about the historical context of the short story The Silk Stocking
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Thursday, 25 March 2010
American Civil war
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about the historical context of the short story The Silk Stocking
about the historical context of the short story The Silk Stocking
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Biography of Kate Chopin
Biography of Kate Chopin by Neal Wyatt
Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to Eliza and Thomas O'Flaherty. She was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her brothers (from her father's first marriage) in their early twenties. She was the only child to live past the age of twenty-five.
In 1855, at five and a half, she was sent to The Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic boarding school in St. Louis. Her father was killed two months later when a train on which he was riding crossed a bridge that collapsed. For the next two years she lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville oversaw her education and taught her French, music, and the gossip on St. Louis women of the past. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. They were also savvy and came from a long line of ground breaking women Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her husband, after which she raised her five children and ran a shipping business on the Mississippi. Until Kate was sixteen, no married couples lived in her home, although it was full of brothers, uncles, cousins, and borders.
She returned to the Sacred Heart Academy, where the nuns were known for their intelligence, and was top of her class. She won medals, was elected into the elite Children of Mary Society, and delivered the commencement address. After graduation she was a popular, if cynical, debutante. She wrote in her diary advice on flirting, "just keep asking 'What do you think?'" (Toth, 62).
She grew up during the Civil War and this caused her to be separated from the one friend she had made at the Sacred Heart Academy, Kitty Garesche. Her family were slave holders and supported the South. St. Louis was a pro-North city, and the Gareshe's were forced to move. After the war, Kitty returned and she and Chopin were friends until Kitty entered Sacred Heart as a nun. There is no other evidence that Chopin had any other close female friendships.
Kate's grandmother died three days before Christmas in 1863, the same year Kitty was banished. Kate's half-brother, George, died in the war of typhoid fever on Mardi Gras Day. Her father had died on All Saints day, eight years previously, and these unhappy incidents combined to create a strong skepticism of religion in Chopin.
In 1870, at the age of twenty, she married Oscar Chopin, twenty-five, and the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. He was French catholic in background, as was Kate. By all accounts he adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and "allowed" her unheard of freedom. After their marriage they lived in New Orleans where she had five boys and two girls, all before she was twenty-eight. Oscar was not an able business man, and they were forced to move to his old home in a small Louisiana parish. Oscar died of swamp fever there in 1882 and Kate took over the running of his general store and plantation for over a year.
In 1884 she sold up and moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother. Sadly, Eliza died the next year, leaving Kate alone with her children again. To support herself and her young family, she began to write. She was immediately successful and wrote short stories about people she had known in Louisiana. The Awakening was inspired by a true story of a New Orleans woman who was infamous in the French Quarter.
Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890, followed by two collections of her short stories, Bayou Folk in 1894 and A Night in Acadia in 1897. The Awakening was published in 1899, and by then she was well known as both a local colorist and a woman writer, and had published over one hundred stories, essays, and sketches in literary magazines.
As a writer, Kate Chopin wrote very rapidly and without much revision. She usually worked in her home surrounded by her children. The content and message of The Awakening caused an uproar and Chopin was denied admission into the St. Louis Fine Art Club based on its publication. She was terribly hurt by the reaction to the book and in the remaining five years of her life she wrote only a few short stories, and only a small number of those were published. Like Edna, she paid the price for defying societal rules, and as Lazar Ziff explains, she "learned that her society would not tolerate her questionings. Her tortured silence as the new century arrived was a loss to American letters of the order of the untimely deaths of Crane and Norris. She was alive when the twentieth century began, but she had been struck mute by a society fearful in the face of an uncertain dawn" (Ziff, 305).
While reading The Awakening remember that it is a kunstleroman, "a tale of a young woman who struggles to realize herself - and her artistic ability" (Huf, 69) and remember that Chopin, as well as Edna, was on a quest for artistic acceptance. That quest ended in an abrupt and frustrated manner when she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22 1904.
(Much of the above information was gathered from Kate Chopin by Emily Toth, Verging on the Abyss by Mary Papke, and Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography by Per Seyersted. Below is a chronology of her life and work taken from Dyer's The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings, xii-xv)
Chronology
1850 Born on February 8 to Eliza Faris O'Flaherty, a well connected St. Louisiana with French roots, and Captain Thomas O'Flaherty, a businessman from Ireland.
1855 Enters St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. Father is killed in train accident.
1861 Confirmed in the Catholic Church by Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick.
1863 Grandmother dies in January; half-brother George dies of typhoid fever.
1867 Begins keeping a commonplace book of poems, essays,sketches, criticism, etc.
1868 Graduates from Sacred Heart Academy.
1869-1870 Attends debutante parties, learns to smoke, and writes her first story, "Emancipation: A Life Fable," a short story about freedom and restriction.
1870 Marries Oscar Chopin; keeps journal of European honeymoon; moves to New Orleans; Oscar's father dies in November.
1871-1878 Has five sons, Jean, Oscar Charles, George, Frederick, and Felix. Oscar Charles becomes a professional cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner and his daughter Kate, becomes a talented artist.
1879 Oscar closes his business in New Orleans and they move to Cloutierville where he runs several small plantations and a general store.
1882 Oscar dies of malaria, leaving Kate with a heavy debt and six young boys.
1883-1884 Kate tries to run Oscar's businesses and finally decides to move home to her mother's.
1885 Her mother dies. The attending doctor, Dr. Kolbenheyer, who is the model for Dr. Mandelet in The Awakening, continues to visit Chopin and encourage her writing.
1888 Begins reading Maupassant and writes "Euphrase."
1889 Publishes her first poem, "If It Might Be," in America. Writes four stories and publishes each of them.
1890-1892 Joins the Wednesday Club, founded by Charlotte Stearns Eliot, T.S Eliot's mother, but resigns two years later. Satire of club women appears in several of her stories, and in The Awakening in the depiction of Mrs. Highcamp's daughter.
1891 Writes "Mrs. Mobry's Reason" and "A Shameful Affair," which are published in the New Orleans Times-Democrat in 1893. Publishes more stories in Youth's Companion and Harper's Young People.
1894 Writes "A Respectable Woman" (Vogue) in January, introducing the character of Gouvernail, who reappears in The Awakening. Houghton Mifflin publishes Bayou Folk in March, and Chopin becomes nationaly known as a short story writer.
1897 A Night in Acadia, a second volume of short stories is published by Way and Williams of Chicago.
1897-1898 Writes The Awakening.
1899 The Awakening published by Herbert S. Stone and Company on April 22.
1900 Herbert S. Stone and Company reverses its decision to publish a third collection of short stories (it would not be published until Emily Toth's edition came out in 1991). Chopin writes four stories, only one of which is published.
1901 Writes and publishes only one story, "The Wood-Choppers."
1902 Publishes her last story, "Polly."
1904 Dies from a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22, after collapsing at the World's Fair, two days before.
© Neal Wyatt (1995) [contact at nwyatt@leo.vsla.edu] Kate Chopin Study Text
Kate Chopin was born Kate O'Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1850 to Eliza and Thomas O'Flaherty. She was the third of five children, but her sisters died in infancy and her brothers (from her father's first marriage) in their early twenties. She was the only child to live past the age of twenty-five.
In 1855, at five and a half, she was sent to The Sacred Heart Academy, a Catholic boarding school in St. Louis. Her father was killed two months later when a train on which he was riding crossed a bridge that collapsed. For the next two years she lived at home with her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, all of them widows. Her great-grandmother, Victoria Verdon Charleville oversaw her education and taught her French, music, and the gossip on St. Louis women of the past. Kate O'Flaherty grew up surrounded by smart, independent, single women. They were also savvy and came from a long line of ground breaking women Victoria's own mother had been the first woman in St. Louis to obtain legal separation from her husband, after which she raised her five children and ran a shipping business on the Mississippi. Until Kate was sixteen, no married couples lived in her home, although it was full of brothers, uncles, cousins, and borders.
She returned to the Sacred Heart Academy, where the nuns were known for their intelligence, and was top of her class. She won medals, was elected into the elite Children of Mary Society, and delivered the commencement address. After graduation she was a popular, if cynical, debutante. She wrote in her diary advice on flirting, "just keep asking 'What do you think?'" (Toth, 62).
She grew up during the Civil War and this caused her to be separated from the one friend she had made at the Sacred Heart Academy, Kitty Garesche. Her family were slave holders and supported the South. St. Louis was a pro-North city, and the Gareshe's were forced to move. After the war, Kitty returned and she and Chopin were friends until Kitty entered Sacred Heart as a nun. There is no other evidence that Chopin had any other close female friendships.
Kate's grandmother died three days before Christmas in 1863, the same year Kitty was banished. Kate's half-brother, George, died in the war of typhoid fever on Mardi Gras Day. Her father had died on All Saints day, eight years previously, and these unhappy incidents combined to create a strong skepticism of religion in Chopin.
In 1870, at the age of twenty, she married Oscar Chopin, twenty-five, and the son of a wealthy cotton-growing family in Louisiana. He was French catholic in background, as was Kate. By all accounts he adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and "allowed" her unheard of freedom. After their marriage they lived in New Orleans where she had five boys and two girls, all before she was twenty-eight. Oscar was not an able business man, and they were forced to move to his old home in a small Louisiana parish. Oscar died of swamp fever there in 1882 and Kate took over the running of his general store and plantation for over a year.
In 1884 she sold up and moved back to St. Louis to live with her mother. Sadly, Eliza died the next year, leaving Kate alone with her children again. To support herself and her young family, she began to write. She was immediately successful and wrote short stories about people she had known in Louisiana. The Awakening was inspired by a true story of a New Orleans woman who was infamous in the French Quarter.
Her first novel, At Fault, was published in 1890, followed by two collections of her short stories, Bayou Folk in 1894 and A Night in Acadia in 1897. The Awakening was published in 1899, and by then she was well known as both a local colorist and a woman writer, and had published over one hundred stories, essays, and sketches in literary magazines.
As a writer, Kate Chopin wrote very rapidly and without much revision. She usually worked in her home surrounded by her children. The content and message of The Awakening caused an uproar and Chopin was denied admission into the St. Louis Fine Art Club based on its publication. She was terribly hurt by the reaction to the book and in the remaining five years of her life she wrote only a few short stories, and only a small number of those were published. Like Edna, she paid the price for defying societal rules, and as Lazar Ziff explains, she "learned that her society would not tolerate her questionings. Her tortured silence as the new century arrived was a loss to American letters of the order of the untimely deaths of Crane and Norris. She was alive when the twentieth century began, but she had been struck mute by a society fearful in the face of an uncertain dawn" (Ziff, 305).
While reading The Awakening remember that it is a kunstleroman, "a tale of a young woman who struggles to realize herself - and her artistic ability" (Huf, 69) and remember that Chopin, as well as Edna, was on a quest for artistic acceptance. That quest ended in an abrupt and frustrated manner when she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22 1904.
(Much of the above information was gathered from Kate Chopin by Emily Toth, Verging on the Abyss by Mary Papke, and Kate Chopin: A Critical Biography by Per Seyersted. Below is a chronology of her life and work taken from Dyer's The Awakening: A Novel of Beginnings, xii-xv)
Chronology
1850 Born on February 8 to Eliza Faris O'Flaherty, a well connected St. Louisiana with French roots, and Captain Thomas O'Flaherty, a businessman from Ireland.
1855 Enters St. Louis Academy of the Sacred Heart. Father is killed in train accident.
1861 Confirmed in the Catholic Church by Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick.
1863 Grandmother dies in January; half-brother George dies of typhoid fever.
1867 Begins keeping a commonplace book of poems, essays,sketches, criticism, etc.
1868 Graduates from Sacred Heart Academy.
1869-1870 Attends debutante parties, learns to smoke, and writes her first story, "Emancipation: A Life Fable," a short story about freedom and restriction.
1870 Marries Oscar Chopin; keeps journal of European honeymoon; moves to New Orleans; Oscar's father dies in November.
1871-1878 Has five sons, Jean, Oscar Charles, George, Frederick, and Felix. Oscar Charles becomes a professional cartoonist for the San Francisco Examiner and his daughter Kate, becomes a talented artist.
1879 Oscar closes his business in New Orleans and they move to Cloutierville where he runs several small plantations and a general store.
1882 Oscar dies of malaria, leaving Kate with a heavy debt and six young boys.
1883-1884 Kate tries to run Oscar's businesses and finally decides to move home to her mother's.
1885 Her mother dies. The attending doctor, Dr. Kolbenheyer, who is the model for Dr. Mandelet in The Awakening, continues to visit Chopin and encourage her writing.
1888 Begins reading Maupassant and writes "Euphrase."
1889 Publishes her first poem, "If It Might Be," in America. Writes four stories and publishes each of them.
1890-1892 Joins the Wednesday Club, founded by Charlotte Stearns Eliot, T.S Eliot's mother, but resigns two years later. Satire of club women appears in several of her stories, and in The Awakening in the depiction of Mrs. Highcamp's daughter.
1891 Writes "Mrs. Mobry's Reason" and "A Shameful Affair," which are published in the New Orleans Times-Democrat in 1893. Publishes more stories in Youth's Companion and Harper's Young People.
1894 Writes "A Respectable Woman" (Vogue) in January, introducing the character of Gouvernail, who reappears in The Awakening. Houghton Mifflin publishes Bayou Folk in March, and Chopin becomes nationaly known as a short story writer.
1897 A Night in Acadia, a second volume of short stories is published by Way and Williams of Chicago.
1897-1898 Writes The Awakening.
1899 The Awakening published by Herbert S. Stone and Company on April 22.
1900 Herbert S. Stone and Company reverses its decision to publish a third collection of short stories (it would not be published until Emily Toth's edition came out in 1991). Chopin writes four stories, only one of which is published.
1901 Writes and publishes only one story, "The Wood-Choppers."
1902 Publishes her last story, "Polly."
1904 Dies from a cerebral hemorrhage on August 22, after collapsing at the World's Fair, two days before.
© Neal Wyatt (1995) [contact at nwyatt@leo.vsla.edu] Kate Chopin Study Text
A Pair of Silk Stockings
Go to this link and you'll be able ti listen to the mp3 audio version:
http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/A_Pair_of_Silk_Stockings_-_By_Kate_Chopin.html
Short Story: 'A Pair of Silk Stockings' by Kate Chopin
http://www.manythings.org/voa/stories/A_Pair_of_Silk_Stockings_-_By_Kate_Chopin.html
Short Story: 'A Pair of Silk Stockings' by Kate Chopin
MP3Player("http://www.voanews.com/mediaassets/specialenglish/2009_09/audio/Mp3/se-as-Silk-Stockings-5sep09_0.Mp3");
Download MP3
Now, the VOA Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES.
(MUSIC)
Our story today is called "A Pair of Silk Stockings." It was written by Kate Chopin. Here is Barbara Klein with the story.
(MUSIC)
STORYTELLER:
Little Missus Sommers one day found herself the unexpected owner of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money. The way it filled up her worn money holder gave her a feeling of importance that she had not enjoyed for years.
The question of investment was one she considered carefully. For a day or two she walked around in a dreamy state as she thought about her choices. She did not wish to act quickly and do anything she might regret. During the quiet hours of the night she lay awake considering ideas.
A dollar or two could be added to the price she usually paid for her daughter Janie's shoes. This would guarantee they would last a great deal longer than usual. She would buy cloth for new shirts for the boys. Her daughter Mag should have another dress. And still there would be enough left for new stockings — two pairs per child. What time that would save her in always repairing old stockings! The idea of her little family looking fresh and new for once in their lives made her restless with excitement.
The neighbors sometimes talked of the "better days" that little Missus Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Missus Sommers. She herself never looked back to her younger days. She had no time to think about the past. The needs of the present took all her energy.
(MUSIC)
Missus Sommers knew the value of finding things for sale at reduced prices. She could stand for hours making her way little by little toward the desired object that was selling below cost. She could push her way if need be.
But that day she was tired and a little bit weak. She had eaten a light meal—no! She thought about her day. Between getting the children fed and the house cleaned, and preparing herself to go shopping, she had forgotten to eat at all!
When she arrived at the large department store, she sat in front of an empty counter. She was trying to gather strength and courage to push through a mass of busy shoppers. She rested her hand upon the counter.
She wore no gloves. She slowly grew aware that her hand had felt something very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A sign nearby announced that they had been reduced in price. A young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine the silky leg coverings.
She smiled as if she had been asked to inspect diamond jewelry with the aim of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, costly items. Now she used both hands, holding the stockings up to see the light shine through them.
Two red marks suddenly showed on her pale face. She looked up at the shop girl.
"Do you think there are any size eights-and-a-half among these?"
There were a great number of stockings in her size. Missus Sommers chose a black pair and looked at them closely.
"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she said aloud. "Well, I will buy this pair."
She handed the girl a five dollar bill and waited for her change and the wrapped box with the stockings. What a very small box it was! It seemed lost in her worn old shopping bag.
Missus Sommers then took the elevator which carried her to an upper floor into the ladies' rest area. In an empty corner, she replaced her cotton stockings for the new silk ones.
For the first time she seemed to be taking a rest from the tiring act of thought. She had let herself be controlled by some machine-like force that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility.
How good was the touch of the silk on her skin! She felt like lying back in the soft chair and enjoying the richness of it. She did for a little while. Then she put her shoes back on and put her old stockings into her bag. Next, she went to the shoe department, sat down and waited to be fitted.
The young shoe salesman was unable to guess about her background. He could not resolve her worn, old shoes with her beautiful, new stockings. She tried on a pair of new boots.
She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she looked down at the shiny, pointed boots. Her foot and ankle looked very lovely. She could not believe that they were a part of herself. She told the young salesman that she wanted an excellent and stylish fit. She said she did not mind paying extra as long as she got what she desired.
After buying the new boots, she went to the glove department. It was a long time since Missus Sommers had been fitted with gloves. When she had bought a pair they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to her hand.
Now she rested her arm on the counter where gloves were for sale. A young shop girl drew a soft, leather glove over Missus Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly. Both women lost themselves for a second or two as they quietly praised the little gloved hand.
(MUSIC)
There were other places where money might be spent. A store down the street sold books and magazines. Missus Sommers bought two costly magazines that she used to read back when she had been able to enjoy other pleasant things.
She lifted her skirts as she crossed the street. Her new stockings and boots and gloves had worked wonders for her appearance. They had given her a feeling of satisfaction, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed crowds.
She was very hungry. Another time she would have ignored the desire for food until reaching her own home. But the force that was guiding her would not permit her to act on such a thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors. She had sometimes looked through the windows. She had noted the white table cloths, shining glasses and waiters serving wealthy people.
When she entered, her appearance created no surprise or concern, as she had half feared it might.
She seated herself at a small table. A waiter came at once to take her order. She ordered six oysters, a chop, something sweet, a glass of wine and a cup of coffee. While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very slowly and set them beside her. Then she picked up her magazine and looked through it.
It was all very agreeable. The table cloths were even more clean and white than they had seemed through the window. And the crystal drinking glasses shined even more brightly. There were ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own.
A pleasing piece of music could be heard, and a gentle wind was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two and she slowly drank the wine. She moved her toes around in the silk stockings. The price of it all made no difference.
When she was finished, she counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray. He bowed to her as if she were a princess of royal blood.
(MUSIC)
There was still money in her purse, and her next gift to herself presented itself as a theater advertisement. When she entered the theater, the play had already begun. She sat between richly dressed women who were there to spend the day eating sweets and showing off their costly clothing. There were many others who were there only to watch the play.
It is safe to say there was no one there who had the same respect that Missus Sommers did for her surroundings. She gathered in everything —stage and players and people -- in one wide sensation. She laughed and cried at the play. She even talked a little with the women. One woman wiped her eyes with a small square of lace and passed Missus Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music stopped, the crowd flowed outside. It was like a dream ended. Missus Sommers went to wait for the cable car.
A man with sharp eyes sat opposite her. It was hard for him to fully understand what he saw in her expression. In truth, he saw nothing -- unless he was a magician. Then he would sense her heartbreaking wish that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
You have heard the story "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin. Your storyteller was Barbara Klein. This story was adapted and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Jim Tedder. Listen again next week for another American Story in VOA Special English.
Download MP3
Now, the VOA Special English program, AMERICAN STORIES.
(MUSIC)
Our story today is called "A Pair of Silk Stockings." It was written by Kate Chopin. Here is Barbara Klein with the story.
(MUSIC)
STORYTELLER:
Little Missus Sommers one day found herself the unexpected owner of fifteen dollars. It seemed to her a very large amount of money. The way it filled up her worn money holder gave her a feeling of importance that she had not enjoyed for years.
The question of investment was one she considered carefully. For a day or two she walked around in a dreamy state as she thought about her choices. She did not wish to act quickly and do anything she might regret. During the quiet hours of the night she lay awake considering ideas.
A dollar or two could be added to the price she usually paid for her daughter Janie's shoes. This would guarantee they would last a great deal longer than usual. She would buy cloth for new shirts for the boys. Her daughter Mag should have another dress. And still there would be enough left for new stockings — two pairs per child. What time that would save her in always repairing old stockings! The idea of her little family looking fresh and new for once in their lives made her restless with excitement.
The neighbors sometimes talked of the "better days" that little Missus Sommers had known before she had ever thought of being Missus Sommers. She herself never looked back to her younger days. She had no time to think about the past. The needs of the present took all her energy.
(MUSIC)
Missus Sommers knew the value of finding things for sale at reduced prices. She could stand for hours making her way little by little toward the desired object that was selling below cost. She could push her way if need be.
But that day she was tired and a little bit weak. She had eaten a light meal—no! She thought about her day. Between getting the children fed and the house cleaned, and preparing herself to go shopping, she had forgotten to eat at all!
When she arrived at the large department store, she sat in front of an empty counter. She was trying to gather strength and courage to push through a mass of busy shoppers. She rested her hand upon the counter.
She wore no gloves. She slowly grew aware that her hand had felt something very pleasant to touch. She looked down to see that her hand lay upon a pile of silk stockings. A sign nearby announced that they had been reduced in price. A young girl who stood behind the counter asked her if she wished to examine the silky leg coverings.
She smiled as if she had been asked to inspect diamond jewelry with the aim of purchasing it. But she went on feeling the soft, costly items. Now she used both hands, holding the stockings up to see the light shine through them.
Two red marks suddenly showed on her pale face. She looked up at the shop girl.
"Do you think there are any size eights-and-a-half among these?"
There were a great number of stockings in her size. Missus Sommers chose a black pair and looked at them closely.
"A dollar and ninety-eight cents," she said aloud. "Well, I will buy this pair."
She handed the girl a five dollar bill and waited for her change and the wrapped box with the stockings. What a very small box it was! It seemed lost in her worn old shopping bag.
Missus Sommers then took the elevator which carried her to an upper floor into the ladies' rest area. In an empty corner, she replaced her cotton stockings for the new silk ones.
For the first time she seemed to be taking a rest from the tiring act of thought. She had let herself be controlled by some machine-like force that directed her actions and freed her of responsibility.
How good was the touch of the silk on her skin! She felt like lying back in the soft chair and enjoying the richness of it. She did for a little while. Then she put her shoes back on and put her old stockings into her bag. Next, she went to the shoe department, sat down and waited to be fitted.
The young shoe salesman was unable to guess about her background. He could not resolve her worn, old shoes with her beautiful, new stockings. She tried on a pair of new boots.
She held back her skirts and turned her feet one way and her head another way as she looked down at the shiny, pointed boots. Her foot and ankle looked very lovely. She could not believe that they were a part of herself. She told the young salesman that she wanted an excellent and stylish fit. She said she did not mind paying extra as long as she got what she desired.
After buying the new boots, she went to the glove department. It was a long time since Missus Sommers had been fitted with gloves. When she had bought a pair they were always "bargains," so cheap that it would have been unreasonable to have expected them to be fitted to her hand.
Now she rested her arm on the counter where gloves were for sale. A young shop girl drew a soft, leather glove over Missus Sommers's hand. She smoothed it down over the wrist and buttoned it neatly. Both women lost themselves for a second or two as they quietly praised the little gloved hand.
(MUSIC)
There were other places where money might be spent. A store down the street sold books and magazines. Missus Sommers bought two costly magazines that she used to read back when she had been able to enjoy other pleasant things.
She lifted her skirts as she crossed the street. Her new stockings and boots and gloves had worked wonders for her appearance. They had given her a feeling of satisfaction, a sense of belonging to the well-dressed crowds.
She was very hungry. Another time she would have ignored the desire for food until reaching her own home. But the force that was guiding her would not permit her to act on such a thought.
There was a restaurant at the corner. She had never entered its doors. She had sometimes looked through the windows. She had noted the white table cloths, shining glasses and waiters serving wealthy people.
When she entered, her appearance created no surprise or concern, as she had half feared it might.
She seated herself at a small table. A waiter came at once to take her order. She ordered six oysters, a chop, something sweet, a glass of wine and a cup of coffee. While waiting to be served she removed her gloves very slowly and set them beside her. Then she picked up her magazine and looked through it.
It was all very agreeable. The table cloths were even more clean and white than they had seemed through the window. And the crystal drinking glasses shined even more brightly. There were ladies and gentlemen, who did not notice her, lunching at the small tables like her own.
A pleasing piece of music could be heard, and a gentle wind was blowing through the window. She tasted a bite, and she read a word or two and she slowly drank the wine. She moved her toes around in the silk stockings. The price of it all made no difference.
When she was finished, she counted the money out to the waiter and left an extra coin on his tray. He bowed to her as if she were a princess of royal blood.
(MUSIC)
There was still money in her purse, and her next gift to herself presented itself as a theater advertisement. When she entered the theater, the play had already begun. She sat between richly dressed women who were there to spend the day eating sweets and showing off their costly clothing. There were many others who were there only to watch the play.
It is safe to say there was no one there who had the same respect that Missus Sommers did for her surroundings. She gathered in everything —stage and players and people -- in one wide sensation. She laughed and cried at the play. She even talked a little with the women. One woman wiped her eyes with a small square of lace and passed Missus Sommers her box of candy.
The play was over, the music stopped, the crowd flowed outside. It was like a dream ended. Missus Sommers went to wait for the cable car.
A man with sharp eyes sat opposite her. It was hard for him to fully understand what he saw in her expression. In truth, he saw nothing -- unless he was a magician. Then he would sense her heartbreaking wish that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.
(MUSIC)
ANNOUNCER:
You have heard the story "A Pair of Silk Stockings" by Kate Chopin. Your storyteller was Barbara Klein. This story was adapted and produced by Dana Demange. I'm Jim Tedder. Listen again next week for another American Story in VOA Special English.
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