Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break
\nto her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.<\/p>\n
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in
\nhalf concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been
\nin the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently
\nMallard’s name leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its
\ntruth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in
\nbearing the sad message.<\/p>\n
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to
\naccept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms.
\nWhen the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no
\none follow her.<\/p>\n
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank,
\npressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.<\/p>\n
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with
\nthe new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was
\ncrying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly,
\nand countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.<\/p>\n
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and
\npiled one above the other in the west facing her window.<\/p>\n
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except
\nwhen a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep
\ncontinues to sob in its dreams.<\/p>\n
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
\nstrength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on
\none of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a
\nsuspension of intelligent thought.<\/p>\n
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She
\ndid not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
\nreaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.<\/p>\n
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that
\nwas approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will\u2014as powerless
\nas her two white slender hands would have been.<\/p>\n
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She
\nsaid it over and over under her breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of terror
\nthat had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and
\nthe coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.<\/p>\n
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and
\nexalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.<\/p>\n
She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death;
\nthe face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw
\nbeyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her
\nabsolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.<\/p>\n
There would be no one to live for her during those coming years; she would live for herself.
\nThere would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and
\nwomen believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind
\nintention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief
\nmoment of illumination.<\/p>\n
And yet she had loved him\u2014sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could
\nlove, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she
\nsuddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!<\/p>\n
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.<\/p>\n
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, imploring for
\nadmission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door\u2014you will make yourself ill. What are
\nyou doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”<\/p>\n
“Go away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through
\nthat open window.<\/p>\n
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days,
\nand all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long.
\nIt was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.<\/p>\n
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish
\ntriumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped
\nher sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the
\nbottom.<\/p>\n
Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a
\nlittle travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the
\nscene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s
\npiercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.<\/p>\n
But Richards was too late.<\/p>\n
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease\u2014of joy that kills.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t