酷兔英语

章节正文

The Awakening and Selected Short Stories

by Kate Chopin
I

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the
door, kept repeating over and over:

"Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!"
He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which

nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the
other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the

breeze with maddening persistence.
Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree

of comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust.
He walked down the gallery and across the narrow "bridges" which

connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other. He had been
seated before the door of the main house. The parrot and the

mockingbird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the
right to make all the noise they wished. Mr. Pontellier had the

privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be
entertaining.

He stopped before the door of his own cottage, which was the
fourth one from the main building and next to the last. Seating

himself in a wicker rocker which was there, he once more applied
himself to the task of reading the newspaper. The day was Sunday;

the paper was a day old. The Sunday papers had not yet reached
Grand Isle. He was already acquainted with the market reports,

and he glanced restlessly over the editorials and bits of news which
he had not had time to read before quitting New Orleans the day before.

Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of
medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His

hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was
neatly and closely trimmed.

Once in a while he withdrew his glance from the newspaper and
looked about him. There was more noise than ever over at the

house. The main building was called "the house," to distinguish it
from the cottages. The chattering and whistling birds were still

at it. Two young girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet
from "Zampa" upon the piano. Madame Lebrun was bustling in and

out, giving orders in a high key to a yard-boy whenever she got
inside the house, and directions in an equally high voice to a

dining-room servant whenever she got outside. She was a fresh,
pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves. Her

starched skirts crinkled as she came and went. Farther down,
before one of the cottages, a lady in black was walking demurely up

and down, telling her beads. A good many persons of the pension
had gone over to the Cheniere Caminada in Beaudelet's

lugger to hear mass. Some young people were out under the
wateroaks playing croquet. Mr. Pontellier's two children were there

sturdy little fellows of four and five. A quadroon nurse followed
them about with a faraway, meditative air.

Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting
the paper drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white

sunshade that was advancing at snail's pace from the beach. He
could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the water-oaks and

across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away,
melting hazily into the blue of the horizon. The sunshade

continued to approach slowly. Beneath its pink-lined shelter were
his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert Lebrun. When they

reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with some appearance
of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each other,

each leaning against a supporting post.
"What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat!" exclaimed

Mr. Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That
was why the morning seemed long to him.

"You are burnt beyond recognition," he added, looking at his
wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which

has suffered some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely
hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves

above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which
she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She

silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings
from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She

slipped them upon her fingers; then clasping her knees, she looked
across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings sparkled upon her

fingers. He sent back an answering smile.
"What is it?" asked Pontellier, looking lazily and amused from

one to the other. It was some utter nonsense; some adventure out
there in the water, and they both tried to relate it at once. It

did not seem half so amusing when told. They realized this, and so
did Mr. Pontellier. He yawned and stretched himself. Then he got

up, saying he had half a mind to go over to Klein's hotel and play
a game of billiards.

"Come go along, Lebrun," he proposed to Robert. But Robert
admitted quite frankly that he preferred to stay where he was and

talk to Mrs. Pontellier.
"Well, send him about his business when he bores you, Edna,"

instructed her husband as he prepared to leave.
"Here, take the umbrella," she exclaimed, holding it out to

him. He accepted the sunshade, and lifting it over his head
descended the steps and walked away.

"Coming back to dinner?" his wife called after him. He halted
a moment and shrugged his shoulders. He felt in his vest pocket;

there was a ten-dollar bill there. He did not know; perhaps he
would return for the early dinner and perhaps he would not.

It all depended upon the company which he found over at Klein's
and the size of "the game." He did not say this, but she understood it,

and laughed, nodding good-by to him.
Both children wanted to follow their father when they saw him

starting out. He kissed them and promised to bring them back
bonbons and peanuts.

II
Mrs. Pontellier's eyes were quick and bright; they were a

yellowish brown, about the color of her hair. She had a way of
turning them swiftly upon an object and holding them there as if

lost in some inward maze of contemplation or thought.
Her eyebrows were a shade darker than her hair. They were

thick and almost horizontal, emphasizing the depth of her eyes.
She was rather handsome than beautiful. Her face was captivating

by reason of a certain frankness of expression and a contradictory
subtle play of features. Her manner was engaging.

Robert rolled a cigarette. He smoked cigarettes because he
could not afford cigars, he said. He had a cigar in his pocket

which Mr. Pontellier had presented him with, and he was saving it
for his after-dinner smoke.

This seemed quite proper and natural on his part. In coloring
he was not unlike his companion. A clean-shaved face made the

resemblance more pronounced than it would otherwise have been.
There rested no shadow of care upon his open countenance. His eyes

gathered in and reflected the light and languor of the summer day.
Mrs. Pontellier reached over for a palm-leaf fan that lay on

the porch and began to fan herself, while Robert sent between his
lips light puffs from his cigarette. They chatted incessantly:

about the things around them; their amusing adventure out in the
water-it had again assumed its entertaining aspect; about the wind, the trees,

the people who had gone to the Cheniere; about the children playing croquet
under the oaks, and the Farival twins, who were now performing the overture

to "The Poet and the Peasant."
Robert talked a good deal about himself. He was very young,

and did not know any better. Mrs. Pontellier talked a little about
herself for the same reason. Each was interested in what the other

said. Robert spoke of his intention to go to Mexico in the autumn,
where fortune awaited him. He was always intending to go to

Mexico, but some way never got there. Meanwhile he held on to his
modest position in a mercantile house in New Orleans, where an

equal familiarity with English, French and Spanish gave him no
small value as a clerk and correspondent.

He was spending his summer vacation, as he always did, with
his mother at Grand Isle. In former times, before Robert could

remember, "the house" had been a summer luxury of the Lebruns.
Now, flanked by its dozen or more cottages, which were always

filled with exclusive visitors from the "Quartier Francais,"
it enabled Madame Lebrun to maintain the easy and comfortable

existence which appeared to be her birthright.
Mrs. Pontellier talked about her father's Mississippi

plantation and her girlhood home in the old Kentucky bluegrass
country. She was an American woman, with a small infusion of

French which seemed to have been lost in dilution. She read a
letter from her sister, who was away in the East, and who had

engaged herself to be married. Robert was interested, and wanted
to know what manner of girls the sisters were, what the father was

like, and how long the mother had been dead.
When Mrs. Pontellier folded the letter it was time for her to

dress for the early dinner.
"I see Leonce isn't coming back," she said, with a glance in

the direction whence her husband had disappeared. Robert supposed
he was not, as there were a good many New Orleans club men over at Klein's.

When Mrs. Pontellier left him to enter her room, the young man
descended the steps and strolled over toward the croquet players,

where, during the half-hour before dinner, he amused himself with
the little Pontellier children, who were very fond of him.

III
It was eleven o'clock that night when Mr. Pontellier returned

from Klein's hotel. He was in an excellent humor, in high spirits,
and very talkative. His entrance awoke his wife, who was in bed

and fast asleep when he came in. He talked to her while he
undressed, telling her anecdotes and bits of news and gossip that

he had gathered during the day. From his trousers pockets he took
a fistful of crumpled bank notes and a good deal of silver coin,

which he piled on the bureau indiscriminately with keys, knife,
handkerchief, and whatever else happened to be in his pockets. She

was overcome with sleep, and answered him with little half
utterances.

He thought it very discouraging that his wife, who was the
sole object of his existence, evinced so little interest in things

which concerned him, and valued so little his conversation.
Mr. Pontellier had forgotten the bonbons and peanuts for the

boys. Notwithstanding he loved them very much, and went into the
adjoining room where they slept to take a look at them and make

sure that they were resting comfortably. The result of his
investigation was far from satisfactory. He turned and shifted the

youngsters about in bed. One of them began to kick and talk about
a basket full of crabs.

Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that
Raoul had a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit a

cigar and went and sat near the open door
to smoke it.

Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had
gone to bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had ailed him all

day. Mr. Pontellier was too well acquainted with fever symptoms to
be mistaken. He assured her the child was consuming at that moment

in the next room.
He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual

neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look
after children, whose on earth was it? He himself had his hands

full with his brokerage business. He could not be in two places at
once; making a living for his family on the street, and staying at

home to see that no harm befell them. He talked in a monotonous,
insistent way.

Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room.
She soon came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head

down on the pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her
husband when he questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he



文章标签:名著  

章节正文