The Awakening and Selected Short Stories - Page 20/161

Madame Ratignolle laid her hand over that of Mrs. Pontellier, which was

near her. Seeing that the hand was not withdrawn, she clasped it firmly

and warmly. She even stroked it a little, fondly, with the other hand,

murmuring in an undertone, "Pauvre cherie."

The action was at first a little confusing to Edna, but she soon lent

herself readily to the Creole's gentle caress. She was not accustomed to

an outward and spoken expression of affection, either in herself or in

others. She and her younger sister, Janet, had quarreled a good deal

through force of unfortunate habit. Her older sister, Margaret, was

matronly and dignified, probably from having assumed matronly and

housewifely responsibilities too early in life, their mother having

died when they were quite young, Margaret was not effusive; she

was practical. Edna had had an occasional girlfriend, but whether

accidentally or not, they seemed to have been all of one type--the

self-contained. She never realized that the reserve of her own character

had much, perhaps everything, to do with this. Her most intimate friend

at school had been one of rather exceptional intellectual gifts, who

wrote fine-sounding essays, which Edna admired and strove to imitate;

and with her she talked and glowed over the English classics, and

sometimes held religious and political controversies.

Edna often wondered at one propensity which sometimes had inwardly

disturbed her without causing any outward show or manifestation on her

part. At a very early age--perhaps it was when she traversed the ocean

of waving grass--she remembered that she had been passionately enamored

of a dignified and sad-eyed cavalry officer who visited her father in

Kentucky. She could not leave his presence when he was there, nor remove

her eyes from his face, which was something like Napoleon's, with a

lock of black hair failing across the forehead. But the cavalry officer

melted imperceptibly out of her existence.

At another time her affections were deeply engaged by a young gentleman

who visited a lady on a neighboring plantation. It was after they went

to Mississippi to live. The young man was engaged to be married to the

young lady, and they sometimes called upon Margaret, driving over of

afternoons in a buggy. Edna was a little miss, just merging into her

teens; and the realization that she herself was nothing, nothing,

nothing to the engaged young man was a bitter affliction to her. But he,

too, went the way of dreams.

She was a grown young woman when she was overtaken by what she supposed

to be the climax of her fate. It was when the face and figure of a

great tragedian began to haunt her imagination and stir her senses. The

persistence of the infatuation lent it an aspect of genuineness. The

hopelessness of it colored it with the lofty tones of a great passion.