Chapter 4 — Edna is not a mother-woman

Léonce, Chopin tells us, would have found it difficult to explain to anyone's satisfaction exactly how his wife fell short in her duty toward their children. It is something he feels rather than perceives. If one of the boys takes a tumble while playing, he is unlikely to run crying to his mother — he picks himself up, wipes his eyes, and carries on. "In short, Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman." Chopin names the type with deliberation: women who "seemed to prevail that summer at Grand Isle. You could spot them easily, hovering with outstretched protective wings whenever any threat — real or imagined — approached their precious young."

Adèle Ratignolle is the embodiment. The novel's first sustained physical description belongs to her: spun-gold hair "that no comb or pin could contain," sapphire eyes, lips so deeply red "you could only think of cherries or some other luscious crimson fruit." Growing a little fuller, but it does not diminish the grace of her every gesture. Hands more exquisite than Mrs. Pontellier has seen on anyone. She is married seven years; she has a baby every two; she has three children at the time and is beginning to think about a fourth, and she is always mentioning her "condition." She visits Edna with her sewing the afternoon the box of friandises from New Orleans arrives.

Chopin uses the visit to introduce a second key feature of the Creole world: its complete absence of prudishness. The freedom of expression among the Creole guests at Lebrun's was at first incomprehensible to Edna, though she had no difficulty reconciling it with their "profound chastity." Adèle tells old Monsieur Farival, sparing no detail, the harrowing story of one of her accouchements. Robert tells ribald stories to amused married women. A book has circulated through the pension that Edna reads in secret and astonishment, while the others discuss it openly at table. She is growing used to such shocks. She still cannot quite keep the color from rising in her cheeks.