1894
MADAME CELESTIN'S DIVORCE
by Kate Chopin
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
Madame Celestin's Divorce
Madame Celestin always wore a neat and snugly fitting calico wrapper
when she went out in the morning to sweep her small gallery. Lawyer
Paxton thought she looked very pretty in the gray one that was made
with a graceful Watteau fold at the back: and with which she
invariably wore a bow of pink ribbon at the throat. She was always
sweeping her gallery when lawyer Paxton passed by in the morning on
his way to his office in St. Denis Street.
Sometimes he stopped and leaned over the fence to say good morning
at his ease, to criticise or admire her rosebushes or, when he had
time enough, to hear what she had to say. Madame Celestin usually
had a good deal to say. She would gather up the train of her calico
wrapper in one hand, and balancing the broom gracefully in the
other, would go tripping down to where the lawyer leaned, as
comfortably as he could, over her picket fence.
Of course she had talked to him of her troubles. Every one knew
Madame Celestin's troubles.
"Really, Madame," he told her once, in his deliberate,
calculating, lawyer tone, "it's more than human nature- woman's
nature- should be called upon to endure. Here you are, working your
fingers off"- she glanced down at two rosy fingertips that showed
through the rents in her baggy doeskin gloves- "taking in sewing,
giving music lessons, doing God knows what in the way of manual
labor to support yourself and those two little ones." Madame
Celestin's pretty face beamed with satisfaction at this enumeration of
her trials.
"You right, Judge. Not a picayune, not one, not one, have I lay my
eyes on in the pas' fo' months that I can say Celestin give it to me
or sen' it to me."
"The scoundrel!" muttered lawyer Paxton in his beard.
"An' «pourtant,"» she resumed, "they say he's making money down
roun' Alexandria w'en he wants to work."
"I dare say you haven't seen him for months?" suggested the lawyer.
"It's good six month' since I see a sight of Celestin," she
admitted.
"That's it, that's what I say; he has practically deserted you,
fails to support you. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that he
has ill treated you."
"Well, you know, Judge," with an evasive cough, "a man that
drinks- w'at can you expec'? An' if you would know the promises he has
made me! Ah, if I had as many dolla' as I had promise from Celestin, I
would n' have to work, «je vous garantis."»
"And in my opinion, madame, you would be a foolish woman to endure
it longer, when the divorce court is there to offer you redress."
"You spoke about that befo', Judge; I'm goin' think about that
divo'ce. I believe you right."
Madame Celestin thought about the divorce and talked about it,
too; and lawyer Paxton grew deeply interested in the theme.
"You know, about that divo'ce, Judge," Madame Celestin was waiting
for him that morning, "I been talking to my family an' my frien's, an'
it's me that tells you, they all plumb agains' that divo'ce."
"Certainly, to be sure; that's to be expected, madame, in this
community of Creoles. I warned you that you would meet with
opposition, and would have to face it and brave it."
"Oh, don't fear, I'm going to face it! Maman says it's a disgrace
like it's neva been in the family. But it's good for Maman to talk,
her. W'at trouble she ever had? She says I mus' go by all means
consult with Pere Duncheron- it's my confessor, you undastan'- Well,
I'll go, Judge, to please Maman. But all the confessor' in the worl'
ent goin' make me put up with that conduc' of Celestin any longa."
A day or two later, she was there waiting for him again. "You
know, Judge, about that divo'ce."
"Yes, yes," responded the lawyer, well pleased to trace a new
determination in her brown eyes and in the curves of her pretty mouth.
"I suppose you saw Pere Duncheron and had to brave it out with him,
too."
"Oh, fo' that, a perfec' sermon, I assho you. A talk of giving
scandal an' bad example that I thought would neva en'! He says, fo'
him, he wash' his hands; I mus' go see the bishop."
"You won't let the bishop dissuade you, I trust," stammered the
lawyer more anxiously than he could well understand.
"You don't know me yet, Judge," laughed Madame Celestin with a
turn of the head and a flirt of the broom which indicated that the
interview was at an end.
"Well, Madame Celestin! And the bishop!" Lawyer Paxton was
standing there holding to a couple of the shaky pickets. She had not
seen him. "Oh, it's you, Judge?" and she hastened towards him with
an «empressment» that would not but have been flattering.
"Yes, I saw Monseigneur," she began. The lawyer had already gathered
from her expressive countenance that she had not wavered in her
determination. "Ah, he's a eloquent man. It's not a mo' eloquent man
in Natchitoches parish. I was fo'ced to cry, the way he talked to me
about my troubles, how he undastan's them, an' feels for me. It
would move even you, Judge, to hear how he talk' about that step I
want to take, its danga, its temptation. How it is the duty of a
Catholic to stan' everything till the las' extreme. An' that life of
retirement an' self-denial I would have to lead- he tole me all that."
"But he hasn't turned you from your resolve, I see," laughed the
lawyer complacently.
"For that, no," she returned emphatically. "The bishop don't know
w'at it is to be married to a man like Celestin, an' have to endu'
that conduc' like I have to endu' it. The Pope himse'f can't make me
stan' that any longer, if you 'say I got the right in the law to
sen' Celestin sailing."
A noticeable change had come over lawyer Paxton. He discarded his
work-day coat and began to wear his Sunday one to the office. He
grew solicitous as to the shine of his boots, his collar, and the
set of his tie. He brushed and trimmed his whiskers with a care that
had not before been apparent. Then he fell into a stupid habit of
dreaming as he walked the streets of the old town. It would be very
good to take unto himself a wife, he dreamed. And he could dream of no
other than pretty Madame Celestin filling that sweet and sacred office
as she filled his thoughts, now. Old Natchitoches would not hold
them comfortably, perhaps; but the world was surely wide enough to
live in, outside of Natchitoches town.
His heart beat in a strangely irregular manner as he neared Madame
Celestin's house one morning, and discovered her behind the
rosebushes, as usual plying her broom. She had finished the gallery
and steps and was sweeping the little brick walk along the edge of the
violet border.
"Good-morning, Madame Celestin."
"Ah, it's you, Judge. Good-morning." He waited. She seemed to be
doing the same. Then she ventured, with some hesitancy, "You know,
Judge, about that divo'ce. I been thinking- I reckon you betta neva
mine about that divo'ce." She was making keep rings in the palm of her
gloved hand with the end of the broom-handle, and looking at them
critically. Her face seemed to the lawyer to be unusually rosy; but
maybe it was only the reflection of the pink bow at the throat.
"Yes, I reckon you need n' mine. You see, Judge, Celestin came home
las' night. An' he's promise me on his word an' honor he's going to
turn ova a new leaf."
THE END
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