Short Fiction

little, and that little in such a distorted way! He could scarcely have been expected, even in his most lucid moments, to give himself over to self-analysis.

Chicot gathered an uncommon amount of dainties at market the following day. He had to work hard, and scheme and whine a little; but he got hold of an orange and a lump of ice and a chou-fleur. He did not drink his cup of café au lait, but asked Mimi Lambeau to put it in the little new tin pail that the Hebrew notion-vender had just given him in exchange for a mess of shrimps. This time, however, Chicot had his trouble for nothing. When he reached the upper room of la maison grise, it was to find that Mamzelle Aglaé had died during the night. He set his bag down in the middle of the floor, and stood shaking, and whined low like a dog in pain.

Everything had been done. The Irishwoman had gone for the doctor, and Purgatory Mary had summoned a priest. Furthermore, the woman had arranged Mamzelle Aglaé decently. She had covered the table with a white cloth, and had placed it at the head of the bed, with the crucifix and two lighted candles in silver candlesticks upon it; the little bit of ornamentation brightened and embellished the poor room. Purgatory Mary, dressed in shabby black, fat and breathing hard, sat reading half audibly from a prayerbook. She was watching the dead and the silver candlesticks, which she had borrowed from a benevolent society, and for which she held herself responsible. A young man was just leaving⁠—a reporter snuffing the air for items, who had scented one up there in the top room of la maison grise.

All the morning Janie had been escorting a procession of street Arabs up and down the stairs to view the remains. One of them⁠—a little girl, who had had her face washed and had made a species of toilet for the occasion⁠—refused to be dragged away. She stayed seated as if at an entertainment, fascinated alternately by the long, still figure of Mamzelle Aglaé, the mumbling lips of Purgatory Mary, and the silver candlesticks.

“Will ye get down on yer knees, man, and say a prayer for the dead!” commanded the woman.

But Chicot only shook his head, and refused to obey. He approached the bed, and laid a little black paw for a moment on the stiffened body of Mamzelle Aglaé. There was nothing for him to do here. He picked up his old ragged hat and his bag and went away.

“The black h’athen!” the woman muttered. “Shut the dure, child.”

The little girl slid down from her chair, and went on tiptoe to shut the door which Chicot had left open. Having resumed her seat, she fastened her eyes upon Purgatory Mary’s heaving chest.

“You, Chicot!” cried Matteo’s wife the next morning. “My man, he read in paper ’bout woman name’ Boisduré, use’ b’long to big-a famny. She die roun’ on St. Philip⁠—po’, same-a like church rat. It’s any them Boisdurés you alla talk ’bout?”

Chicot shook his head in slow but emphatic denial. No, indeed, the woman was not of kin to his Boisdurés. He surely had told Matteo’s wife often enough⁠—how many times did he have to repeat it!⁠—of their wealth, their social standing. It was doubtless some Boisduré of les Attakapas; it was none of his.

The next day there was a small funeral procession passing a little distance away⁠—a hearse and a carriage or two. There was the priest who had attended Mamzelle Aglaé, and a benevolent Creole gentleman whose father had known the Boisdurés in his youth. There was a couple of player-folk, who, having got wind of the story, had thrust their hands into their pockets.

“Look, Chicot!” cried Matteo’s wife. “Yonda go the fune’al. Mus-a be that-a Boisduré woman we talken ’bout yesaday.”

But Chicot paid no heed. What was to him the funeral of a woman who had died in St. Philip street? He did not even turn his head in the direction of the moving procession. He went on scaling his red-snapper.

Endnotes

1. Pronounced Nack-e-tosh ↩

2. A term still applied in Louisiana to mulattoes who were never in slavery, and whose families in most instances were themselves slave owners. ↩

Colophon

Short Fiction
was compiled from short stories written between 1890 and 1897 by
Kate Chopin.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Robin Whittleton,
and is based on a transcriptions produced between 2006 and 2014 by
Judith Boss, David Widger, and Marc D’Hooghe
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive (Bayou Folk, and A Night in Acadie)
and the
HathiTrust Digital Library (With the Violin, The Maid of Saint Phillippe, The Dream of an Hour, and A Scrap and a Sketch).

The cover page is adapted from
Lovers,
a painting completed in 1916 by
Henri Martin.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
June 5, 2019, 10:06 p.m.
You can check for updates to this ebook, view its revision history, or download it for different ereading systems at
standardebooks.org/ebooks/kate-chopin/short-fiction.

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