Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a
little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out
the candle, which her husband had left burning, she slipped her bare
feet into a pair of satin mules at the foot of the bed and went out
on the porch, where she sat down in the wicker chair and began to rock
gently to and fro.
It was then past midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint
light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound
abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and
the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft
hour. It broke like a mournful lullaby upon the night.
The tears came so fast to Mrs. Pontellier's eyes that the damp sleeve of
her peignoir no longer served to dry them. She was holding the back
of her chair with one hand; her loose sleeve had slipped almost to the
shoulder of her uplifted arm. Turning, she thrust her face, steaming and
wet, into the bend of her arm, and she went on crying there, not caring
any longer to dry her face, her eyes, her arms. She could not have told
why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon
in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much
against the abundance of her husband's kindness and a uniform devotion
which had come to be tacit and self-understood.
An indescribable oppression, which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar
part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish.
It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul's summer day.
It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there
inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed
her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a
good cry all to herself. The mosquitoes made merry over her, biting her
firm, round arms and nipping at her bare insteps.
The little stinging, buzzing imps succeeded in dispelling a mood which
might have held her there in the darkness half a night longer.
The following morning Mr. Pontellier was up in good time to take the
rockaway which was to convey him to the steamer at the wharf. He was
returning to the city to his business, and they would not see him again
at the Island till the coming Saturday. He had regained his composure,
which seemed to have been somewhat impaired the night before. He was
eager to be gone, as he looked forward to a lively week in Carondelet
Street.