NovelGuide: The Awakening: Novel Summary: Part 14

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Chapter 14

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While Edna has been at the Ch�ni�re entering into this new world, however, the old world has been very much with those who returned earlier in the day. For instance, Edna's youngest son, Etienne, caused difficulty for Madame Ratignolle (ironically, as established in Chapter V, the consummate maternal figure!) when he refused to go to bed. Mr. Pontellier had returned to Klein's hotel, for-unlike his wife-"he detested above all things to be left alone." When Robert leaves Edna for the night, she cannot understand why. She only knows that she is not sleepy, and she does not think he is, either. Her feelings of regret at his departure are perhaps a hint of future trouble in their relationship; readers sense that, at some level, the relationship means something to Edna that it does not to Robert. At any rate, she contents herself as she waits for her husband to return by singing a song Robert taught her, a song in which every verse ends with the ominous words, "si tu savais"-if you knew . . . If only Mr. Pontellier knew the transformation his wife was undergoing? If only Robert knew Edna's feelings about their budding relationship? If only Edna knew where her awakening would lead? The reader is left to wonder.