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Awakening & Selected Short Stories-Part30_Kate Chopin(1851-1904)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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leisurely and laid them beside her. Then she picked up a magazine

and glanced through it, cutting the pages with a blunt edge of her



knife. It was all very agreeable. The damask was even more

spotless than it had seemed through the window, and the crystal



more sparkling. There were quiet ladies and gentlemen, who did not

notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own. A soft,



pleasing strain of music could be heard, and a gentle breeze, was

blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word



or two, and she sipped the amber wine and wiggled her toes in the

silk stockings. The price of it made no difference. She counted



the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray,

whereupon he bowed before her as before a princess of royal blood.



There was still money in her purse, and her next temptation

presented itself in the shape of a matinee poster.



It was a little later when she entered the theatre, the play

had begun and the house seemed to her to be packed. But there were



vacant seats here and there, and into one of them she was ushered,

between brilliantly dressed women who had gone there to kill time



and eat candy and display their gaudy attire. There were many

others who were there solely for the play and acting. It is safe



to say there was no one present who bore quite the attitude which Mrs.

Sommers did to her surroundings. She gathered in the whole--stage



and players and people in one wide impression, and absorbed it and

enjoyed it. She laughed at the comedy and wept--she and the gaudy



woman next to her wept over the tragedy. And they talked a little

together over it. And the gaudy woman wiped her eyes and sniffled



on a tiny square of filmy, perfumed lace and passed little Mrs.

Sommers her box of candy.



The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It

was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs.



Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.

A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like



the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what

he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing-unless he were wizard



enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable

car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.



The Locket

I



One night in autumn a few men were gathered about a fire on

the slope of a hill. They belonged to a small detachment of



Confederate forces and were awaiting orders to march. Their gray

uniforms were worn beyond the point of shabbiness. One of the men



was heating something in a tin cup over the embers. Two were lying

at full length a little distance away, while a fourth was trying to



decipher a letter and had drawn close to the light. He had

unfastened his collar and a good bit of his flannel shirt front.



"What's that you got around your neck, Ned?" asked one of the

men lying in the obscurity.



Ned--or Edmond--mechanically fastened another button of his

shirt and did not reply. He went on reading his letter.



"Is it your sweet heart's picture?"

"`Taint no gal's picture," offered the man at the fire. He



had removed his tin cup and was engaged in stirring its grimy

contents with a small stick. "That's a charm; some kind of hoodoo



business that one o' them priests gave him to keep him out o'

trouble. I know them Cath'lics. That's how come Frenchy got



permoted an never got a scratch sence he's been in the ranks. Hey,

French! aint I right?" Edmond looked up absently from his letter.



"What is it?" he asked.

"Aint that a charm you got round your neck?"



"It must be, Nick," returned Edmond with a smile. "I don't know

how I could have gone through this year and a half without it."



The letter had made Edmond heart sick and home sick. He

stretched himself on his back and looked straight up at the



blinking stars. But he was not thinking of them nor of anything

but a certain spring day when the bees were humming in the



clematis; when a girl was saying good bye to him. He could see her

as she unclasped from her neck the locket which she fastened about



his own. It was an old fashioned golden locket bearing miniatures

of her father and mother with their names and the date of their



marriage. It was her most precious earthly possession. Edmond




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