CHAPTER FOUR

In fact, it was not easy for Mr Pontellier to criticize his wife for not taking good care of the kids. He did not have any clear proof that she did a poor job. Because of this, every time after he became angry and said something about it to Mrs Pontellier, he always felt sorry later on and tried to make up for it in some way.

If their boys hurt themselves while playing, they would not come crying to their mother for help. Instead, they would simply get back on their feet and continue to play. Kids like them liked to be rough with one another and they would get into all kinds of fights with the other little boys. They could not stand the nurse, whom they felt was only useful for helping them to keep a good appearance: fixing their hair for them, wiping the dirt from their clothes, and so on.

Mrs Pontellier was not a very motherly mother. All of the other mothers at Grand Isle were the type who never stopped protecting their children. No injury was too small for them to get upset about. For them, their children were the most precious things in the world. So they saw their main purpose in life was to watch over them as carefully as possible.

One of the mothers at Grand Isle, a woman named Adèle Ratignolle, was very much this kind of mother. Her physical attractiveness was so obvious that only the most uncommon words could be used to describe her. She was like a female hero from a traditional novel. Her husband would have to have been a complete idiot not to love her with all of his heart and soul. She had beautiful golden hair that refused to be held up on her head by a pin. Her blue eyes were like precious stones. Her lips had the redness of freshly picked cherries. She was getting a little fatter, but it did not really matter. Her beauty was no less perfect than before. Nothing bad could be said about any part of her body, not her arms, her neck, or her legs. It was a pleasure to look at her pretty hands as they worked in the afternoon sunlight sewing clothing for her children.

Madame Ratignolle liked Mrs Pontellier very much, and would often spend her afternoons sewing on the Pontellier's front porch. In fact, she was present when the box from Mr Pontellier arrived. At the time, she was making clothing for her children to sleep in.

The design she had in mind for the baby's clothing was very strange. The material would completely cover the child, only allowing for the baby's mouth, eyes, and nose to be seen. She wanted to protect the child from the cold air that can quietly enter houses during the winter and make people ill.

Mrs Pontellier thought that this was a bit too much. She, herself, did not think it was necessary to spend her summer vacation worrying about the winter that would come five or six months from now. However, she did not want to be unfriendly, so she agreed to help Mrs Ratignolle make the clothing.

With them, as they began to cut the material, was Robert. Mrs Pontellier sat on the staircase, occasionally passing candy to her friend, Madame Ratignolle.

Madame could not decide which piece of candy she wanted. She wondered if some of them might be unhealthier than the others. Would they make her fat? Eventually, she chose a piece of dark chocolate and put it into her cherry-red mouth. She was already seven years married. She had three children and was planning to have a fourth one in the near future. Very often she would talk about some problem or illness that she had. There was nothing to make anyone believe that these illnesses were real. Madame Ratignolle always looked perfectly healthy. But she insisted that she was ill in some way.

Robert tried to comfort her by telling her that he had heard of a woman who had lived on nothing but chocolate for many years. But seeing Madame Ratignolle's face become more serious, he decided to stop telling the story and talk about something else completely unrelated.

Mr Pontellier was a Creole. The Creoles were people with French and Spanish ancestors who combined their European culture with the culture of the southern United States, specifically within the state of Louisiana. Mrs Pontellier still felt quite uncomfortable around her husband's Creole family and most Creole people, in general. Most of the people at Mrs Lebrun's were Creole. They had an easy way of talking around one another. They were not afraid to say how they felt about anything. And they were not shy about talking about even the most personal things. This kind of expressive freedom was difficult for Mrs Pontellier to get used to. Often when she heard such conversations her face would turn red from embarrassment. But the more time she spent among the Creoles, the more comfortable she began to feel.

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