WEBVTT

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Her letters Kate Chopin. She had
given orders that she wished to remain undisturbed,

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and moreover had locked the doors of
her room. The house was very

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still. The rain was falling steadily
from a laden sky in which there was

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no gleam, no wrift, no
promise. A generous wood fire had been

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lighted in the ample fireplace, and
it brightened and illumined the luxurious apartment to

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its furthermost corners. From some remote
nook of her writing desk, the woman

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took a thick bundle of letters,
bound tightly together with strong, coarse swine,

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and placed it upon the table in
the center of the room. For

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weeks she had been schooling herself for
what she was about to do. There

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was a strong deliberation in the lines
of her long, thin, sensitive face.

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Her hands, too, were long
and delicate and blue veined. With

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a pair of scissors, she snapped
the cord by the letters together, thus

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released the ones which were topmost slid
down to the table, and she,

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with a quick movement, thrust her
fingers among them, scattering and churning them

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over till they quite covered the broad
surface of the table. Before her were

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envelopes of various sizes and shapes,
all of them addressed in the handwriting of

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one man and one woman. He
had sent her letters all back to her

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one day, when sick with the
dread of possibilities, she had asked to

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have them returned. She had meant
them to destroy them, all his and

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her own. That was four years
ago, and she had been feeding upon

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them ever since. They had sustained
her, she believed and kept her spirit

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from perishing utterly. Now the day
had come when the premonition of danger could

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no longer remain unheeded. She knew
that before many months repast, she would

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have to part from her treasure,
leaving it unguarded. She shrank from inflicting

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the pain the anguish which the discovery
of these letters would bring to others.

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To one above all, who was
near to her, and whose tenderness and

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years of devotion had made him,
in a manner dear to her, she

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calmly selected a letter at random from
the piled and cast it into the roaring

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fire. A second one followed,
almost as calmly. With the third,

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her hand began to tremble, when, in a sudden paroxysm, she cast

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a fourth, A fifth and a
sixth into the flames in breathless succession.

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Then she stopped and began to pant, for she was far from strong,

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and she stayed staring into the fire
with pained and savage eyes. Oh what

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had she done? What had she
not done? With feverish apprehension, she

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began to search among the letters before
her. Which of them had she so

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ruthlessly, so so cruelly put out
of her existence? Heaven to grant not

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the first, that very first one, written before they had learned or dared

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to say to each other, I
love you. No, No, there

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it was safe enough. She laughed
with pleasure and held it to her lips.

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What if that other, most precious
and most imprudent one was missing,

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in which every word of untempered passion
had long ago eaten its way into her

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brain, and which stirred her still
today as it had done a hundred times

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before. When she thought of it, she crushed it between her palms.

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When she found it, she kissed
it again and again. With her sharp

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white teeth, she tore the far
corner from the letter where the name was

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written. She bit the torn scrap
and tasted it between her lips, and

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upon her tongue like some god given
morsel. What unbounded thankfulness she felt it

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not having destroyed them all. How
desolate and empty would have been her remaining

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days without them, with only her
thoughts, elusive thoughts that she could not

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hold in her hands and press as
she did these to her cheeks and her

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heart. This man had changed the
water in her veins to wine, whose

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taste had brought delirium to both of
them. It was all one and past

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now, save for these letters that
she held encircled in her arms. She

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stayed breathing softly and contentedly, and
with the hectic cheek resting upon them,

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she was thinking, think, you
have a way to keep them without possible

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ultimate injury to that other one,
whom they would stab more cruelly than keen

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nie blades. At last she felt
the way. It was a way that

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frightened and bewildered her to think of
at first, but she had reached it

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by deduction, too sure to admit
of doubt. She meant, of course,

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to destroy them herself before the inn
came. But how does the end?

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And when? Who can tell?
She would guard again the possibility of

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accident by leaving them in charge of
the very one who, above all should

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be spared a knowledge of their contempts. She roused herself from the stupor of

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thought and gathered the scattered letters once
more together, binding them again with a

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tough twine. She wrapped the compact
bulana tight sheet of white, polished paper.

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Then she wrote an ink upon the
back of it, in the large,

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firm characters, I leave this package
to the care of my husband,

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with perfect faith in his loyalty and
his love. I asked him to destroy

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it unopened. It was not sealed. Only a bit of string held the

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wrapper, which she could remove and
replace it will whenever the humor came to

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her, to pass an hour in
some intoxicating dream of the days when she

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felt she had lived. If he
had come upon that bundle of letters in

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the first flush of his poignant sorrow, there would not have been an instant's

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hesitancy to destroy it promptly and without
question. Would have seemed a welcome expression

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of devotion, a way of reaching
her, of crying out his love to

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her while the world was still filled
with the illusion of her presence. But

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months had passed since that spring day
when they had found her stretched upon the

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floor, clutching the key of her
writing desk, which she appeared to have

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been attempting to reach when death overtook
her. Day was much like that day

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a year ago, when the leaves
were falling in the rain, pouring steadily

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from the leaden sky, which held
no glean no promise. He had happened

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accidentally upon the package in that remote
nook of her desk, just as she

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herself had done a year ago.
He carried it to the table and laid

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it down there, staring with puzzled
eyes at the message which confronted him.

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I leave this package to the care
of my husband, with perfect faith in

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his loyalty and his love. I
asked him to destroy it unopened. She

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had made no mistake. Every line
of his face, no longer young,

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spoke loyalty and honesty, and his
eyes were as faithful as the dog's and

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his loving. He was a tall, powerful man, standing there in the

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firelight, with shoulders that stooped a
little, and hair that was growing somewhat

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thin and gray, and a face
that was distinguished and must have been handsome

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when he smiled. But he was
slow destroy it unopened. He re read

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half aloud, But why unopened?
He took the package again in his hands,

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and turning it about and feeling it, discovered that it was composed of

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many letters, tightly packed together.
So here were her letters, which was

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asked she was asking him to destroy
and open. She had never seemed in

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her lifetime to have had a secret
from him. He knew her to have

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been cold and fashionless, but true
and watchful of his comfort in his happiness.

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Might he not be holding in his
hands the secret of some other one

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which had been confided to her,
and which she had promised to guard.

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But no, she would have indicated
the fact by some additional line or word.

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The secret was her own, something
contained in these letters, and she

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wanted it to die with her.
If he could have thought of her as

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on some distant, shadowy shore,
waiting for him throughout the years, with

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outstretched hands, to come and join
her again, he would not have hesitated

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with hopeful confidence. He would have
thought, in that blessed meeting time,

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soul soul, she would tell me
all till then I can weight and trust.

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But he could not think of her
in any far off paradise awaiting him.

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He felt that there was no smallest
part of her anywhere in the universe,

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more than there had been before she
was born into the world. But

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she had embodied herself with terrible significance
and an intangible wish, uttered when life

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still coursed through her veins, knowing
that would reach him when the annihilation of

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death was between them, but uttered
with all confidence in its power and potency.

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He was moved by the splendid daring, the magnificence of the act,

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which at the same time exalted him
and lifted him above the head of common

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mortals. What secret, save one
could a woman choose to have die with

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her? As quickly as the suggestion
came to his mind, so swiftly did

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the man instinctive possession creep into his
blood. His fingers cramped about the package

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in his hands, and he sank
into a chair beside the table. The

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agonizing suspicion that perhaps another handshaired with
him, her thoughts, her affection,

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her life, deprived him. For
a swift instant of honor and reason.

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He thrust the end of his strong
thumb beneath the string, which with a

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single turn would have yielded with perfect
faith in your loyalty and your love.

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It was not. The written characters
addressing themselves to the eye was like a

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voice speaking to his soul. With
a tremor of anguished he bowed his head

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down upon the letters. He had
once seen a clairvoyt hold a letter to

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his forehead and purport in doing so
to discover its contents. He wondered for

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a while moment if such a gift
for force of wishing might come to him,

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But he was only conscious of the
smooth surface of the paper, cold

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against his brow, like a touch
of a dead woman's hand. A half

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hour passed before he lifted his head. An unspeakable conflict had raged within him,

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but his loyalty in his love had
conquered. His face was pale and

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deep, blind with suffering, but
there was no more hesitancy to be seen

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there. He did not, for
a moment think of casting the thick package

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into the flames, to be licked
by the fiery tongue and charred and half

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revealed to his eyes that was not
what she meant. He arose, and,

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taking a heavy bronze paper away from
the table, bound it securely to

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the package. He walked to the
window, looked out into the street below,

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darkness had come, and it was
still raining. He could hear the

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rain dashing against the window panes,
and could see it falling through the dull,

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yellow rim of light cast by the
lightest street lamp. He prepared himself

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to go out, and, when
quite ready to leave the house, thrust

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the weighted package into the deep pocket
of his topcoat. He did not hurry

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along the street, as most people
were doing at that hour, but walked

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with long, slow, deliberate steps, not seeming to mind the penetrating chill

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and rain driving into his face despite
the shelter of his umbrella. His dwelling

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was not far removed from the business
section of the city, and it was

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not a great whab before he found
himself at the entrance of the bridge that

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spanned the river, the deep,
broad, swift, black river dividing two

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states. He walked on and out
to the very center of the structure.

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The wind was blowing fiercely and keenly. The darkness where he stood was impenetrable.

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The cells and of lights in the
city he had left seemed like all

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the stars of heavens massed together,
sinking into some distant, mysterious horizon,

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leaving him along in a black,
boundless universe. He drew the package from

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his pocket, and, leaning as
far as he could over the broad stonn

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rail of the bridge, cast it
from him into the river. It fell

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straight and swiftly from his hand.
He could not follow its descent from the

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darkness, nor hear its dip into
the water far below, and vanished silently,

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seemingly into some inky, unfathomable space. He felt as if he were

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flinging it back to her in that
unknown world whither she had gone. An

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hour or two later, he sat
at his table in the company of several

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men whom he had invited that day
to dine with him. A secret had

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settled upon his spirit, a conviction
assertatude that there could be but one secret

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which a woman would choose to have
died with her. This one thought was

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possessing him and occupied his brain,
keeping it nimble and alert with suspicion.

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It clutched his heart, making every
breath of existence a fresh moment of pain.

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The men about him were no longer
the friends of yesterday. In each

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one he discerned a possible enemy.
He tended absently to their talk. He

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was remembering how she had conducted herself
toward this one and that one, striving

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to recall conversation, subtleties of facial
expressions that might admit what he did not

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suspect at the moment, shades of
meeting in words that seemed ordinary. In

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a change of social amenities, he
led the conversation to the subject of women,

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probing those men for their opinions and
experiences there was not one, but

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claimed some infallible power to command the
affections of any woman whom his fancy might

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select. He had heard the empty
bows before from the same group, and

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had always met it with good humored
contempt. But to night every flagrant,

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inane utterance was charged with a new
meaning, revealing possibilities that he had hitherto

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never taken into account. He was
glad when they were gone. He was

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eager to be alone, not from
any desire or intention to sleep. He

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was impatient. Who had gained her
room that ruin which she had lived a

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large portion of her life, and
where he had found these letters? There

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must surely be some of them somewhere, he thought, some forgotten scrap,

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some written thought or expression, lying
unguarded by an invisible command. At the

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hour when he usually retired for the
night. He set himself down before her

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writing desk and began the search of
drawers, slides, pigeon holes, nooks

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and corners. He did not leave
a scrap of anything unread. Many of

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the letters which he found were old, some he had read before, others

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were new to him. But in
none did he find the faintest evidence that

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his wife had not been the true
and loyal woman he had always believed her

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to be. The night was nearly
spent before the fruit of search ended.

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The brief, troubled sleep which he
slashed before his hour for rising, was

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freighted with feverish, grotesque dreams,
though all of which he could hear and

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could see dimly, the dark river
rushing by, carrying away his heart,

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his ambitions, his life. But
it was not alone in letters that women

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betrayed their emotions. He thought often
he had known them, especially when in

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love, to mark fugitive sentimental passages
and books of verse or prose, thus

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expressing and revealing their own hidden thought. Might she not have done this?

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Then began a second and far more
exhausting and arduous quest than the first,

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Turning page by page the volumes that
crowded her room, books of fiction,

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poetry, philosophy. She had read
them all. But nowhere, by the

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shadow of a sign, could he
find that the author had echoed the secrets

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of her existence, the secret which
he had held in his hands and had

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cast into the river. He began
cautiously and gradually to question this one and

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that one, striving to learn by
indirect ways which each had thought of her.

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For the most he learned she had
been unsympathetic because of her coldness of

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manner. One had admired her intellect, another her accomplishments. A third had

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thought her beautiful before disease claimed her, regretting, however, that her beauty

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had liked a warmth of color and
expression. She was praised by some for

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gentleness and kindness, and by others
for cleverness and tact. Oh, it

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was useless to try to discover anything
from men, he might have known.

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It was women who would talk of
what they knew. They did talk unreservedly.

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Most of them had loved her.
Those who had not had held her

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in respect and esteem. And yet, and yet there is but one secret

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which a woman would choose to have
die with her. Was the thought which

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continued to haunt him and deprive him
of rest, days and nights of uncertainty,

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being slowly to unnerve him and torture
him. An assurance of the worst

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that he dreaded would have offered him
peace to most welcome, even at the

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price of happiness. It seemed no
longer of any moment to him that men

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should come and go and fall,
or rise in the world, and wed

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and die. He did not signify
if money came to him by a turn

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of chance or eluded him. Empty
and meaningly seemed to him all devices which

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the world offers for men's entertainment,
the food and the drinks that before him

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had lost their flavor. He did
not longer know or care if the sun

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shone or the clouds lowered him.
A cruel hazard had struck him there where

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he was weakest, shattering his whole
being, leaving him with but one wish

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in his soul, one gnawing desire
to know the mystery which he had held

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in his hands and cast into the
river. One night, when there was

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no star shining, he wandered restlessly
upon the streets. He no longer sought

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to know from men or women wi
they dared not or could not tell him.

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Only the river knew. He went
and stood again upon the bridge,

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where he had stood many an hour
since that night, when the darkness then

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had closed around him and engulfed his
manhood. Only the river knew. It

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babbled, and he listened to it
and told him nothing, But it promised

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all. He could hear it,
promising him with caressing voice, peace,

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in sweet repose. He could hear
the sweep, the song of the water,

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inviting him a moment more. And
he had gone to seek her,

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and to join her and her secret
thought, and the immeasurable rest