew weary of her back room, to go and sit on
the front balcony, which was shady in the afternoon, and where she
might find diversion in the sounds and sights of the street below.
Athenaise refreshed herself with a bath, and was soon unpacking
her few belongings, which she ranged neatly away in the bureau drawers
and the armoire.
She had revolved certain plans in her mind during the past hour or
so. Her present intention was to live on indefinitely in this big,
cool clean back room on Dauphine street. She had thought seriously,
for moments, of the convent, with all readiness to embrace the vows of
poverty and chastity; but what about obedience? Later, she intended,
in some roundabout way, to give her parents and her husband the
assurance of her safety and welfare, reserving the right to remain
unmolested and lost to them. To live on at the expense of
Monteclin's generosity was wholly out of the question, and Athenaise
meant to look about for some suitable and agreeable employment.
The imperative thing to be done at present, however, was to go out
in search of material for an inexpensive gown or two; for she found
herself in the painful predicament of a young woman having almost
literally nothing to wear. She decided upon pure white for one, and
some sort of a sprigged muslin for the other.
VII
On Sunday morning, two days after Athenaise's arrival in the city,
she went in to breakfast somewhat later than usual, to find two covers
laid at table instead of the one to which she was accustomed. She
had been to mass, and did not remove her hat, but put her fan,
parasol, and prayerbook aside. The dining-room was situated just
beneath her own apartment, and, like all rooms of the house, was large
and airy; the floor was covered with a glistening oilcloth.
The small, round table, immaculately set, was drawn near the open
window. There were some tall plants in boxes on the gallery outside;
and Pousette, a little, old, intensely black woman, was splashing
and dashing buckets of water on the flagging, and talking loud in
her Creole patois to no one in particular.
A dish piled with delicate river shrimps and crushed ice was on
the table; a caraffe of crystal-clear water, a few «hors d'oeuvres,»
beside a small golden-brown crusty loaf of French bread at each plate.
A half-bottle of wine and the morning paper were set at the place
opposite Athenaise.
She had almost completed her breakfast when Gouvernail came in and
seated himself at table. He felt annoyed at finding his cherished
privacy invaded. Sylvie was removing the remains of a mutton chop from
before Athenaise, and serving her with a cup of cafe au lait.
"M'sieur Gouvernail," offered Sylvie in her most insinuating and
impressive manner, "you please leave me make you acquaint' wid
Madame Cazeau. Dat's M'sieur Miche's sister; you meet 'im two t'ree
time', you rec'lec', an' been one day to de race wid 'im. Madame
Cazeau, you please leave me make you acquaint' wid M'sieur
Gouvernail."
Gouvernail expressed himself greatly pleased to meet the sister of
Monsieur Miche, of whom he had not the slightest recollection. He
inquired after Monsieur Miche's health, and politely offered Athenaise
a part of his newspaper- the part which contained the Woman's Page and
the social gossip.
Athenaise faintly remembered that Sylvie had spoken of a Monsieur
Gouvernail occupying the room adjoining hers, living amid luxurious
surroundings and a multitude of books. She had not thought of him
further than to picture him a stout, middle-aged gentleman, with a
bushy beard turning gray, wearing large gold-rimmed spectacles, and
stooping somewhat from much bending over books and writing material.
She had confused him in her mind with the likeness of some literary
celebrity that she had run across in the advertising pages of a
magazine.
Gouvernail's appearance was, in truth, in no sense striking. He
looked older than thirty and younger than forty, was of medium
height and weight, with a quiet, unobtrusive manner which seemed to
ask that he be let alone. His hair was light brown, brushed
carefully and parted in the middle. His mustache was brown, and so
were his eyes, which had a mild, penetrating quality. He was neatly
dressed in the fashion of the day; and his hands seemed to Athenaise
remarkably white and soft for a man's.
He had been buried in the contents of his newspaper, when he
suddenly realized that some further little attention might be due to
Miche's sister. He started to offer her a glass of wine, when he was
surprised and relieved to find that she had quietly slipped away while
he was absorbed in his own editorial on Corrupt Legislation.
Gouvernail finished his paper and smoked his cigar out on the
gallery. He lounged about, gathered a rose for his buttonhole, and had
his regular Sunday-morning confab with Pousette, to whom he paid a
weekly stipend for brushing his shoes and clothing. He made a great
pretense of haggling over the transaction, only to enjoy her
uneasiness and garrulous excitement.
He worked or read in his room for a few hours, and when he quitted
the house, at three in the afternoon, it was to return no more till
late at night. It was his almost invariable custom to spend Sunday
evenings out in the American quarter, among a congenial set of men and
women- «des esprits forts,» all of them, whose lives were
irreproachable, yet whose opinions would startle even the
traditional "sapeur," for whom "nothing is sacred." But for all his
"advanced" opinions, Gouvernail was a liberal-minded fellow; a man
or woman lost nothing of his respect by being married.
When he left the house in the afternoon, Athenaise had already
ensconced herself on the front balcony. He could see her through the
jalousies when he passed on his way to the front entrance. She had not
yet grown lonesome or homesick; the newness of her surroundings made
them sufficiently entertaining. She found it diverting to sit there on
the front balcony watching people pass by, even though there was no
one to talk to. And then the comforting, comfortable sense of not
being married!
She watched Gouvernail walk down the street, and could find no fault
with his bearing. He could hear the sound of her rockers for some
little distance. He wondered what the "poor little thing" was doing in
the city, and meant to ask Sylvie about her when he should happen to
think of it.
VIII
The following morning, towards noon, when Gouvernail quitted his
room, he was confronted by Athenaise, exhibiting some confusion and
trepidation at being forced to request a favor of him at so early a
stage of their acquaintance. She stood in her doorway, and had
evidently been sewing, as the thimble on her finger testified, as well
as a long-threaded needle thrust in the bosom of her gown. She held
a stamped but unaddressed letter in her hand.
And would Mr. Gouvernail be so kind as to address the letter to
her brother, Mr. Monteclin Miche? She would hate to detain him with
explanations this morning- another time, perhaps- but now she begged
that he would give himself the trouble.
He assured her that it made no difference, that it was no trouble
whatever; and he drew a fountain pen from his pocket and addressed the
letter at her dictation, resting it on the inverted rim of his straw
hat. She wondered a little at a man of his supposed erudition
stumbling over the spelling of "Monteclin" and "Miche."
She demurred at overwhelming him with the additional trouble of
posting it, but he succeeded in convincing her that so simple a task
as the posting of a letter would not add an iota to the burden of
the day. Moreover, he promised to carry it in his hand, and thus avoid
any possible risk of forgetting it in his pocket.
After that, and after a second repetition of the favor, when she had
told him that she had had a letter from Monteclin, and looked as if
she wanted to tell him more, he felt that he knew her better. He
felt that he knew her well enough to join her out on the balcony,
one night, when he found her sitting there alone. He was not one who
deliberately sought the society of women, but he was not wholly a
bear. A little commiseration for Athenaise's aloneness, perhaps some
curiosity to know further what manner of woman she was, and the
natural influence of her feminine charm were equal unconfessed factors
in turning his steps towards the balcony when he discovered the
shimmer of her white gown through the open hall window.
It was already quite late, but the day had been intensely hot, and
neighboring balconies and doorways were occupied by chattering
groups of humanity, loath to abandon the grateful freshness of the
outer air. The voices about her served to reveal to Athenaise the
feeling of loneliness that was gradually coming over her.
Nothwithstanding certain dormant impulses, she craved human sympathy
and companionship.
She shook hands impulsively with Gouvernail, and told him how glad
she was to see him. He was not prepared for such an admission, but
it pleased him immensely, detecting as he did that the expression
was as sincere as it was outspoken. He drew a chair up within
comfortable conversational distance of Athenaise, though he had no
intention of talking more than was barely necessary to encourage
Madame- He had actually forgotten her name!
He leaned an elbow on the balcony rail, and would have offered an
opening remark about the oppressive heat of the day, but Athenaise did
not give him the opportunity. How glad she was to talk to someone, and
how she talked!
An hour later she had gone to her room, and Gouvernail stayed
smoking on the balcony. He knew her quite well after that hour's talk.
It was not so much what she had said as what her half saying had
revealed to his quick intelligence. He knew that she adored Monteclin,
and he suspected that she adored Cazeau without being herself aware of
it. He had gathered that she was self-willed, impulsive, innocent,
ignorant, unsatisfied, dissatisfied; for had she not complained that
things seemed all wrongly arranged in this world, and no one was
permitted to be happy in his own way? And he told her he was sorry she
had discovered that primordial fact of existence so early in life.
He commiserated her loneliness, and scanned his bookshelves next
morning for something to lend her to read, rejecting everything that
offered itself to his view. Philosophy was out of the question, and so
was poetry; that is, such poetry as he possessed. He had not sounded
her literary tastes, and strongly suspected she had none; that she
would have rejected The Duchess as readily as Mrs. Humphrey Ward. He
compromised on a magazine.
It had entertained her passably, she admitted, upon returning it.
A New England story had puzzled her, it was true, and a Creole tale
had offended her, but the pictures had pleased her greatly, especially
one which had reminded her so strongly of Monteclin after a hard day's
ride that she was loath to give it up. It was one of Remington's
Cowboys, and Gouvernail insisted upon her keeping it- keeping the
magazine.
He spoke to her daily after that, and was always eager to render her
some service or to do something towards her entertainment.
One afternoon he took her out to the lake end. She had been there
once, some years before, but in winter, so the trip was
comparatively new and strange to her. The large expanse of water
studded with pleasure-boats, the sight of children playing merrily
along the grassy palisades, the music, all enchanted her. Gouvernail
thought her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even her
gown- the sprigged muslin- appeared to him the most charming one
imaginable. Nor could anything be more becoming than the arrangement
of her brown hair under the white sailor hat, all rolled back in a
soft puff from her radiant face. And she carried her parasol and
lifted her skirts and used her fan in ways that seemed quite unique
and peculiar to herself, and which he considered almost worthy of
study and imitation.
They did not dine out there at the water's edge, as they might
have done, but returned early to the city to avoid the crowd.
Athenaise wanted to go home, for she said Sylvie would have dinner
prepared and would be expecting her. But it was not difficult to
persuade her to dine instead in the quiet little restaurant that he
knew and liked, with its sanded floor, its secluded atmosphere, its
delicious menu, and its obsequious waiter wanting to know what he
might have the honor of serving to "monsieur et madame." No wonder
he made the mistake, with Gouvernail assuming such an air of
proprietorship! But Athenaise was very tired after it all; the sparkle
went out of her face, and. she hung draggingly on his arm in walking
home.
He was reluctant to part from her when she bade him good-night at
her door and thanked him for the agreeable evening. He had hoped she
would sit outside until it was time for him to regain the newspaper
office. He knew that she would undress and get into her peignoir and
lie upon her bed; and what he wanted to do, what he would have given
much to do, was to go and sit beside her, read to her something
restful, soothe her, do her bidding, whatever it might be. Of course
there was no use in thinking of that. But he was surprised at his
growing desire to be serving her. She gave him an opportunity sooner
than he looked for.
"Mr. Gouvernail," she called from her room, "will you be so kine
as to call Pousette an' tell her she fo'got to bring my ice water?"
He was indignant at Pousette's negligence, and called severely to
her over the banisters. He was sitting before his own door, smoking.
He knew that Athenaise had gone to bed, for her room was dark, and she
had opened the slats of the door and windows. Her bed was near a
window.
Pousette came flopping up with the ice water, and with a hundred
excuses: "Mo pa oua vou a tab c'te lanuite, mo cri vou pe gagni deja
la-bas; parole! Vou pas cri conte ca Madame Sylvie?" She had not
seen Athenaise at table, and thought she was gone. She swore to
this, and hoped Madame Sylvie would not be informed of her remissness.
A little later Athenaise lifted her voice again: "Mr. Gouvernail,
did you remark that young man sitting on the opposite side from us,
coming in, with a gray coat an' a blue ban' aroun' his hat?"
Of course Gouvernail had not noticed any such individual, but he
assured Athenaise that he had observed the young fellow particularly.
"Don't you think he looked something- not very much, of co'se- but
don't you think he had a little faux-air of Monteclin?"
"I think he looked strikingly like Monteclin," asserted
Gouvernail, with the one idea of prolonging the conversation. "I meant
to call your attention to the resemblance, and something drove it
out of my head."
"The same with me," returned Athenaise. "Ah, my dear Monteclin! I
wonder w'at he is doing now?"
"Did you receive any news, any letter from him today?" asked
Gouvernail, determined that if the conversation ceased it should not
be through lack of effort on his part to sustain it.
"Not today, but yesterday. He tells me that maman was so
distracted with uneasiness that finally, to pacify her, he was
fo'ced to confess that he knew w'ere I was, but that he was boun' by a
vow of secrecy not to reveal it. But Cazeau has not noticed him or
spoken to him since he threaten' to throw po' Monteclin in Cane river.
You know Cazeau wrote me a letter the morning I lef', thinking I had
gone to the rigolet. An' maman opened it, an' said it was full of
the mos' noble sentiments, an' she wanted Monteclin to sen' it to
me; but Monteclin refuse' poin' blank, so he wrote to me."
Gouvernail preferred to talk of Monteclin. He pictured Cazeau as
unbearable, and did not like to think of him.
A little later Athenaise called out, "Good night, Mr. Gouvernail."
"Good night," he returned reluctantly. And when he thought that
she was sleeping, he got up and went away to the midnight
pandemonium of his newspaper office.
IX
Athenaise could not have held out through the month had it not
been for Gouvernail. With the need of caution and secrecy always
uppermost in her mind, she made no new acquaintances, and she did
not seek out persons already known to her; however, she knew so few,
it required little effort to keep out of their way. As for Sylvie,
almost every moment of her time was occupied in looking after her
house; and, moreover, her deferential attitude towards her lodgers
forbade anything like the gossipy chats in which Athenaise might
have condescended sometimes to indulge with her landlady. The
transient lodgers, who came and went, she never had occasion to
meet. Hence she was entirely dependent upon Gouvernail for company.
He appreciated the situation fully; and every moment that he could
spare from his work he devoted to her entertainment. She liked to be
out of doors, and they strolled together in the summer twilight
through the mazes of the old French quarter. They went again to the
lake end, and stayed for hours on the water; returning so late that
the streets through which they passed were silent and deserted. On
Sunday morning he arose at an unconscionable hour to take her to the
French market, knowing that the sights and sounds there would interest
her. And he did not join the intellectual coterie in the afternoon, as
he usually did, but placed himself all day at the disposition and
service of Athenaise.
Notwithstanding all, his manner toward her was tactful, and
evinced intelligence and a deep knowledge of her character, surprising
upon so brief an acquaintance. For the time he was everything to her
that she would have him; he replaced home and friends. Sometimes she
wondered if he had ever loved a woman. She could not fancy him
loving anyone passionately, rudely, offensively, as Cazeau loved
her. Once she was so naive as to ask him outright if he had ever
been in love, and he assured her promptly that he had not. She thought
it an admirable trait in his character, and esteemed him greatly
therefor.
He found her crying one night, not openly or violently. She was
leaning over the gallery rail, watching the toads that hopped about in
the moonlight, down on the damp flagstones of the courtyard. There was
an oppressively sweet odor rising from the cape jessamine. Pousette
was down there, mumbling and quarreling with someone, and seeming to
be having it all her own way- as well she might, when her companion
was only a black cat that had come in from a neighboring yard to
keep her company.
Athenaise did admit feeling heartsick, body-sick, when he questioned
her; she supposed it was nothing but homesick. A letter from Monteclin
had stirred her all up. She longed for her mother, for Monteclin;
she was sick for a sight of the cotton fields, the scent of the
ploughed earth, for the dim, mysterious charm of the woods, and the
old tumble-down home on the Bon Dieu.
As Gouvernail listened to her, a wave of pity and tenderness swept
through him. He took her hands and pressed them against him. He
wondered what would happen if he were to put his arms around her.
He was hardly prepared for what happened, but he stood it
courageously. She twined her arms around his neck and wept outright on
his shoulder; the hot tears scalding his cheek and neck, and her whole
body shaken in his arms. The impulse was powerful to strain her to
him; the temptation was fierce to seek her lips; but he did neither.
He understood a thousand times better than she herself understood it
that he was acting as substitute for Monteclin. Bitter as the
conviction was, he accepted it. He was patient; he could wait. He
hoped some day to hold her with a lover's arms. That she was married
made no particle of difference to Gouvernail. He could not conceive or
dream of it making a difference. When the time came that she wanted
him- as he hoped and believed it would come- he felt he would have a
right to her. So long as she did not want him, he had no right to her-
no more than her husband had. It was very hard to feel her warm breath
and tears upon his cheek, and her struggling bosom pressed against him
and her soft arms clinging to him and his whole body and soul aching
for her, and yet to make no sign.
He tried to think what Monteclin would have said and done, and to
act accordingly. He stroked her hair, and held her in a gentle
embrace, until the tears dried and the sobs ended. Before releasing
herself she kissed him against the neck; she had to love somebody in
her own way! Even that he endured like a stoic. But it was well he
left her, to plunge into the thick of rapid, breathless, exacting work
till nearly dawn.
Athenaise was greatly soothed, and slept well. The touch of friendly
hands and caressing arms had been very grateful. Henceforward she
would not be lonely and unhappy, with Gouvernail there to comfort her.
X
The fourth week of Athenaise's stay in the city was drawing to a
close. Keeping in view the intention which she had of finding some
suitable and agreeable employment, she had made a few tentatives in
that direction. But with the exception of two little girls who had
promised to take piano lessons at a price that would be embarrassing
to mention, these attempts had been fruitless. Moreover, the
homesickness kept coming back, and Gouvernail was not always there
to drive it away.
She spent much of her time weeding and pottering among the flowers
down in the courtyard. She tried to take an interest in the black cat,
and a mockingbird that hung in a cage outside the kitchen door, and
a disreputable parrot that belonged to the cook next door, and swore
hoarsely all day long in bad French.
Beside, she was not well; she was not herself, as she told Sylvie.
The climate of New Orleans did not agree with her. Sylvie was
distressed to learn this, as she felt in some measure responsible
for the health and well being of Monsieur Miche's sister; and she made
it her duty to inquire closely into the nature and character of
Athenaise's malaise.
Sylvie was very wise, and Athenaise was very ignorant. The extent of
her ignorance and the depth of her subsequent enlightenment were
bewildering. She stayed a long, long time quite still, quite
stunned, after her interview with Sylvie, except for the short, uneven
breathing that ruffled her bosom. Her whole being was steeped in a
wave of ecstasy. When she finally arose from the chair in which she
had been seated, and looked at herself in the mirror, a face met
hers which she seemed to see for the first time, so transfigured was
it with wonder and rapture.
One mood quickly followed another, in this new turmoil of her
senses, and the need of action became uppermost. Her mother must
know at once, and her mother must tell Monteclin. And Cazeau must
know. As she thought of him, the first purely sensuous tremor of her
life swept over her. She half whispered his name, and the sound of
it brought red blotches into her cheeks. She spoke it over and over,
as if it were some new, sweet sound born out of darkness and
confusion, and reaching her for the first time. She was impatient to
be with him. Her whole passionate nature was aroused as if by a
miracle.
She seated herself to write to her husband. The letter he would
get in the morning, and she would be with him at night. What would
he say? How would he act? She knew that he would forgive her, for
had he not written a letter?- and a pang of resentment toward
Monteclin shot through her. What did he mean by withholding that
letter? How dared he not have sent it?
Athenaise attired herself for the street, and went out to post the
letter which she had penned with a single thought, a spontaneous
impulse. It would have seemed incoherent to most people, but Cazeau
would understand.
She walked along the street as if she had fallen heir to some
magnificent inheritance. On her face was a look of pride and
satisfaction that passers-by noticed and admired. She wanted to talk
to some one, to tell some person; and she stopped at the corner and
told the oyster-woman, who was Irish, and who God-blessed her, and
wished prosperity to the race of Cazeaus for generations to come.
She held the oyster-woman's fat, dirty little baby in her arms and
scanned it curiously and observingly, as if a baby were a phenomenon
that she encountered for the first time in life. She even kissed it!
Then what a relief it was to Athenaise to walk the streets without
dread of being seen and recognized by some chance acquaintance from
Red River! No one could have said now that she did not know her own
mind.
She went directly from the oyster-woman's to the office of Harding &
Offdean, her husband's merchants; and it was with such an air of
partnership, almost proprietorship, that she demanded a sum of money
on her husband's account, they gave it to her as unhesitatingly as
they would have handed it over to Cazeau himself. When Mr. Harding,
who knew her, asked politely after her health, she turned so rosy
and looked so conscious, he thought it a great pity for so pretty a
woman to be such a little goose.
Athenaise entered a dry-goods store and bought all manner of
things-little presents for nearly everybody she knew. She bought whole
bolts of sheerest, softest, downiest white stuff; and when the
clerk, in trying to meet her wishes, asked if she intended it for
infant's use, she could have sunk through the floor, and wondered
how he might have suspected it.
As it was Monteclin who had taken her away from her husband, she
wanted it to be Monteclin who should take her back to him. So she
wrote him a very curt note- in fact it was a postal card- asking
that he meet her at the train on the evening following. She felt
convinced that after what had gone before, Cazeau would await her at
their own home; and she preferred it so.
Then there was the agreeable excitement of getting ready to leave,
of packing up her things. Pousette kept coming and going, coming and
going; and each time that she quitted the room it was with something
that Athenaise had given her- a handkerchief, a petticoat, a pair of
stockings with two tiny holes at the toes, some broken prayer-beads,
and finally a silver dollar.
Next it was Sylvie who came along bearing a gift of what she
called "a set of pattern'"- things of complicated design which never
could have been obtained in any newfangled bazaar or pattern store,
that Sylvie had acquired of a foreign lady of distinction whom she had
nursed years before at the St. Charles hotel. Athenaise accepted and
handled them with reverence, fully sensible of the great compliment
and favor, and laid them religiously away in the trunk which she had
lately acquired.
She was greatly fatigued after the day of unusual exertion, and went
early to bed and to sleep. All day long she had not once thought of
Gouvernail, and only did think of him when aroused for a brief instant
by the sound of his footfalls on the gallery, as he passed in going to
his room. He had hoped to find her up, waiting for him.
But the next morning he knew. Some one must have told him. There was
no subject known to her which Sylvie hesitated to discuss in detail
with any man of suitable years and discretion.
Athenaise found Gouvernail waiting with a carriage to convey her
to the railway station. A momentary pang visited her for having
forgotten him so completely, when he said to her. "Sylvie tells me you
are going away this morning."
He was kind, attentive, and amiable, as usual, but respected to
the utmost the new dignity and reserve that her manner had developed
since yesterday. She kept looking from the carriage window, silent,
and embarrassed as Eve after losing her ignorance. He talked of the
muddy streets and the murky morning, and of Monteclin. He hoped she
would find everything comfortable and pleasant in the country, and
trusted she would inform him whenever she came to visit the city
again. He talked as if afraid or mistrustful of silence and himself.
At the station she handed him her purse, and he bought her ticket,
secured for her a comfortable section, checked her trunk, and got
all the bundles and things safely aboard the train. She felt very
grateful. He pressed her hand warmly, lifted his hat, and left her. He
was a man of intelligence, and took defeat gracefully; that was all.
But as he made his way back to the carriage, he was thinking, "By
heaven, it hurts, it hurts!"
XI
Athenaise spent a day of supreme happiness and expectancy. The
fair sight of the country unfolding itself before her was balm to
her vision and to her soul. She was charmed with the rather
unfamiliar, broad, clean sweep of the sugar plantations, with their
monster sugar houses, their rows of neat cabins like little villages
of a single street, and their impressive homes standing apart amid
clusters of trees. There were sudden glimpses of a bayou curling
between sunny, grassy banks, or creeping sluggishly out from a tangled
growth of wood, and brush, and fern, and poison-vines, and
palmettos. And passing through the long stretches of monotonous
woodlands, she would close her eyes and taste in anticipation the
moment of her meeting with Cazeau. She could think of nothing but him.
It was night when she reached her station. There was Monteclin, as
she had expected, waiting for her with a two-seated buggy, to which he
had hitched his own swift-footed, spirited pony. It was good, he felt,
to have her back on any terms; and he had no fault to find since she
came of her own choice. He more than suspected the cause of her
coming; her eyes and her voice and her foolish little manner went
far in revealing the secret that was brimming over in her heart. But
after he had deposited her at her own gate, and as he continued his
way toward the rigolet, he could not help feeling that the affair
had taken a very disappointing, an ordinary, a most commonplace
turn, after all. He left her in Cazeau's keeping.
Her husband lifted her out of the buggy, and neither said a word
until they stood together within the shelter of the gallery. Even then
they did not speak at first. But Athenaise turned to him with an
appealing gesture. As he clasped her in his arms, he felt the yielding
of her whole body against him. He felt her lips for the first time
respond to the passion of his own.
The country night was dark and warm and still, save for the
distant notes of an accordion which some one was playing in a cabin
away off. A little Negro baby was crying somewhere. As Athenaise
withdrew from her husband's embrace, the sound arrested her.
"Listen, Cazeau! How Juliette's baby is crying! Pauvre ti chou, I
wonder w'at is the matter with it?"
THE END
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