Chapter 38 — the walk home with Mandelet; Robert's note

Edna feels dazed in the open air. Doctor Mandelet sends his coupé ahead and walks her home. The night is mild and starlit. They walk slowly — the doctor with his measured tread and hands behind him, Edna in the absent-minded way, "as if her thoughts had gone ahead of her and she was striving to overtake them." Mandelet says: "You shouldn't have been there, Mrs. Pontellier. That was no place for you. Adèle is full of whims at such times. I felt that it was cruel, cruel."

Edna replies, indifferently: "One has to think of the children some time or other; the sooner the better." Mandelet, intuitive, names the trap: "Youth is given up to illusions. It seems to be a provision of Nature; a decoy to secure mothers for the race. And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost." She agrees: "Perhaps it is better to wake up after all, even to suffer, rather than to remain a dupe to illusions." At her gate he offers his confidence: "If ever you feel moved to give it to me, perhaps I might help you. There are not many who would — not many, my dear." She thanks him and does not give it.

She sits on the porch a long while before going in, letting the night air carry off the emotion of the childbirth. She thinks of Robert waiting inside. "She could picture at that moment no greater bliss on earth than possession of the beloved one." Perhaps he is asleep; she would awaken him with a kiss. She remembers Adèle's whisper — "Think of the children" — and pushes it back; tomorrow will be time. She lets herself in. The parlor is empty. Robert is gone. On the table, in the lamplight, a piece of paper: "I love you. Good-by — because I love you." Edna grows faint. She lies on the sofa. The lamp sputters out. She does not sleep. She does not go to bed. She is still awake in the morning when Celestine comes in to light the fire.