Kate Chopin- The Dover Reader Read online

  Kate Chopin

  DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  Mineola, New York

  DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

  GENERAL EDITOR: MARY CAROLYN WALDREP

  EDITOR OF THIS VOLUME: SUSAN L. RATTINER

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2015 by Dover Publications, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Bibliographical Note

  Kate Chopin: The Dover Reader, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 2015, is a new compilation of works by Kate Chopin, reprinted from authoritative sources. The Note and explanatory footnotes have been specially prepared for this Dover edition.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chopin, Kate, 1850–1904.

  [Works. Selections]

  Kate Chopin : the Dover reader / Kate Chopin.

  pages cm. — (Dover thrift editions)

  eISBN-13: 978-0-486-80341-8

  I. Title.

  PS1294.C63A6 2015

  813'.4—dc23

  2014034326

  Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation

  79123801 2015

  www.doverpublications.com

  Note

  KATE CHOPIN (née O’Flaherty) was born into a wealthy St. Louis, Missouri, family in 1851. Her father died when she was very young, and Chopin was raised by her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother—three strong-minded widows. Of French Catholic and Irish extraction, she was imprinted with the elaborate conventions of her social class. In addition to attending school at the Sacred Heart Convent, Chopin read widely on her own, including the French and English classics.

  In 1870, two years after graduating from Sacred Heart, she married Oscar Chopin, a member of a prominent Louisiana Creole family. The couple lived in New Orleans for a number of years, then moved to a small plantation in the Louisiana parish of Natchitoches. Until her husband’s death from swamp fever in 1882, she lived as a respectable wife in New Orleans and northwest Louisiana, bearing six children. There she was exposed to the Creole culture that would later supply much of the material for her fiction.

  Returning as a widow to St. Louis, with her resources dwindling and a family to support, Chopin gradually turned to writing, possibly out of economic necessity. Her stories and sketches began appearing in magazines in 1889, and her first novel, At Fault, was published a year later. Drawing upon the Creole society of her married life, Chopin gained national recognition during the 1890s as an exemplar of the then-burgeoning local-color movement, which focused attention upon America’s distinctive regional cultures.

  Chopin’s second and last novel, The Awakening, was published in 1899 and aroused a storm of controversy for its then-unprecedented treatment of female independence and sexuality, and for its unromantic portrayal of marriage. Her earlier work was overshadowed by the novel’s critical failure, and Chopin’s writings descended into obscurity. Socially ostracized for her scandalous frankness, Chopin died in 1904; it was not until the second half of the twentieth century that The Awakening was rediscovered, and assumed a place of significance in the canon of American literature.

  Twenty-nine of Chopin’s stories are represented in this volume, and many of these works capture the lifestyles of the Cajuns and Creoles that Chopin had observed during her years in Louisiana. They also illustrate her keen ability to portray the nuances of her characters’ psychological states.

  Sensitive readers should be forewarned that the text in places contains racial references characteristic of the era, which may be deemed offensive by modern standards.

  Contents

  Nonfiction

  My Writing Method (1899)

  Short Stories

  Wiser Than a God (1889)

  A No-Account Creole (1894)

  In and Out of Old Natchitoches (1894)

  In Sabine (1894)

  Beyond the Bayou (1894)

  A Rude Awakening (1894)

  Désirée’s Baby (1894)

  Madame Célestin’s Divorce (1894)

  Love on the Bon-Dieu (1894)

  For Marse Chouchoute (1894)

  Ma’ame Pélagie (1894)

  At the ’Cadian Ball (1894)

  The Dream of an Hour (1894)

  The Kiss (1895)

  Her Letters (1895)

  Juanita (1895)

  Lilacs (1896)

  A Night in Acadie (1897)

  Athénaïse (1897)

  After the Winter (1897)

  Regret (1897)

  A Matter of Prejudice (1897)

  Nég Créol (1897)

  The Lilies (1897)

  Dead Men’s Shoes (1897)

  Cavanelle (1897)

  A Respectable Woman (1897)

  Ripe Figs (1897)

  A Pair of Silk Stockings (1897)

  Novels

  At Fault (1890)

  The Awakening (1897)

  Nonfiction

  MY WRITING METHOD

  EIGHT OR NINE years ago I began to write stories—short stories which appeared in the magazines, and I forthwith began to suspect I had the writing habit. The public shared this impression, and called me an author. Since then, though I have written many short stories and a novel or two, I am forced to admit that I have not the writing habit. But it is hard to make people with the questioning habit believe this.

  “How, where, when, why, what do you write?” are some of the questions that I remember. How do I write? On a lapboard with a block of paper, a stub pen, and a bottle of ink bought at the corner grocery, which keeps the best in town.

  Where do I write? In a Morris chair beside the window, where I can see a few trees and a patch of sky, more or less blue.

  When do I write? I am greatly tempted here to use slang and reply “any old time,” but that would lend a tone of levity to this bit of confidence, whose seriousness I want to keep intact if possible. So I shall say I write in the morning, when not too strongly drawn to struggle with the intricacies of a pattern, and in the afternoon, if the temptation to try a new furniture polish on an old table leg is not too powerful to be denied; sometimes at night, though as I grow older I am more and more inclined to believe that night was made for sleep.

  “Why do I write?” is a question which I have often asked myself and never very satisfactorily answered. Story-writing—at least with me—is the spontaneous expression of impressions gathered goodness knows where. To seek the source, the impulse of a story is like tearing a flower to pieces for wantonness.

  What do I write? Well, not everything that comes into my head, but much of what I have written lies between the covers of my books.

  There are stories that seem to write themselves, and others which positively refuse to be written—which no amount of coaxing can bring to anything. I do not believe any writer has ever made a “portrait” in fiction. A trick, a mannerism, a physical trait or mental characteristic go a very short way towards portraying the complete individual in real life who suggests the individual in the writer’s imagination. The “material” of a writer is to the last degree uncertain, and I fear not marketable. I have been told stories which were looked upon as veritable gold mines by the generous narrators who placed them at my disposal. I have been taken to spots supposed to be alive with local color. I have been introduced to excruciating characters with frank permission to use them as I liked, but never, in any single instance, has such material been of the slightest service. I am completely at the mercy of unconscious selection. To such an extent is this true, that what is called the polishing up process has always proved disastrous to my work, and I avoid it, preferring the integrity of crudities to artificialities.

  (1899)

  Short Stories

&n
bsp; WISER THAN A GOD

  “To love and be wise is scarcely granted even to a God.”

  —Latin Proverb.

  I

  “YOU MIGHT AT least show some distaste for the task, Paula,” said Mrs. Von Stoltz, in her querulous invalid voice, to her daughter who stood before the glass bestowing a few final touches of embellishment upon an otherwise plain toilet.

  “And to what purpose, Mutterchen? The task is not entirely to my liking, I’ll admit; but there can be no question as to its results, which you even must concede are gratifying.”

  “Well, it’s not the career your poor father had in view for you. How often he has told me when I complained that you were kept too closely at work, ‘I want that Paula shall be at the head,’ ” with appealing look through the window and up into the gray November sky into that far “somewhere,” which might be the abode of her departed husband.

  “It isn’t a career at all, mamma; it’s only a make-shift,” answered the girl, noting the happy effect of an amber pin that she had thrust through the coils of her lustrous yellow hair. “The pot must be kept boiling at all hazards, pending the appearance of that hoped for career. And you forget that an occasion like this gives me the very opportunities I want.”

  “I can’t see the advantages of bringing your talent down to such banale servitude. Who are those people, anyway?”

  The mother’s question ended in a cough which shook her into speechless exhaustion.

  “Ah! I have let you sit too long by the window, mother,” said Paula, hastening to wheel the invalid’s chair nearer the grate fire that was throwing genial light and warmth into the room, turning its plainness to beauty as by a touch of enchantment. “By the way,” she added, having arranged her mother as comfortably as might be, “I haven’t yet qualified for that ‘banale servitude,’ as you call it.” And approaching the piano which stood in a distant alcove of the room, she took up a roll of music that lay curled up on the instrument, straightened it out before her. Then, seeming to remember the question which her mother had asked, turned on the stool to answer it. “Don’t you know? The Brainards, very swell people, and awfully rich. The daughter is that girl whom I once told you about, having gone to the Conservatory to cultivate her voice and old Engfelder told her in his brusque way to go back home, that his system was not equal to overcoming impossibilities.”

  “Oh, those people.”

  “Yes; this little party is given in honor of the son’s return from Yale or Harvard, or some place or other.” And turning to the piano she softly ran over the dances, whilst the mother gazed into the fire with unresigned sadness, which the bright music seemed to deepen.

  “Well, there’ll be no trouble about that,” said Paula, with comfortable assurance, having ended the last waltz. “There’s nothing here to tempt me into flights of originality; there’ll be no difficulty in keeping to the hand-organ effect.”

  “Don’t leave me with those dreadful impressions, Paula; my poor nerves are on edge.”

  “You are too hard on the dances, mamma. There are certain strains here and there that I thought not bad.”

  “It’s your youth that finds it so; I have outlived such illusions.”

  “What an inconsistent little mother it is!” the girl exclaimed, laughing. “You told me only yesterday it was my youth that was so impatient with the commonplace happenings of everyday life. That age, needing to seek its delights, finds them often in unsuspected places, wasn’t that it?”

  “Don’t chatter, Paula; some music, some music!”

  “What shall it be?” asked Paula, touching a succession of harmonious chords. “It must be short.”

  “The ‘Berceuse,’ then; Chopin’s. But soft, soft and a little slowly as your dear father used to play it.”

  Mrs. Von Stoltz leaned her head back amongst the cushions, and with eyes closed, drank in the wonderful strains that came like an ethereal voice out of the past, lulling her spirit into the quiet of sweet memories.

  When the last soft notes had melted into silence, Paula approached her mother and looking into the pale face saw that tears stood beneath the closed eyelids. “Ah! mamma, I have made you unhappy,” she cried, in distress.

  “No, my child; you have given me a joy that you don’t dream of. I have no more pain. Your music has done for me what Faranelli’s singing did for poor King Philip of Spain; it has cured me.”

  There was a glow of pleasure on the warm face and the eyes with almost the brightness of health. “Whilst I listened to you, Paula, my soul went out from me and lived again through an evening long ago. We were in our pretty room at Leipsic. The soft air and the moonlight came through the open-curtained window, making a quivering fret-work along the gleaming waxed floor. You lay in my arms and I felt again the pressure of your warm, plump little body against me. Your father was at the piano playing the ‘Berceuse,’ and all at once you drew my head down and whispered, ‘Ist es nicht wonderschen, mama?’ When it ended, you were sleeping and your father took you from my arms and laid you gently in bed.”

  Paula knelt beside her mother, holding the frail hands which she kissed tenderly.

  “Now you must go, liebchen. Ring for Berta, she will do all that is needed. I feel very strong to-night. But do not come back too late.”

  “I shall be home as early as possible; likely in the last car, I couldn’t stay longer or I should have to walk. You know the house in case there should be need to send for me?”

  “Yes, yes; but there will be no need.”

  Paula kissed her mother lovingly and went out into the drear November night with the roll of dances under her arm.

  II

  THE DOOR OF the stately mansion at which Paula rang, was opened by a footman, who invited her to “kindly walk upstairs.”

  “Show the young lady into the music room, James,” called from some upper region a voice, doubtless the same whose impossibilities had been so summarily dealt with by Herr Engfelder, and Paula was led through a suite of handsome apartments, the warmth and mellow light of which were very grateful, after the chill outdoor air.

  Once in the music room, she removed her wraps and seated herself comfortably to await developments. Before her stood the magnificent “Steinway,” on which her eyes rested with greedy admiration, and her fingers twitched with a desire to awaken its inviting possibilities. The odor of flowers impregnated the air like a subtle intoxicant and over everything hung a quiet smile of expectancy, disturbed by an occasional feminine flutter above stairs, or muffled suggestions of distant household sounds.

  Presently, a young man entered the drawing-room,—no doubt, the college student, for he looked critically and with an air of proprietorship at the festive arrangements, venturing the bestowal of a few improving touches. Then, gazing with pardonable complacency at his own handsome, athletic figure in the mirror, he saw reflected Paula looking at him, with a demure smile lighting her blue eyes.

  “By Jove!” was his startled exclamation. Then, approaching, “I beg pardon, Miss—Miss—”

  “Von Stoltz.”

  “Miss Von Stoltz,” drawing the right conclusion from her simple toilet and the roll of music. “I hadn’t seen you when I came in. Have you been here long? and sitting all alone, too? That’s certainly rough.”

  “Oh, I’ve been here but a few moments, and was very well entertained.”

  “I dare say,” with a glance full of prognostic complimentary utterances, which a further acquaintance might develop.

  As he was lighting the gas of a side bracket that she might better see to read her music, Mrs. Brainard and her daughter came into the room, radiantly attired and both approached Paula with sweet and polite greeting.

  “George, in mercy!” exclaimed her mother, “put out that gas, you are killing the effect of the candle light.”

  “But Miss Von Stoltz can’t read her music without it, mother.”

  “I’ve no doubt Miss Von Stoltz knows her pieces by heart,” Mrs. Brainard replied, seeking corrobora
tion from Paula’s glance.

  “No, madam; I’m not accustomed to playing dance music, and this is quite new to me,” the girl rejoined, touching the loose sheets that George had conveniently straightened out and placed on the rack.

  “Oh, dear! ‘not accustomed’?” said Miss Brainard. “And Mr. Sohmeir told us he knew you would give satisfaction.”

  Paula hastened to reassure the thoroughly alarmed young lady on the point of her ability to give perfect satisfaction.

  The door bell now began to ring incessantly. Up the stairs, tripped fleeting opera-cloaked figures, followed by their black robed attendants. The rooms commenced to fill with the pretty hub-bub that a bevy of girls can make when inspired by a close masculine proximity; and Paula, not waiting to be asked, struck the opening bars of an inspiring waltz.

  Some hours later, during a lull in the dancing, when the men were making vigorous applications of fans and handkerchiefs; and the girls beginning to throw themselves into attitudes of picturesque exhaustion—save for the always indefatigable few—a proposition was ventured, backed by clamorous entreaties, which induced George to bring forth his banjo. And an agreeable moment followed, in which that young man’s skill met with a truly deserving applause. Never had his audience beheld such proficiency as he displayed in the handling of his instrument, which was now behind him, now overhead, and again swinging in mid-air like the pendulum of a clock and sending forth the sounds of stirring melody. Sounds so inspiring that a pretty little black-eyed fairy, an acknowledged votary of Terpsichore, and George’s particular admiration, was moved to contribute a few passes of a Virginia breakdown, as she had studied it from life on a Southern plantation. The act closing amid a spontaneous babel of hand clapping and admiring bravos.

  It must be admitted that this little episode, however graceful, was hardly a fitting prelude to the magnificent “Jewel Song from ‘Faust,’ ” with which Miss Brainard next consented to regale the company. That Miss Brainard possessed a voice, was a fact that had existed as matter of tradition in the family as far back almost as the days of that young lady’s baby utterances, in which loving ears had already detected the promise which time had so recklessly fulfilled.