The Story Of An Hour

Kate Chopin

Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as
gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.

 Biết rằng vợ ông Mallard (bà) phải chịu đau đớn bởi căn bệnh tim, mọi người đã rất thận trọng
trong việc thông báo cho bà tin tức về cái chết của chồng bà bằng một cách nhẹ nhàng nhất có
thể.

It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half
concealing. Her husband’s friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the
newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard’s name
leading the list of “killed.” He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second
telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

 Em gái Josephin là người đã nói cho cô nghe về tin đó bằng những câu nói đứt quãng, nửa úp
nửa mở. Bạn của chồng bà – ông Richards cũng ở đó, đứng bên cạnh cô. Ông là người đã ở tòa
soạn báo khi nhận được tin từ cơ quan tình báo về thảm họa ở đường sắt, với tên của ông Brently
Mallard nằm ở đầu trong danh sách những người thiệt mạng. Ông Richards chỉ có đủ thời gian
để kiểm tra rằng tin tức đó có phải là sự thật hay không qua bức điện tín thứ 2, và đã vội vàng
chạy đến nhà Mallard để ngăn chặn những người thiếu ý tứ, tinh tế trong việc thông báo tin buồn
này.

She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of
grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down
by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.

 Cô Mallard nghe câu chuyện theo một cách không giống như những người phụ nữ khác, chết
lặng và không thể chấp nhận được sự thật. Cô khóc ngay lập tức rồi ngã vào vòng tay của em
gái, bởi vì sự bỏ rơi đột ngột của chồng mình. Khi cơn bão đau buồn dần nguôi ngoai, cô trở về
phòng một mình. Cô không muốn ai đi theo mình. Đứng đối diện với chiếc cửa sổ đang mở, cô
buông người xuống chiếc ghế bành êm ái. Trên ghế, cô dần chìm vào giấc ngủ, sự kiệt quệ về thể
chất đã hành hạ cơ thể cô, nhấn chìm cô và dường như nó len lỏi vào cả tâm hồn cô nữa.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new
spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares.
The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were
twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that
had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

 Cô nhìn vào khoảng không rộng lớn trước nhà mình, thấy những ngọn cây đang rung rinh với
một cuộc sống mùa xuân mới. Hơi thở tươi mát của mưa đã hòa vào trong bầu không khí. Dưới
đường, một người bán hàng rong đang rao bán hàng của mình. Những nốt nhạc của một bài hát
xa xôi mà ai đó đang hát vang đến bà một cách yếu ớt, và vô số con chim sẻ đang ríu rít trên mái
hiên. Có những khoảng trời xanh lấp ló ra những đám mây, chúng gặp nhau và chồng lên nhau
tầng tầng lớp lớp ở phía tây đối diện với cửa sổ nhà cô.

She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob
came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its
dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of
those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of
intelligent thought.

 Cô ngồi vô cảm trên chiếc ghế bành, đầu ngả ra sau, những tiếng nấc tắc nghẹn trong cổ họng, và
cô khóc như một đứa trẻ. Cô Mallard vẫn còn trẻ lắm, với khuôn mặt xinh đẹp, điềm tĩnh, và
những đường nét trên gương mặt cô toát lên một sự kìm nén. Nhưng bây giờ trong mắt cô ngập
tràn nỗi buồn, sự thẫn thờ. Đó

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not
know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her
through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will–as powerless as her two
white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her
slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under the breath: “free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the
look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast,
and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.

She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted
perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when
she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her,
fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that
would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome.

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be
no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a
right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act
seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.

And yet she had loved 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!
“Free! Body and soul free!” she kept whispering.

Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole, 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.”
“Go 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.