The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Kate Chopin [135]
Now, where had that love gone? He thought of her with indifference. Still, he was seeking her at that moment, through habit, without any special motive. He had no positive desire to see her; to see any one; and yet he could not endure to be alone. He had no desire to see Tante Elodie. She wanted him to forget and her presence made him remember.
The girl was walking under the beautiful trees, and she stood and waited for him, when she saw him mounting the hill. As he looked at her, his fondness for her and his intentions toward her, appeared now, like child’s play. Life was something terrible of which she had no conception. She seemed to him as harmless, as innocent, as insignificant as a little bird.
“Oh! Gabriel,” she exclaimed. “I had just written you a note. Why haven’t you been here? It was foolish to get offended. I wanted to explain: I couldn’t get out of it the other night, at Tante Elodie‘s, when he asked me. You know I couldn’t, and that I would rather have come with you.” Was it possible he would have taken this seriously a week ago?
“Delonce is a good fellow; he’s a decent fellow. I don’t blame you. That’s all right.” She was hurt at his easy complaisance. She did not wish to offend him, and here she was grieved because he was not offended.
“Will you come indoors to the fire?” she asked.
“No; I just strolled up for a minute.” He leaned against a tree and looked bored, or rather, preoccupied with other things than herself. It was not a week ago that he wanted to see her every day; when he said the hours were like minutes that he passed beside her. “I just strolled up to tell you that I am going away.”
“Oh! going away?” and the pink deepened in her cheeks, and she tried to look indifferent and to clasp her glove tighter. He had not the slightest intention of going away when he mounted the hill. It came to him like an inspiration.
“Where are you going?”
“Going to look for work in the city.”
“And what about your law studies?”
“I have no talent for the law; it’s about time I acknowledged it. I want to get into something that will make me hustle. I wouldn’t mind—I’d like to get something to do on a railroad that would go tearing through the country night and day. What’s the matter?” he asked, perceiving the tears that she could not conceal.
“Nothing’s the matter,” she answered with dignity, and a sense of seeming proud.
He took her word for it and, instead of seeking to console her, went rambling on about the various occupations in which he should like to engage for a while.
“When are you going?”
“Just as soon as I can.”
“Shall I see you again?”
“Of course. Good-by. Don’t stay out here too long; you might take cold.” He listlessly shook hands with her and descended the hill with long rapid strides.
He would not intentionally have hurt her. He did not realize that he was wounding her. It would have been as difficult for him to revive his passion for her as to bring Everson back to life. Gabriel knew there could be fresh horror added to the situation. Discovery would have added to it; a false accusation would have deepened it. But he never dreamed of the new horror coming as it did, through Tante Elodie, when he found the knife in his pocket. It took a long time to realize what it meant; and then he felt as if he never wanted to see her again. In his mind, her action identified itself with his crime, and made itself a hateful, hideous part of it, which he could not endure to think of, and of which he could not help thinking.
It was the one thing which had saved him, and yet he felt no gratitude. The great love which had prompted the deed did not soften him. He could not believe that any man was worth loving to such length, or worth saving at such a price. She seemed, to his imagination, less a woman than a monster, capable of committing,