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Summary
Calixta is at work in her cabin, so intent on her sewing that she hardly notices the storm’s approach. As the heat builds, she loosens her dress collar. The storm suddenly darkens the sky, and Calixta hurries to bring in the laundry drying on lines stretched across the gallery. As she does so, she sees Alcée Laballière approaching on horseback. Because he cannot reach his plantation before the storm breaks, he asks politely to take shelter on the gallery. He helps grab the clothes as the wind whips and the rain begins. It quickly becomes clear that the gallery will not provide shelter, so Calixta and Alcée go into the cabin and stuff cloth beneath the door to keep rainwater from seeping in. They work together easily, as if they have done so for years; yet Calixta has hardly seen Alcée since her marriage five years ago, and the two have not been alone together since.
Alcée remarks to himself that Calixta is still a beautiful woman—fuller in figure than she was as a girl, but with the entrancing blue eyes and sweetly curling hair that he found so attractive when they were younger and both single. The cabin is small, and as they stand in the main room listening to the storm’s violence, Alcée is suddenly aware of the door to Calixta’s darkened bedroom. Both behave somewhat shyly and awkwardly until the storm’s tumult and the near-constant lightning begin to frighten Calixta. She fears that the levees will not hold; he reassures her that they will. Lightning strikes a nearby tree, and she fears for the house. He reassures her again, this time holding her after she jumps back from the window in alarm.
The moment Alcée touches Calixta, his old passion for her sweeps over him again. She is trembling from fear, or perhaps from awakening desire, when he decides there is “nothing for him to do” but to kiss her. He asks whether she remembers the time they spent together in Assumption Parish, their kisses then and their longing for each other, so overwhelming that he fled her presence so that he would not ruin her honor. Now, however, they perceive that the barrier of honor has been removed. They are both married, both sexually experienced, and now they have the opportunity to act on the passion that has been lying beneath the surface of their marriages for years.
Their lovemaking is rapturous, intense and intimate in a way that neither has ever experienced, unexpectedly generous and sweet. The narrator describes in particular detail the voluptuousness of Calixta’s body, with her full breasts, creamy skin, and kissable mouth, all of which delight Alcée beyond words. Her responsiveness surprises them both and yet is clearly the natural and desirable response, the “birthright” of sexual pleasure bestowed on all lovers. Calixta has not realized this “birthright” of ecstasy with Bobinôt.
Timed with the storm’s rise and fall, their passion finally spends itself, and they lie together, nearly dazed and very drowsy. But of course, they cannot pause to enjoy the quiet after the storm of nature and the storm of their passion. Alcée mounts his horse and takes his leave as Calixta waves goodbye, and both are incandescently happy.
