The Awakening and Selected Short Stories
by Kate Chopin

A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the
door, kept repeating over and over:

"Allez vous-en!  Allez vous-en!  Sapristi!  That's all right!"

He could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which
nobody understood, unless it was the mocking-bird that hung on the
other side of the door, whistling his fluty notes out upon the
breeze with maddening persistence.

Mr. Pontellier, unable to read his newspaper with any degree
of comfort, arose with an expression and an exclamation of disgust.

He walked down the gallery and across the narrow "bridges" which
connected the Lebrun cottages one with the other.  He had been
seated before the door of the main house.  The parrot and the
mockingbird were the property of Madame Lebrun, and they had the
right to make all the noise they wished.  Mr. Pontellier had the
privilege of quitting their society when they ceased to be
entertaining.

He stopped before the door of his own cottage, which was the
fourth one from the main building and next to the last.  Seating
himself in a wicker rocker which was there, he once more applied
himself to the task of reading the newspaper.  The day was Sunday;
the paper was a day old.  The Sunday papers had not yet reached
Grand Isle.  He was already acquainted with the market reports,
and he glanced restlessly over the editorials and bits of news which
he had not had time to read before quitting New Orleans the day before.

