The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Kate Chopin [130]
“I stooped by the fire and looked at my watch; he was talking all kinds of foolishness I can’t repeat. It was eleven o’clock. I was in a killing rage and made a dash for the door. His big body and his big arm were there like an iron bar, and he laughed. I took out my knife and stuck it into him. I don’t believe he knew at first that I had touched him, for he kept on laughing; then he fell over like a pig, and the old cabin shook.”
Gabriel had raised his clinched hand with an intensely dramatic movement when he said, “I stuck it into him.” Then he let his head fall back against the chair and finished the concluding sentences of his story with closed eyes.
“How do you know he is dead?” asked Tante Elodie, whose voice sounded hard and monotonous.
“I only walked ten steps away and went back to see. He was dead. Then I came here. The best thing is to go give myself up, I reckon, and tell the whole story like I’ve told you. That’s about the best thing I can do if I want any peace of mind.”
“Are you crazy, Gabriel! You have not yet regained your senses. Listen to me. Listen to me and try to understand what I say.”
Her face was full of a hard intelligence he had not seen there before; all the soft womanliness had for the moment faded out of it.
“You ‘ave not killed the man Everson,” she said deliberately. “You know nothing about ’im. You do not know that he left Symund’s or that he followed you. You left at ten o’clock. You came straight in town, not feeling well. You saw a light in my window, came here; rapped on the door; I let you in and gave you something for cramps in the stomach and made you warm yourself and lie down on the sofa. Wait a moment. Stay still there.”
She got up and went shuffling out the door, around the angle of the gallery and tapped on Madame Nicolas’ door. She could hear the young woman jump out of bed bewildered, asking, “Who is there? Wait! What is it?”
“It is Tante Elodie.” The door was unbolted at once.
“Oh! how I hate to trouble you, chérie. Poor Gabriel ‘as been at my room for hours with the most severe cramps. Nothing I can do seems to relieve ’im. Will you let me ‘ave the morphine which doctor left with you for old Betsy’s rheumatism? Ah! thank you. I think a quarter of a grain218 will relieve ’im. Poor boy! Such suffering! I am so sorry dear, to disturb you. Do not stand by the door, you will take cold. Good night.”
Tante Elodie persuaded Gabriel, if the club were still open, to look in there on his way home. He had a room in a relative’s house. His mother was dead and his father lived on a plantation several miles from town. Gabriel feared that his nerve would fail him. But Tante Elodie had him up again with a glass of brandy. She said that he must get the fact lodged in his mind that he was innocent. She inspected the young man carefully before he went away, brushing and arranging his toilet. She sewed the missing button on his coat. She had noticed some blood upon his right hand. He himself had not seen it. With a wet towel she washed his face and hands as though he were a little child. She brushed his hair and sent him away with a thousand reiterated precautions.
Four
TANTE ELODIE WAS not overcome in any way after Gabriel left her. She did not indulge in a hysterical moment, but set about accomplishing some purpose which she had evidently had in her mind. She dressed herself again; quickly, nervously, but with much precision. A shawl over her head and a long, black cape across her shoulders made her look like a nun. She quitted her room. It was very dark and very still out of doors. There was only a whispering wail among the live-oak leaves.
Tante Elodie stole noiselessly down the steps and out the gate. If she had met anyone, she intended