Kate Chopin

“ That night, for the first time, Madame did not want to hear Manna-Loulou’s stories, and she blew out the wax candle that till now had burned brightly in her sleeping-room, under its tall, crystal globe. She had suddenly become a woman capable of love or sacrifice. She would not hear Manna-Loulou’s stories. She wanted to be alone, to tremble and to weep.
In the morning her eyes were dry, but she would not see Sépincourt when he came. Then he wrote her a letter. ”

“ Ah! I have memories, memories to crowd and fill my life, if I live a hundred years!”
Sépincourt was wondering why she did not take the sword down from her altar and thrust it through his body here and there. The effect would have been infinitely more agreeable than her words, penetrating his soul like fire. He arose confused, enraged with pain. ”

“ Many days after that Sépincourt spent in the fruitless mental effort of trying to comprehend that psychological enigma, a woman’s heart.
Madame still lives on Bayou St. John. She is rather an old lady now, a very pretty old lady, against whose long years of widowhood there has never been a breath of reproach. The memory of Gustave still fills and satisfies her days. She has never failed, once a year, to have a solemn high mess said for the repose of his soul. ”