Chapter IX

by Kate Chopin

　　Every light in the hall was ablaze; every lamp turned as highas it could be without smoking the chimney or threatening explosion.The lamps were fixed at intervals against the wall, encircling the whole room.Some one had gathered orange and lemon branches, and with these fashionedgraceful festoons between. The dark green of the branches stood outand glistened against the white muslin curtains which draped the windows,and which puffed, floated, and flapped at the capricious will of a stiffbreeze that swept up from the Gulf.It was Saturday night a few weeks after the intimateconversation held between Robert and Madame Ratignolle on their wayfrom the beach. An unusual number of husbands, fathers, andfriends had come down to stay over Sunday; and they were beingsuitably entertained by their families, with the material help ofMadame Lebrun. The dining tables had all been removed to one endof the hall, and the chairs ranged about in rows and in clusters.Each little family group had had its say and exchanged its domesticgossip earlier in the evening. There was now an apparentdisposition to relax; to widen the circle of confidences and givea more general tone to the conversation.Many of the children had been permitted to sit up beyond theirusual bedtime. A small band of them were lying on their stomachson the floor looking at the colored sheets of the comic paperswhich Mr. Pontellier had brought down. The little Pontellier boyswere permitting them to do so, and making their authority felt.Music, dancing, and a recitation or two were theentertainments furnished, or rather, offered. But there was nothingsystematic about the programme, no appearance of prearrangement noreven premeditation.At an early hour in the evening the Farival twins wereprevailed upon to play the piano. They were girls of fourteen,always clad in the Virgin's colors, blue and white, having beendedicated to the Blessed Virgin at their baptism. They played aduet from "Zampa," and at the earnest solicitation of every onepresent followed it with the overture to "The Poet and thePeasant.""Allez vous-en! Sapristi!" shrieked the parrot outside thedoor. He was the only being present who possessed sufficientcandor to admit that he was not listening to these graciousperformances for the first time that summer. Old Monsieur Farival,grandfather of the twins, grew indignant over the interruption,and insisted upon having the bird removed and consignedto regions of darkness. Victor Lebrun objected;and his decrees were as immutable as those of Fate.The parrot fortunately offered no further interruptionto the entertainment, the whole venom of his natureapparently having been cherished up and hurled againstthe twins in that one impetuous outburst.Later a young brother and sister gave recitations, which everyone present had heard many times at winter evening entertainmentsin the city.A little girl performed a skirt dance in the center of thefloor. The mother played her accompaniments and at the same timewatched her daughter with greedy admiration and nervousapprehension. She need have had no apprehension. The child wasmistress of the situation. She had been properly dressed for theoccasion in black tulle and black silk tights. Her little neck andarms were bare, and her hair, artificially crimped, stood out likefluffy black plumes over her head. Her poses were full of grace,and her little black-shod toes twinkled as they shot out and upwardwith a rapidity and suddenness which were bewildering.But there was no reason why every one should not dance.Madame Ratignolle could not, so it was she who gaily consented toplay for the others. She played very well, keeping excellent waltztime and infusing an expression into the strains which was indeedinspiring. She was keeping up her music on account of thechildren, she said; because she and her husband both considered ita means of brightening the home and making it attractive.Almost every one danced but the twins, who could not beinduced to separate during the brief period when one or the othershould be whirling around the room in the arms of a man. Theymight have danced together, but they did not think of it.The children were sent to bed. Some went submissively;others with shrieks and protests as they were dragged away.They had been permitted to sit up till after the ice-cream,which naturally marked the limit of human indulgence.The ice-cream was passed around with cake--gold and silvercake arranged on platters in alternate slices; it had been made andfrozen during the afternoon back of the kitchen by two black women,under the supervision of Victor. It was pronounced a greatsuccess--excellent if it had only contained a little less vanillaor a little more sugar, if it had been frozen a degree harder, andif the salt might have been kept out of portions of it. Victor wasproud of his achievement, and went about recommending it and urgingevery one to partake of it to excess.After Mrs. Pontellier had danced twice with her husband, oncewith Robert, and once with Monsieur Ratignolle, who was thin andtall and swayed like a reed in the wind when he danced, she wentout on the gallery and seated herself on the low window-sill, whereshe commanded a view of all that went on in the hall and could lookout toward the Gulf. There was a soft effulgence in the east. Themoon was coming up, and its mystic shimmer was casting a millionlights across the distant, restless water."Would you like to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play?" askedRobert, coming out on the porch where she was. Of course Ednawould like to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play; but she feared it wouldbe useless to entreat her."I'll ask her," he said. "I'll tell her that you want to hearher. She likes you. She will come." He turned and hurried away toone of the far cottages, where Mademoiselle Reisz was shufflingaway. She was dragging a chair in and out of her room, and atintervals objecting to the crying of a baby, which a nurse in theadjoining cottage was endeavoring to put to sleep. She was adisagreeable little woman, no longer young, who had quarreled withalmost every one, owing to a temper which was self-assertive and adisposition to trample upon the rights of others. Robert prevailedupon her without any too great difficulty.She entered the hall with him during a lull in the dance. Shemade an awkward, imperious little bow as she went in. She was ahomely woman, with a small weazened face and body and eyes thatglowed. She had absolutely no taste in dress, and wore a batch ofrusty black lace with a bunch of artificial violets pinned to theside of her hair."Ask Mrs. Pontellier what she would like to hear me play," sherequested of Robert. She sat perfectly still before the piano, nottouching the keys, while Robert carried her message to Edna at thewindow. A general air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fellupon every one as they saw the pianist enter. There was a settlingdown, and a prevailing air of expectancy everywhere. Edna was atrifle embarrassed at being thus signaled out for the imperiouslittle woman's favor. She would not dare to choose, and beggedthat Mademoiselle Reisz would please herself in her selections.Edna was what she herself called very fond of music. Musicalstrains, well rendered, had a way of evoking pictures in her mind.She sometimes liked to sit in the room of mornings when MadameRatignolle played or practiced. One piece which that lady playedEdna had entitled "Solitude." It was a short, plaintive, minorstrain. The name of the piece was something else, but she calledit "Solitude." When she heard it there came before her imaginationthe figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on theseashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopelessresignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flightaway from him.Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad inan Empire gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down along avenue between tall hedges. Again, another reminded her ofchildren at play, and still another of nothing on earth but ademure lady stroking a cat.The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon thepiano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinal column. Itwas not the first time she had heard an artist at the piano.Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first timeher being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth.She waited for the material pictures which she thought wouldgather and blaze before her imagination. She waited in vain. Shesaw 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 splendidbody. 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 norapplause. As she passed along the gallery she patted Edna upon theshoulder."Well, how did you like my music?" she asked. The young womanwas unable to answer; she pressed the hand of the pianistconvulsively. Mademoiselle Reisz perceived her agitation and evenher 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 herroom.But she was mistaken about "those others." Her playing hadaroused a fever of enthusiasm. "What passion!" "What an artist!""I have always said no one could play Chopin like MademoiselleReisz!" "That last prelude! Bon Dieu! It shakes a man!"It was growing late, and there was a general disposition todisband. But some one, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath atthat mystic hour and under that mystic moon.