Кейт Шопен: The Storm

Born to a wealthy Catholic St. Louis family, Kate Chopin (nee O'Flaherty) was treated as harshly by critics and the reading public as any writer in this volume, including even Melville and Poe. After a moderately successful early career, Chopin published a second novel, The Awakening (1899), which was so viciously and universally condemned for its "morbid, poisonous, and vulgar" subject matter that she virtually gave up writing in the few remaining years of her life. Not only did Chopin, a mature artist of forty-eight at this time, have to bear the indignity of such public disapprobation, but she suffered social ostracism by friends and literary acquaintances in St. Louis. And all for having written a slender, carefully composed work of fiction in a Flaubertian vein, about a sensitive and passionate woman's adulterous romance and eventual suicide — a work now recognized as a brilliant tour de force, an American classic.

Despite her relatively short writing career, Kate Chopin completed an early novel, At Fault (1890), over one hundred fifty stories and sketches, and a considerable quantity of poetry, reviews, and criticism. A collection of stories of Louisiana rural life, Bayou Folk (1894) was well received; a second collection, ANight in Acadie (1897), established Chopin's reputation as a local colorist. The story included here, "The Storm," written shortly after The Awakening, could certainly never have been published in any magazine of Chopin's time, and was, apparently, never submitted for publication. It did not see print until 1969, in Per Seyersted's edition of The Complete Works of Kate Chopin.

The leaves were so still that even Bibi thought it was going to rain. Bobinot, who was accustomed to converse on terms of perfect equality with his little son, called the child's attention to certain sombre clouds that were rolling with sinister intention from the west, accompanied by a sullen, threatening roar. They were at Friedheimer's store and decided to remain there till the storm had passed. They sat within the door on two empty kegs. Bibi was four years old and looked very wise.

"Mama'll be fraid, yes," he suggested with blinking eyes.

"She'll shut the house. Maybe she got Sylvie helpin' her this evenin," Bobinot responded reassuringly.

"No; she ent got Sylvie. Sylvie was helpin' her yistiday," piped Bibi.

Bobinot arose and going across to the counter purchased a can of shrimps, of which Calixta was very fond. Then he returned to his perch on the keg and sat stolidly holding the can of shrimps while the storm burst. It shook the wooden store and seemed to be ripping great furrows in the distant field. Bibi laid his little hand on his father's knee and was not afraid.

Calixta, at home, felt no uneasiness for their safety. She sat at a side window sewing furiously on a sewing machine. She was greatly occupied and did not notice the approaching storm. But she felt very warm and often stopped to mop her face on which the perspiration gathered in beads. She unfastened her white sacque at the throat. It began to grow dark, and suddenly realizing the situation she got up hurriedly and went about closing windows and doors.

Out on the small front gallery she had hung Bobinot's Sunday clothes to air and she hastened out to gather them before the rain

fell. As she stepped outside, Alcee Laballiere rode in at the gate. She had not seen him very often since her marriage, and never alone. She stood there with Bobinot's coat in her hands, and the big rain drops began to fall. Alcee rode his horse under the shelter of a side projection where the chickens had huddled and there were plows and a harrow piled up in the corner.

"May I come and wait on your gallery till the storm is over, Calixta?" he asked.

"Come long in, M'sieur Alcee."

His voice and her own startled her as if from a trance, and she seized Bobinot's vest. Alcee, mounting to the porch, grabbed the trousers and snatched Bibi's braided jacket that was about to be carried away by a sudden gust of wind. He expressed an intention to remain outside, but it was soon apparent that he might as well have been out in the open: the water beat in upon the boards in driving sheets, and he went inside, closing the door after him. It was even necessary to put something beneath the door to keep the water out.

"My! what a rain! It's good two years sence it rain' like that," exclaimed Calixta as she rolled up a piece of bagging and Alcee helped her to thrust it beneath the crack.

She was a little fuller of figure than five years before when she married; but she had lost nothing of her vivacity. Her blue eyes still retained their melting quality; and her yellow hair, dishevelled by the wind and rain, kinked more stubbornly than ever about her ears and temples.

The rain beat upon the low, shingled roof with a force and clatter that threatened to break an entrance and deluge them there. They were in the dining room — the sitting room — the general utility room. Adjoining was her bed room, with Bibi's couch along side her own. The door stood open, and the room with its white, monumental bed, its closed shutters, looked dim and mysterious.

Alcee flung himself into a rocker and Calixta nervously began to gather up from the floor the lengths of a cotton sheet which she had been sewing.

"If this keeps up, Dieu sait if the levees goin' to stan' it!" she exclaimed.

"What have you got to do with the levees?"

"I got enough to do! An' there's Bobinot with Bibi out in that storm — if he only didn't left Friedheimer's!"

"Let us hope, Calixta, that Bobinot's got sense enough to come in out of a cyclone."

She went and stood at the window with a greatly disturbed look on her face. She wiped the frame that was clouded with moisture. It was stiflingly hot. Alcee got up and joined her at the window, looking over her shoulder. The rain was coming down in sheets obscuring the view of far-off cabins and enveloping the distant wood in a gray mist. The playing of the lightning was incessant. A bolt struck a tall chinaberry tree at the edge of the field. It filled all visible space with a blinding glare and the crash seemed to invade the very boards they stood upon.

Calixta put her hands to her eyes, and with a cry, staggered backward. Alcee's arm encircled her, and for an instant he drew her close and spasmodically to him.

"Bonte!" she cried, releasing herself from his encircling arm and retreating from the window, "the house'll go next! If I only knew w'ere Bibi was!" She would not compose herself; she would not be seated. Alcee clasped her shoulders and looked into her face. The contact of her warm, palpitating body when he had unthinkingly drawn her into his arms, had aroused all the old-time infatuation and desire for her flesh.

"Calixta," he said, "don't be frightened. Nothing can happen. The house is too low to be struck, with so many tall trees standing about. There! aren't you going to be quiet? say, aren't you?" He pushed her hair back from her face that was warm and steaming. Her lips were as red and moist as pomegranate seed. Her white neck and a glimpse of her full, firm bosom disturbed him powerfully. As she glanced up at him the fear in her liquid blue eyes had given place to a drowsy gleam that unconsciously betrayed a sensuous desire. He looked down into her eyes and there was nothing for him to do but to gather her lips in a kiss. It reminded him of Assumption.

"Do you remember — in Assumption, Calixta?" he asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! she remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail. Now—