The Awakening Other Short Stories | Page 7

ground in childish battles with doubled fists and
uplifted voices, which usually prevailed against the other mother-tots. The quadroon
nurse was looked upon as a huge encumbrance, only good to button up waists and panties
and to brush and part hair; since it seemed to be a law of society that hair must be parted
and brushed.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman. The motherwomen seemed to prevail
that summer at Grand Isle. It was easy to know them, fluttering about with extended,
protecting wings when any harm, real or imaginary, threatened their precious brood.
They were women who idolized their children, worshiped their husbands, and esteemed it
a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals and grow wings as ministering
angels.
Many of them were delicious in the role; one of them was the embodiment of every
womanly grace and charm. If her husband did not adore her, he was a brute, deserving of
death by slow torture. Her name was Adele Ratignolle. There are no words to describe
her save the old ones that have served so often to picture the bygone heroine of romance
and the fair lady of our dreams. There was nothing subtle or hidden about her charms; her
beauty was all there, flaming and apparent: the spun-gold hair that comb nor confining
pin could restrain; the blue eyes that were like nothing but sapphires; two lips that pouted,
that were so red one could only think of cherries or some other delicious crimson fruit in
looking at them. She was growing a little stout, but it did not seem to detract an iota from
the grace of every step, pose, gesture. One would not have wanted her white neck a mite
less full or her beautiful arms more slender. Never were hands more exquisite than hers,
and it was a joy to look at them when she threaded her needle or adjusted her gold
thimble to her taper middle finger as she sewed away on the little night-drawers or
fashioned a bodice or a bib.
Madame Ratignolle was very fond of Mrs. Pontellier, and often she took her sewing and
went over to sit with her in the afternoons. She was sitting there the afternoon of the day
the box arrived from New Orleans. She had possession of the rocker, and she was busily
engaged in sewing upon a diminutive pair of night-drawers.
She had brought the pattern of the drawers for Mrs. Pontellier to cut out--a marvel of
construction, fashioned to enclose a baby's body so effectually that only two small eyes
might look out from the garment, like an Eskimo's. They were designed for winter wear,
when treacherous drafts came down chimneys and insidious currents of deadly cold
found their way through key-holes.

Mrs. Pontellier's mind was quite at rest concerning the present material needs of her
children, and she could not see the use of anticipating and making winter night garments
the subject of her summer meditations. But she did not want to appear unamiable and
uninterested, so she had brought forth newspapers, which she spread upon the floor of the
gallery, and under Madame Ratignolle's directions she had cut a pattern of the impervious
garment.
Robert was there, seated as he had been the Sunday before, and Mrs. Pontellier also
occupied her former position on the upper step, leaning listlessly against the post. Beside
her was a box of bonbons, which she held out at intervals to Madame Ratignolle.
That lady seemed at a loss to make a selection, but finally settled upon a stick of nougat,
wondering if it were not too rich; whether it could possibly hurt her. Madame Ratignolle
had been married seven years. About every two years she had a baby. At that time she
had three babies, and was beginning to think of a fourth one. She was always talking
about her "condition." Her "condition" was in no way apparent, and no one would have
known a thing about it but for her persistence in making it the subject of conversation.
Robert started to reassure her, asserting that he had known a lady who had subsisted upon
nougat during the entire--but seeing the color mount into Mrs. Pontellier's face he
checked himself and changed the subject.
Mrs. Pontellier, though she had married a Creole, was not thoroughly at home in the
society of Creoles; never before had she been thrown so intimately among them. There
were only Creoles that summer at Lebrun's. They all knew each other, and felt like one
large family, among whom existed the most amicable relations. A characteristic which
distinguished them and which impressed Mrs. Pontellier most forcibly was their entire
absence of prudery. Their freedom of expression was at first incomprehensible to her,
though she had no difficulty in