Chapter 27 — the first real kiss

Arobin calls one evening. Edna is reclining on the lounge before the fire. He asks why she is in such a happy mood. Her answer is evasive — the weather is going to clear. He sits close on a low tabouret. His fingers lightly touch the hair that falls a little over her forehead. "I'm going to pull myself together for a while and think — try to determine what character of a woman I am; for, candidly, I don't know. By all the codes which I am acquainted with, I am a devilishly wicked specimen of the sex. But some way I can't convince myself that I am."

She tells him about Mademoiselle Reisz — about the strange queer things the pianist says, about Reisz pressing her hand to her shoulder blades to feel for wings. "The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth." Arobin asks her where she would soar. She is not thinking, she says, of any extraordinary flights; she only half comprehends Reisz. Arobin says he has heard Reisz is partially demented. Edna says: "She seems to me wonderfully sane."

Arobin says he is jealous of her thoughts; they are making her kinder than usual but seem to be wandering. She only looks at him and smiles. His eyes are very near. He leans on the lounge with one arm extended across her, the other still in her hair. They look at each other in silence. He leans forward and kisses her. She clasps his head and holds his lips to hers. The chapter ends in a single short sentence that is the novel's most-quoted account of physical desire: "It was the first kiss of her life to which her nature had really responded. It was a flaming torch that kindled desire."