Edna Pontellier could not have told why, wishing to go to the beach with
Robert, she should in the first place have declined, and in the second
place have followed in obedience to one of the two contradictory
impulses which impelled her.
A certain light was beginning to dawn dimly within her,--the light
which, showing the way, forbids it.
At that early period it served but to bewilder her. It moved her to
dreams, to thoughtfulness, to the shadowy anguish which had overcome her
the midnight when she had abandoned herself to tears.
In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in
the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an
individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a
ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of
twenty-eight--perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased
to vouchsafe to any woman.
But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily
vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever
emerge from such beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult!
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring,
murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of
solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.
The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is
sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.