The Awakening and Selected Short Stories - Page 36/161

She slept but a few hours. They were troubled and feverish hours,

disturbed with dreams that were intangible, that eluded her, leaving

only an impression upon her half-awakened senses of something

unattainable. She was up and dressed in the cool of the early morning.

The air was invigorating and steadied somewhat her faculties. However,

she was not seeking refreshment or help from any source, either external

or from within. She was blindly following whatever impulse moved her,

as if she had placed herself in alien hands for direction, and freed her

soul of responsibility.

Most of the people at that early hour were still in bed and asleep.

A few, who intended to go over to the Cheniere for mass, were moving

about. The lovers, who had laid their plans the night before, were

already strolling toward the wharf. The lady in black, with her Sunday

prayer-book, velvet and gold-clasped, and her Sunday silver beads, was

following them at no great distance. Old Monsieur Farival was up, and

was more than half inclined to do anything that suggested itself. He

put on his big straw hat, and taking his umbrella from the stand in the

hall, followed the lady in black, never overtaking her.

The little negro girl who worked Madame Lebrun's sewing-machine was

sweeping the galleries with long, absent-minded strokes of the broom.

Edna sent her up into the house to awaken Robert.

"Tell him I am going to the Cheniere. The boat is ready; tell him to

hurry."

He had soon joined her. She had never sent for him before. She had never

asked for him. She had never seemed to want him before. She did not

appear conscious that she had done anything unusual in commanding

his presence. He was apparently equally unconscious of anything

extraordinary in the situation. But his face was suffused with a quiet

glow when he met her.

They went together back to the kitchen to drink coffee. There was no

time to wait for any nicety of service. They stood outside the window

and the cook passed them their coffee and a roll, which they drank and

ate from the window-sill. Edna said it tasted good.

She had not thought of coffee nor of anything. He told her he had often

noticed that she lacked forethought.

"Wasn't it enough to think of going to the Cheniere and waking you up?"

she laughed. "Do I have to think of everything?--as Leonce says when

he's in a bad humor. I don't blame him; he'd never be in a bad humor if

it weren't for me."

They took a short cut across the sands. At a distance they could see

the curious procession moving toward the wharf--the lovers, shoulder to

shoulder, creeping; the lady in black, gaining steadily upon them; old

Monsieur Farival, losing ground inch by inch, and a young barefooted

Spanish girl, with a red kerchief on her head and a basket on her arm,

bringing up the rear.