Desirée’s Baby

by Kate Chopin

As the day was warm, Madame Valmonde drove over to see Désirée and the baby.

It made her laugh to think of Désirée with a baby. It seemed only yesterday that she was little more than a baby herself; yesterday, when her husband, riding through the gate of his house, had found her lying asleep in the shade.

The little one woke up in his arms and began to cry for "Dada." That was as much as she could do or say. Some people thought she might have arrived there by accident because she was a toddler. What most people believed though was that she had been left on purpose by a group of Texans, who had used the ferry, just below the plantation, late in the day. After a time, Madame Valmonde stopped wondering and decided that Désirée had been sent to her by a loving God to be the child she wanted to love because she had none of her own. The girl grew up to be beautiful and gentle, affectionate and sincere – her husband's idol.

It was no surprise when she stood one day against the wall where she had fallen asleep eighteen years before that Armand Aubigny, riding by and seeing her there, had fallen in love with her. That was the way all the Aubignys fell in love, as if hit by a pistol shot. It was surprising that he had not loved her before, because he had known her since his father brought him home from Paris, a boy of eight, after his mother died there. The passion that woke in him that day, when he saw her at the gate, moved like an avalanche that drives all obstacles out of its path.

Mr. Valmonde grew practical and wanted things to be well considered: that is, the girl's obscure birth. Armand looked into her eyes and did not care. Her adoptive father reminded the young man that she was nameless. But why was a name important when he could give her one of the oldest and proudest in Louisiana? He ordered wedding presents from Paris and tried to be patient until they arrived. Then they were married.

Madame Valmonde had not seen Désirée and the baby for four weeks. When she reached Armand's home, she shuddered when she saw it, as she always did. It was a sad looking place, which for many years had not known the gentle hand of a woman. Old Mr. Aubigny married and buried his wife in France. She had loved her own land too much to leave it. Big, oak trees grew close to the house and their thick-leaved, far-reaching branches shadowed it, letting little light enter. Young Aubigny was a strict master too and his Negro slaves had forgotten how to be happy, as they had been during the old master's easy-going lifetime.

The young mother was recovering slowly from the birth and lay on a sofa. The baby was beside her on her arm, where he had fallen asleep at her breast.

Madame Valmonde bent her heavy figure over Désirée and kissed her, holding her tenderly for a moment in her arms. Then she turned to the child.

"This is not the baby!" she cried, in a startled voice.

"I knew you'd be astonished," laughed Désirée, "at the way he has grown. Look at his legs, mamma, and his hands and fingernails – real fingernails. We had to cut them this morning."

"And the way he cries," went on Désirée, "is deafening. Armand heard him the other day as far away as The White Woman's hut."

Madame Valmonde had never removed her eyes from the child. She lifted it and walked with it over to the window that was lightest. She examined the baby closely.

"Yes, the child has grown, has changed," said Madame Valmonde, slowly, as she replaced it beside its mother.

"What does Armand say?"

Désirée's face lit up with happiness.

"Oh, Armand is the proudest father in the town, I believe, chiefly because it is a boy, to continue his name, although he says not – he says he would have loved a girl just as well. But I know it isn't true. I know he says that to please me. And mamma," she added, pulling Madame Valmonde's head down to her, and speaking in a whisper, "he hasn't punished one of them – not one of them – since baby was born. Even Negrillon, who pretended to have burnt his leg so that he might rest from work – he only laughed, and said Negrillon was a devil. Oh, mamma, I'm so happy that it frightens me."

What Désirée said was true. Marriage, and later the birth of his son had softened Armand Aubigny's exacting nature greatly. This was what made the gentle Désirée so happy because she loved him very much. When he frowned she trembled, but she still loved him. When he smiled, she asked for nothing more. But Armand's dark, handsome face had not often been disfigured by frowns since the day he fell in love with her.

When the baby was about three months old, Désirée woke up one day with the idea that there was something menacing in the air. It was at first too subtle to understand. It had only been a worrying suggestion; a sense of mystery among the blacks; unexpected visits from far-off neighbours who could not explain why they had come. Then a strange, an awful change in her husband's behaviour, which she could not ask him to explain. When he spoke to her, it was with averted eyes, from which the love-light had gone out. He was often away from home, and when he was there, he avoided her and her child, without offering any excuse. And the Devil seemed suddenly to control him when he managed the slaves. Désirée was miserable enough to die.

She sat in her room, one hot afternoon, absent-mindedly playing with her long brown hair that hung about her shoulders. The baby, half naked, lay asleep on her own great bed. One of The White Woman's little mixed-race boys – half naked too – stood fanning the child slowly with peacock feathers. Désirée's eyes had been fixed sadly on the baby, while she was trying to understand the threats that she felt all around her. She looked from her child to the boy who stood beside him, and back again. "Ah!" It was a cry she couldn't help, which she was not conscious of making. Her blood turned to ice.

She tried to speak to the little mixed-race boy, but no sound would come out at first. When he heard his name, he looked up and his mistress was pointing to the door. He put down the great, soft fan and crept away.

She stayed motionless, her gaze on her child, and her face the picture of fright.

Soon afterwards, her husband entered the room and, without noticing her, went to a table and began to search among some papers.

"Armand," she called to him, in a voice which must have stabbed him, if he was human. But he did not notice.

"Armand," she said again. Then she got up and moved towards him. "Armand," she said once more, pulling his arm, "Look at our child. What does it mean? Tell me."

He coldly but gently loosened her fingers from about his arm and pushed the hand away from him. "Tell me what it means!" she cried.

"It means," he answered lightly, "that the child is not white; it means that you are not white."

Quickly understanding all that this meant for her gave her the courage to deny it. "It's a lie; it's not true, I am white! Look at my hair, it's brown; and my eyes are grey, Armand, you know they are grey. And my skin is fair," grabbing his wrist. "Look at my hand; whiter than yours, Armand," she laughed hysterically.

"As white as The White Woman's," he replied cruelly and went away leaving her alone with their child.

When she could hold a pen in her hand, she sent a despairing letter to Madame Valmonde.

"My mother, they tell me I am not white. Armand has told me I am not white. For God's sake tell them it is not true. You must know it is not true. I shall die. I must die. I cannot be so unhappy and live."

The answer that came was brief:

"My own Désirée, Come home, back to your mother who loves you. Come with your child."

When the letter reached Désirée she went with it to her husband and put it open on the desk before him. She was like stone: silent, white, motionless after she placed it there.

In silence he ran his cold eyes over the written words.

He said nothing. "Shall I go, Armand?" she asked in a voice, sharp with painful suspense.

"Yes, go."

"Do you want me to go?"

"Yes, I want you to go."

He no longer loved her, because of the injury she had brought on his home and his name.

She turned away like one who had been hit and walked slowly towards the door, hoping he would call her back.

"Good-bye, Armand," she moaned.

He did not answer her.

Désirée went in search of her child. She took the little one from the nurse's arms with no word of explanation and walked away, under the oak branches.

It was an October afternoon; the sun was just going down. Out in the fields, the Negroes were picking cotton.

Désirée had not changed the thin white dress nor the slippers which she wore. Her hair was uncovered and the sun brought a golden shine to it. She did not take the broad road which led to Valmonde's far-off plantation. She disappeared among the trees that grew thick next to the deep lake and she never came back again.

Some weeks later there was a curious scene at Armand's home. In the middle of the garden was a great bonfire. Armand sat in the wide hall to watch it and it was he who gave half a dozen Negroes the material to throw on this fire. A cradle, silk dresses, hats and gloves.

The last thing to go was a tiny bundle of letters, innocent little notes that Désirée had sent to him during the days of their marriage. There was still one back in the drawer from which he had taken the others. But it was not Désirée's. It was part of an old letter from his mother to his father. He had read it. She was thanking God for her husband's love:

"But above all," she wrote, "night and day, I thank God that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race of slavery."