The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin Page A

him—sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
    â€œFree! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.
    Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. “Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door—you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”
    â€œGo away. I am not making myself ill.” No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
    Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long.
    She arose at length and opened the door to her sister’s importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister’s waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
    Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine’s piercing cry; at Richards’ quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.
    When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.

About the Author
    Kate Chopin was an American author whose works include two novels and nearly one hundred short stories. Chopin’s close relationships with her female relatives—her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother—provided inspiration for her strong female characters. Although some of her works were controversial at the time of publication, Chopin is now considered to have been ahead of her time and a precursor to the wave of feminist writing in the twentieth century. Chopin’s most notable works include
The Awakening
,
At Fault
, and the short story “Desiree’s Baby,” which explores race relations in antebellum Louisiana. Chopin died in 1904.

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Copyright
    Harper
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    EPub Edition APRIL 2014 ISBN: 9781443435192
    This title is in Canada’s public domain and is not subject to any licence or copyright.

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