Short Fiction, Kate Chopin [sci fi books to read txt] 📗

appearance, he seized her in his arms, and covered her face with kisses. She was not indignant; she was not flustered or agitated, as might have been a susceptible, coquettish girl; she was only astonished, and annoyed.

“W’at you doin’, Mr. ’Polyte?” she cried, struggling. “Leave me ’lone, I say! Leave me go!”

“I love you, I love you, I love you!” he stammered helplessly over and over in her face.

“You mus’ los’ yo’ head,” she told him, red from the effort of the struggle, when he released her.

“You right, Azélie; I b’lieve I los’ my head,” and he climbed up the bank of the bayou as fast as he could.

After that his behavior was shameful, and he knew it, and he did not care. He invented pretexts that would enable him to touch her hand with his. He wanted to kiss her again, and told her she might come into the store as she used to do. There was no need for her to unhook a window now; he gave her whatever she asked for, charging it always to his own account on the books. She permitted his caresses without returning them, and yet that was all he seemed to live for now. He gave her a little gold ring.

He was looking eagerly forward to the close of the season, when Arsène would go back to Little River. He had arranged to ask Azélie to marry him. He would keep her with him when the others went away. He longed to rescue her from what he felt to be the demoralizing influences of her family and her surroundings. ’Polyte believed he would be able to awaken Azélie to finer, better impulses when he should have her apart to himself.

But when the time came to propose it, Azélie looked at him in amazement. “Ah, b’en, no. I ain’t goin’ to stay yere wid you, Mr. ’Polyte; I’m goin’ yonda on Li’le river wid my popa.”

This resolve frightened him, but he pretended not to believe it.

“You jokin’, Azélie; you mus’ care a li’le about me. It looked to me all along like you cared some about me.”

“An’ my popa, done? Ah, b’en, no.”

“You don’ rememba how lonesome it is on Li’le river, Azélie,” he pleaded. “W’enever I think ’bout Li’le river it always make me sad⁠—like I think about a graveyard. To me it’s like a person mus’ die, one way or otha, w’en they go on Li’le river. Oh, I hate it! Stay with me, Azélie; don’ go ’way f’om me.”

She said little, one way or the other, after that, when she had fully understood his wishes, and her reserve led him to believe, since he hoped it, that he had prevailed with her and that she had determined to stay with him and be his wife.

It was a cool, crisp morning in December that they went away. In a ramshackle wagon, drawn by an ill-mated team, Arsène Pauché and his family left Mr. Mathurin’s plantation for their old familiar haunts on Little river. The grandmother, looking like a witch, with a black shawl tied over her head, sat upon a roll of bedding in the bottom of the wagon. Sauterelle’s bead-like eyes glittered with mischief as he peeped over the side. Azélie, with the pink sunbonnet completely hiding her round young face, sat beside her father, who drove.

’Polyte caught one glimpse of the group as they passed in the road. Turning, he hurried into his room, and locked himself in.

It soon became evident that ’Polyte’s services were going to count for little. He himself was the first to realize this. One day he approached the planter, and said: “Mr. Mathurin, befo’ we start anotha year togetha, I betta tell you I’m goin’ to quit.” ’Polyte stood upon the steps, and leaned back against the railing. The planter was a little above on the gallery.

“W’at in the name o’ sense are you talking about, ’Polyte!” he exclaimed in astonishment.

“It’s jus’ that; I’m boun’ to quit.”

“You had a better offer?”

“No; I ain’t had no offa.”

“Then explain yo’se’f, my frien’⁠—explain yo’se’f,” requested Mr. Mathurin, with something of offended dignity. “If you leave me, w’ere are you going?”

’Polyte was beating his leg with his limp felt hat. “I reckon I jus’ as well go yonda on Li’le river⁠—w’ere Azélie,” he said.

A Lady of Bayou St. John

The days and the nights were very lonely for Madame Delisle. Gustave, her husband, was away yonder in Virginia somewhere, with Beauregard, and she was here in the old house on Bayou St. John, alone with her slaves.

Madame was very beautiful. So beautiful, that she found much diversion in sitting for hours before the mirror, contemplating her own loveliness; admiring the brilliancy of her golden hair, the sweet languor of her blue eyes, the graceful contours of her figure, and the peach-like bloom of her flesh. She was very young. So young that she romped with the dogs, teased the parrot, and could not fall asleep at night unless old black Manna-Loulou sat beside her bed and told her stories.

In short, she was a child, not able to realize the significance of the tragedy whose unfolding kept the civilized world in suspense. It was only the immediate effect of the awful drama that moved her: the gloom that, spreading on all sides, penetrated her own existence and deprived it of joyousness.

Sépincourt found her looking very lonely and disconsolate one day when he stopped to talk with her. She was pale, and her blue eyes were dim with unwept tears. He was a Frenchman who lived near by. He shrugged his shoulders over this strife between brothers, this quarrel which was none of his; and he resented it chiefly upon the ground that it made life uncomfortable; yet he was young enough to have had quicker and hotter blood in his veins.

When he left Madame Delisle that day, her eyes were no longer dim, and a something of the dreariness that weighted her had been lifted away. That mysterious,