Comprehension and Discussion. 1. What seemed new to Rip about his native village?
1. What seemed new to Rip about his native village?
2. What did he find when he went to his own house?
3. What had changed about the inn? About the people?
4. When Rip asked about three old friends, what did the people tell him?
5. Who was standing against the tree, and why did people point to him?
6. Why did people begin to think Rip was crazy?
7. Who was Judith Gardinier? What did she tell Rip about his wife?
8. What did people believe about Rip's story?
9. Do you think someone could sleep for twenty years? What's the longest you've ever slept?
10. What would it be like for you if you returned to your home twenty years later, as Rip had? What changes do you think you would find?
Exercises
A. Use each of the following terms in a sentence:
squirrel, to approach, beard, to be mistaken, to be dressed in, trousers, ninepins, weather-beaten, high-heeled shoes,rusty, to bark at, to whistle, to believe one's eyes, to crowd around, at one's heels, as if, thunderstorm.
B. Circle the word on the right that RHYMES with the word on the left.
Example: wrong ping / long / hang / rung
1. great heat / set / hate / height
2. hurried married / feared / cared / worried
3. beard feared / bored / cared / bird
4. drowned grown / loaned / ruined / found
5. knows news / sews / knees / lose
6. he'll well / bill / feel / fall
7. war roar / ware / car / hire
8. thought though / rough / cough / bought
9. noise nose / boys / choice / nice
10. sin rein / keen / bin / mine
C. Make questions from the following sentences. Use a question word to replace the italicized word or phrase.
Example: He went into the forest many weeks ago.
When did he go into the forest?
1. He went into the forest on foot.
2. They were having a celebration at the village inn.
3. He heard the sound of distant thunder.
4. Their little village was in the mountains.
5. He saw his wife.
6. Many strangers stayed at the hotel.
7. He liked to walk around the house at night.
8. He is going to travel by ship.
9. He saw a flash of lightning.
10. An old man approached the people in front of the hotel.
D. Match the term in the left column with its OPPOSITE in the right column.
Example: 6. empty e. full
____ 1. in front of a. after
____ 2. thin b. answer
____ 3. quiet c. behind
____ 4. find d. few
____ 5. before e. lull
____ 6. empty f. lose
____ 7. question g. noisy
____ 8. deep h. seldom
____ 9. several i. shallow
____ 10. often j. thick
Unit 9: Two Short Stories by Kate Chopin
Kate Chopin (1851-1904) began writing on the advice of her doctor, who was worried that she was too depressed over the death of her husband. Her feminist themes outraged some readers but brought her critical acclaim.
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Little Mrs. Sommers one day found herself unexpectedly in possession of an extra fifteen dollars. This was an unusually large amount for her, and she felt important as she touched the bulge in her worn old wallet. She had not felt this way in years.
She walked around in a daze, wondering how she should invest this sum. She didn't want to do anything which she would later regret. Indeed, she lay awake for several hours, tossing in her bed, speculating on a proper use for her money.
A dollar or two should be added to the price she usually paid for Janie's shoes so that they would last longer than the cheaper kind. She should also buy some cotton material in order to make new shirts for the boys and for Janie and Mag. She was going to patch their old shirts and make them do, but now, perhaps . . .
Mag should have another nightgown. She had seen some wonderful patterns in a shop window—a real bargain. The girls also needed some new stockings—that would save her some darning for a while. The boys needed new caps. Oh, the vision of her children looking fresh and dainty for once in their lives excited her and kept her awake with anticipation.
The neighbors often spoke of better times for the little woman, times which she had known before she became Mrs. Sommers. She, however, never indulged in that kind of thinking; she had no time to devote to the past. Her vision of the future often seemed like some dim, gaunt monster, and it scared her, but somehow tomorrow never came.
Mrs. Sommers was a person who knew the value of a good bargain, and she knew how to find one. She would stand for hours making her way inch by inch toward some desired object that was selling below cost. She could elbow her way if need be; she had learned to clutch a piece of merchandise and hold it and stick to it with persistence and determination till her turn came to be served, no matter when it came.
But that day she was a little faint and tired. She had swallowed a light lunch—no! When she came to think of it, between getting the children fed and the place righted and preparing herself for the shopping bout, she had actually forgotten to eat any lunch at all!
She sat herself upon a revolving stool before a counter that was comparatively deserted, trying to gather strength and courage to do battle with all the other shoppers who were pushing and shoving to get to the same items she wanted. All of a sudden, she felt weak and limp as she rested her hand aimlessly on the counter. She wore no gloves. Slowly, by degrees, she became aware of what her hand was resting on. It was very soothing and pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay on a pile of silk stocking. A sign nearby announced that they had been reduced from $2.50 to $1.98. A young girl behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine their entire selection of silk hosiery. She smiled as though she had just been asked if she wanted to examine a diamond tiara with the intention of buying it. How absurd! But she continued to feel the soft, sheeny, luxurious things—with both hands now, holding them up to see them glisten and to let them glide like small snakes through her fingers.
She blushed as she looked up at the salesperson and asked if they had any in her size, 8½.
In fact, there were more of that size than any other. She looked over the selection of colors carefully, finally holding up a black pair and pretending to examine the texture. The clerk assured her that they were of excellent quality.
Her next few moments happened as though she were dreaming, not in control of her movements or directions. She purchased the black stockings and went immediately to the ladies' room to put them on. She was not thinking at all. She seemed, for a while, to have taken a rest from that tiring activity and to have abandoned herself to some mechanical function which freed her from responsibility.
The stockings felt so good on her flesh! She rose and went directly to the shoe department where she informed the clerk that she wanted a perfect fit and did not mind paying extra as long as she found some good-quality boots.
It was a long time since Mrs. Sommers had been fitted with gloves. On the rare occasions when she had bought a pair, they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been preposterous and unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to the hand.
Now she rested her elbow on the cushion of the glove counter, and a pretty, pleasant young creature, delicate and deft of touch, drew a long-wristed "kid" over Mrs. Sommers' hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly, and both lost themselves for a second or two in admiring contemplation of the little symmetrical gloved hand. But there were other places where money might be spent.
There were books and magazines piled up in the window of a stall a few paces down the street. Mrs. Sommers bought two high-priced magazines such as she had been accustomed to reading in the days when she had been accustomed to other pleasant things. She carried them without wrappings. As well as she could, she lifted her skirts at the crossings. Her stockings and boots and well-fitted gloves had worked marvels in her bearing —had given her a feeling of assurance, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed multitude.
She was very hungry. Another time she would have stilled the cravings for food until reaching her own home, where she would have brewed herself a cup of tea and taken a snack of anything that was available. But the impulses that were guiding her would not allow that today. Today she would go where there was spotless china and shining crystal, where there were soft-stepping waiters and people of fashion.
She went to a restaurant which she often passed but never entered. At first she feared that her entrance would cause a stir. It didn't. She seated herself at a small table alone and was immediately attended by a waiter. She chose a light lunch—nothing which would draw undue attention—and settled back, leisurely removing her gloves and laying them on the table. She slowly paged through her magazine, examined the beautiful plates and glasses, and realized that the restaurant was even more elegant than she had thought from the outside.
She delicately tasted her salad, read her magazine, looked at the fine ladies and gentlemen at the other small tables, sipped her wine, and wiggled her toes in the silk stockings. When the waiter brought the bill, she tipped him generously, and he bowed before her as though she were a princess of royal blood.
She left the restaurant to the pleasing strains of a piano and the soft breezes of the wind outside. Her next temptation came in the form of a marquee.
The play had begun when she entered the theater, and the house seemed to be full. There were, however, a few vacant seats left, and presently she was seated between two women who had gone to the play only because they had nothing better to do. The people around her seemed to be there only to display their gaudy dress or to eat candy. Certainly no one there absorbed the surroundings in quite the same way as Mrs. Sommers. She gathered in the players and the stage in one wide impression and seemed to swallow it all. She laughed and wept and even enjoyed talking to some gaudy women afterwards about the better parts of the play.
When the show ended and everyone filed out of the theater, it was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions, and Mrs. Summers wont to the corner to wait for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes sat across from her and stared. He seemed both interested and delighted by the look in her eyes. But he was also puzzled by what he saw there ... or thought he saw. What was there was a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on with her forever.
Comprehension
1. Why was Mrs. Sommers walking around in a daze?
2. Where did she think she should spend her money?
3. How many children did Mrs. Sommers have? What were the names of the girls?
4. What was Mrs. Sommers' attitude toward her past? Her future?
5. How good a shopper was Mrs. Sommers? How did she find bargains?
6. What did she buy first? How much were they marked down?
7. What did she buy next? How did these things make her feel?
8. What kind of restaurant did she go to?
9. Describe her behavior at the table while eating.
10. Why did Mrs. Sommers long for an endless cable car ride?
Madame Celestin's Divorce
Madame Celestin always wore a neat and snug-fitting robe when she went out in the morning to sweep her small gallery. Lawyer Paxton liked her best in the blue one with pink ribbons at the neck. He thought she looked graceful and beautiful. She was always sweeping her gallery when Lawyer Paxton passed by in the morning on his way to his office at St. Denis Street.
Sometimes he stopped and leaned over the fence to say good morning at his ease; to criticize or admire her rosebushes; or, when he had enough time, to hear what she had to say. Madame Celestin usually had a good deal to say. She would gather up the train of her blue robe in one hand and, balancing the broom gracefully on the other, would go tripping down to where the lawyer leaned, as comfortably as he could, over her picket fence.
Of course she had talked to him of her troubles. Everyone knew of Madame Celestin's troubles.
"Really, madame," he told her once, in his deliberate, calculating lawyer-tone, "it's more than human nature—woman's nature—should be called upon to endure. Here you are, working your fingers off"—she glanced down at two rosy fingertips that showed through the rents of her baggy doeskin gloves—"taking in sewing, giving music lessons, doing God knows what in the way of manual labor to support yourself and those two little ones." Madame Celestin's pretty face beamed with satisfaction at this enumeration of her trials.
"You are right, Judge. Nothing. Not one penny have I seen in these past four months from the man I call my husband. He hasn't sent me a single thing."
"The scoundrel," muttered Lawyer Paxton.
"And what's more," she continued, "people say he's making money down in Alexandria. Plenty of it. When he wants to work, that is."
"You probably haven't seen him for about six months," suggested the lawyer. Madame Celestin nodded in agreement as he continued. "That's it. That's what I've been telling you these past few weeks. He has practically deserted you. He fails to support you. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he has mistreated you."
"Well, you know, Judge," she said with an evasive cough, "a man that drinks—what can you expect? And if you only knew the promises that he's made to me! Ah, if I had a dollar for every one of those promises, I'd be a rich woman and wouldn't have to do all this work!"
"In my opinion, madame, you would be foolish to endure it any longer, especially when you have the alternative of divorce. It's there so that people like you can be helped."
"You spoke about that before, Judge, and now I think you may be right." Madame Celestin talked more about divorce with Lawyer Paxton, and they both got very interested in the possibility.
"You know, about that divorce," Madame Celestin said the next morning, "I've been talking to my family and my friends about it, and they're all against it."
"That's to be expected, madame, in this community of Creoles. I know you'll face opposition; you'll have to be brave and face it."
"Oh, don't worry, I'm going to face it. Grandmother says it would be a disgrace, that no one in our family has ever been divorced. That's easy for her to say. What trouble has she ever had? She also says that I must go consult with Father Ducheron; he's my confessor, you understand. Well, I'll go, Judge, to please Grandmother, but all the confessors in the world aren't going to make me change my mind. I'm not going to put up with that man any longer."
A day or two later, she was waiting for him again. "You know, Judge, about that divorce."
"Yes, yes," responded the lawyer. He was pleased to see determination in her brown eyes and in the curves of her pretty mouth. "I suppose you had to see Father Ducheron and be brave?"
"Oh, he gave me a sermon that I thought would never end. He spoke of scandal and setting a bad example. Finally, he washed his hands of the problem, telling me that he was through with me and that I would have to see the bishop."
"You won't let the bishop talk you out of it, will you?" stammered the lawyer, more nervously than he could understand.
"You don't know me yet, Judge," laughed Madame Celestin with a turn of her head and a wave of her broom as she walked back into the house.
"Well, Madame Celestin! What happened with the bishop?" He was standing there anxiously. She had not seen him, but when she did, she immediately rushed to him. His heart fluttered.
"Yes, I saw him," she began. The lawyer had already decided that she was still determined by the look on her face. "Ah, he's an eloquent man. Probably the most eloquent man in the whole county. I cried when I told him of my troubles, and he was very understanding. I think he feels for me. Then he spoke of the danger of the move I want to make. Of the temptation, too. It would have moved you, Judge. He told me that it was the duty of Catholics to put up with trials and pain and that I would have to lead a life of self-denial. He told me all that."
"But he hasn't shaken your resolve, I see," the lawyer said with a smile.
"That's for sure," she returned emphatically. "That bishop doesn't know what it's like to be married to a man like my husband and to have to endure my sorrow. The Pope himself can't make me put up with that any longer if you say that I have a legal right to end this marriage."
A noticeable change had come over Lawyer Paxton. He discarded his workday coat and began to wear his Sunday one to the office. He grew solicitous as to the shine of his boots, his collar, and the set of his tie. He brushed and trimmed his whiskers with a care that had not before been apparent. Then he fell into a stupid habit of dreaming as he walked the streets of the old town. It would be good to take unto himself a wife, he dreamed. And he could dream of no other than pretty Madame Celestin filling that sweet and sacred office as she filled his thoughts now. Old Natchitoches would not hold them comfortably, perhaps; but the world was surely wide enough to live in, outside of Natchitoches town.
His heart beat in a strangely irregular manner as he neared Madame Celestin's house one morning and discovered her behind the rosebushes, as usual plying her broom. She had finished the gallery and steps and was sweeping the little brick walk along the edge of the violet border.
"Good morning, Madame Celestin."
"Ah, it's you, Judge. Good morning." He waited. She seemed to be doing the same. Then she ventured, with some hesitancy. "You know, Judge, about that divorce. I've been thinking. Maybe you'd better forget about it." She was making deep rings in the palm of her hand with the end of the broom and examining them critically. Her face seemed to be particularly rosy this morning. "Yes, I suppose you'd better just forget all about that divorce talk. You see, Judge, my husband came home last night."
"But what difference does that make?" The lawyer practically shouted the question.
"He's promised me on his word of honor that he's going to turn over a new leaf."