The Awakening and Selected Short Stories - Page 29/161

The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the piano

sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. It was not

the first time she had heard an artist at the piano. Perhaps it was the

first time she was ready, perhaps the first time her being was tempered

to take an impress of the abiding truth.

She waited for the material pictures which she thought would gather and

blaze before her imagination. She waited in vain. She saw no pictures

of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair. But the very passions

themselves were aroused within her soul, swaying it, lashing it, as the

waves daily beat upon her splendid body. She trembled, she was choking,

and the tears blinded her.

Mademoiselle had finished. She arose, and bowing her stiff, lofty bow,

she went away, stopping for neither, thanks nor applause. As she passed

along the gallery she patted Edna upon the shoulder.

"Well, how did you like my music?" she asked. The young woman was

unable to answer; she pressed the hand of the pianist convulsively.

Mademoiselle Reisz perceived her agitation and even her tears. She

patted her again upon the shoulder as she said:

"You are the only one worth playing for. Those others? Bah!" and she

went shuffling and sidling on down the gallery toward her room.

But she was mistaken about "those others." Her playing had aroused a

fever of enthusiasm. "What passion!" "What an artist!" "I have always

said no one could play Chopin like Mademoiselle Reisz!" "That last

prelude! Bon Dieu! It shakes a man!"

It was growing late, and there was a general disposition to disband. But

someone, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath at that mystic hour

and under that mystic moon.