CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Alcee asked Edna why she was behaving so differently lately. She had never so often been in such a good mood. "What's going on?" he asked, sitting next to her in front of the fire, occasionally playing with the hair that threatened to hang down over her eyes. She did not mind this at all.

"I'm trying to find out what kind of person I am. Sometimes, I feel like I'm an extremely evil one, but, at the same time, I can't totally believe that is true," she answered.

"Why don't you just ask me instead of bothering yourself?" he suggested, moving his fingers along her face now.

"But I'm sure that you would say only nice things about me! That's not helpful. Ms Reisz said something strange to me today, just as I was leaving. She said that she hoped my wings were strong enough to keep me flying high above the customs and habits of society, for it is so sad to see little tired and injured birds fall back to the ground."

"But why do you talk about her, when I was just about to tell you about yourself?" asked Arobin.

They looked at each other for a while, both faces glowing in the gold light of the fire. Then Arobin kissed her. Edna kissed him back and even put her hands on his head to keep him there longer.

When he left, Edna became lost in her thoughts. She felt many things all at the same time. She was aware of the disapproval that both her husband and Robert would feel if they had known about the kiss. But even more than that, she felt that she understood what it meant to be alive. And she was a little disappointed, for the kiss she had just experienced had no love in it.

The next day, without having received any permission from her husband, Edna began to pack her things to move. She was very anxious to go. Her husband's home did not seem to want her there. She would take only the things that she had bought with her own money.

Alcee Arobin found her hard at work, gathering her things together. He had prepared himself for the possibility that she might behave strangely toward him. He remained calm when she greeted him a little coldly as she was trying to take down a picture that had been placed high up on the wall.

"Please, Edna. You're frightening me up there. Why don't you let me do that for you?" he suggested.

After several minutes of polite arguing, Edna finally agreed to let Arobin deal with taking down the pictures. He made a joke of wearing a bandanna the way that women do when they clean. Everyone laughed at how funny he looked. When he finished with the pictures, he joined Edna in the living room, where she was helping her servant clean.

"Alright. I'm done. Anything else I can do?" he asked.

"No, that's it. My servant can finish everything else."

"Alright. Well then, tell me. Are you having a dinner to celebrate your moving out?"

"Of course. The dinner's going to be the day after tomorrow. Afterward, I'll officially move into my new home. Ellen," she then said, turning to her servant, "Would you mind getting me a drink? I'm extremely thirsty from all of this hard work."

After the servant left the room, Arobin lowered his voice and said, "But will we see each other before then? Tonight? Tomorrow? It's so difficult for me to wait to be with you for so long!"

"I'm very busy now, Alcee. We won't see each other before the dinner, I'm afraid." However, she said this with a little smile on her face that gave Arobin hope that she might actually find time to be with him earlier than that.

(end of section)