542 | KATE CHOPIN

to the far-off plantation of Valmondé. She walked across a deserted field,

where the stubble bruised her tender feet, so delicately shod, and tore her
thin gown to shreds.
She disappeared among the reeds and willows that grew thick along the
banks of the deep, sluggish bayou; and she did not come back again.

Some weeks later there was a curious scene enacted at L’Abri. In the cen-
tre of the smoothly swept back yard was a great bonfire. Armand Aubigny
sat in the wide hallway that commanded a view of the spectacle; and it was
he who dealt out to a half dozen negroes the material which kept this fire
ablaze.
A graceful cradle of willow, with all its dainty furbishings, was laid upon
the pyre, which had already been fed with the richness of a priceless lay-
ette.8 Then there were silk gowns, and velvet and satin ones added to these;
laces, too, and embroideries; bonnets and gloves; for the corbeille had been
of rare quality.
The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters; innocent little scribblings
that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their espousal. There was
the remnant of one back in the drawer from which he took them. But it
was not Désirée’s; it was part of an old letter from his mother to his father.
He read it. She was thanking God for the blessing of her husband’s love:—
“But, above all,” she wrote, “night and day, I thank the good God for hav-
ing so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his
mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand
of slavery.”
1893 1894

The Story of an Hour1

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care
was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s
death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints
that revealed in half concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there,
too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelli-
gence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name
leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of
its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less care-
ful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a
paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden,
wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of grief had spent
itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.

8. A set of clothes for a newborn child (French). Life with its present title. The text is taken from
1. The story was first published in the April 19, Per Seyersted’s edition of The Complete Works of
1894, Vogue as “The Dream of an Hour,” and Kate Chopin (1969).
then reprinted in the January 5, 1895, St. Louis
 THE STORY OF AN HOUR | 543

There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into
this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body
and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that
were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was
in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of
a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and count-
less sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds
that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite
motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a
child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and
even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose
gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was
not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent
thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully.
What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But
she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds,
the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recog-
nize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to
beat it back with her will—as powerless as her two white slender hands would
have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly
parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath: “ free, free, free!” The
vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes.
They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood
warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held
her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as
trivial.
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands
folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed
and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession
of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and
spread her arms out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would
live for herself. There would be no power ful will bending hers in that blind
persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose
a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention
made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment
of illumination.
And yet she had loved him— sometimes. Often she had not. What did it
matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this pos-
session of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest
impulse of her being!
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
544 | KATE CHOPIN

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the key-
hole, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—
you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake
open the door.”
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir
of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days,
and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed
a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought
with a shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There
was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like
a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they
descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mal-
lard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carry ing his grip-sack
and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of accident, and did not even
know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at
Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
But Richards was too late.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of joy
that kills.
1894 1895

The Storm
A Sequel to “The ’Cadian Ball”1
I
The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobinôt,
who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little
son, called the child’s attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling
with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening
roar. They were at Friedheimer’s store and decided to remain there till the
storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was four
years old and looked very wise.
“Mama’ll be ’fraid, yes,” he suggested with blinking eyes.
“She’ll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helpin’ her this evenin’,”
Bobinôt responded reassuringly.
“No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin’ her yistiday,” piped Bibi.
Bobinôt arose and going across to the counter purchased a can of shrimps,
of which Calixta was very fond. Then he returned to his perch on the keg

1. Chopin’s notebooks show that this story was “The Storm” was apparently never submitted for
written on July 18, 1898, just six months after publication and did not see print until the publi-
she had submitted The Awakening to a publisher. cation of Per Seyersted’s edition of The Com-
As its subtitle indicates, it was intended as a plete Works of Kate Chopin in 1969, the basis for
sequel to her tale “At the ’Cadian Ball” (1892). the text printed here.