Chapter 5 — the porch, the sketch, the sea

It is the same afternoon. Adèle sews her tiny nightdrawers, often pausing to tell a story with expressive hands. Edna and Robert sit idle on the porch, trading occasional words and glances "that indicated a certain settled intimacy and ease." Robert has kept close to Edna for the past month; no one thinks anything of it. Since the age of fifteen — eleven years before — he has each summer at Grand Isle devoted himself to some attractive woman; sometimes a young girl, sometimes a widow, but as often as not a married woman who interested him. This year it is Edna.

Robert teases Adèle about his theatrical hopeless passion for her two summers ago — "of sleepless nights, of consuming flames, until the very sea sizzled when he took his daily swim." Adèle, sewing, dismisses him in French. Edna is glad he has assumed no similar mock-serious tone with her: it would have been "unwelcome and irritating." She had long wanted to try Madame Ratignolle as a subject. Never had that lady seemed a more tempting model than at this moment, "seated there like some sensuous Madonna, the glow of the fading day enriching her vivid coloring." Robert moves to the step below Edna to watch her work and murmurs little exclamations of approval in French.

Lost in watching, "he once quietly rested his head against Mrs. Pontellier's arm. She pushed him away gently. He did it again. She was inclined to think it was thoughtlessness on his part, but that was no reason to tolerate it. She said nothing — simply pushed him away again, quietly but firmly. He didn't apologize." Edna's finished portrait bears no resemblance to Adèle. She drags a broad smear of paint across it and crumples it in her hands. The chapter ends with Robert urging her to swim — "the water must be wonderful; it won't hurt you" — and fetching her big rough straw hat from the peg outside the door. They go down the steps and walk together toward the beach. The sun is low.