CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Victor was repairing one of the boards of the Grand Isle cottages, while Mariequita sat watching nearby. He was enjoying making her jealous by describing the dinner he had attended at Mrs Pontellier's home. He exaggerated a great deal and made the poor girl think that he was in love with Edna.

They were still discussing this, when Mrs Pontellier suddenly appeared from around the corner. She explained that she had come to the island alone by boat just to relax for a while. Both Victor and Mariequita were very surprised to see her.

"Are you going to have dinner sometime soon?" Edna asked, "I really could use something to eat. I think I'll have a swim first, though. Can I have dinner after I get back?"

"Yes, but the water is too chilly now! No one swims this time of year," Victor answered.

"Well, I'll give it a try, anyway. I'm sure it'll be fine," she said.

Without thinking about anything, Edna walked down to the beach. Her mind was too tired from having thought so much on her sofa the night before. She knew that the only thing she really wanted in the world was to be with Robert. Her husband and Arobin meant nothing to her. Her children, however, were what prevented her from being able to live the life she wanted to live. It seemed to her that she was a prisoner of her two sons. And there seemed only one way to escape them. But she did not think about any of this as she went to the beach.

The beach was empty except for a single injured bird that struggled to fly above her. The sea seemed to be calling to her, inviting her to join it in its loneliness.

She found her old bathing suit still hanging on the wall at the bathing house. She put it on and walked out toward the water. However, when she reached the edge of the ocean, she took her bathing suit off and stood naked on the beach. She felt like a baby that had just been brought into the world.

Walking into the water, she found it to be quite cold, but she continued to move further and further out. She felt the sea slowly wrapping its arms around her. She imagined herself running in the fields of Kentucky again, those fields that seemed to go on forever. The further out in the water she went, the more tired she became.

Thoughts of her family came to her. Her husband and children did not own her any longer. She felt that if Ms Reisz could see her now, she would be very disappointed in her. "You are not a true artist," she would have said, "Artists are much braver than you."

"I can't do this because I love you." Robert would never have been able to know what she felt. Possibly, Doctor Mandelet might have understood, but now it was hopeless. She was too far out in the sea. There was no turning back.

That same feeling of fear she had felt the first night she learned how to swim came back to her for a few seconds and then quickly disappeared. She thought about her father and sister, Margaret. And for one last moment she saw the figure of the handsome officer, who had visited her father when she was little, walk across her family's front porch in Kentucky. And the air was full of the smell of the grassy field.

(end of section)