Story of the Week: The Kiss

Kate Chopin (1850–1904)
From Kate Chopin: Complete Novels & Stories

Previous Story of the Week selections
• “Fedora,” Kate Chopin
• “The Kiss,” Charles W. Chesnutt
• “An Unfinished Story,” O. Henry
• “Winter Dreams,” F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Between Wealth and Love (Entre la richesse et l'amour), 1869, oil on canvas [cropped] by the French painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). Wikimedia Commons.

The “rediscovery” of Kate Chopin’s novels and stories a half century ago arrived with numerous myths about how and why they had been neglected in the first place. Most prominent among them were the beliefs that her novel The Awakening had been widely banned upon its publication in 1899 and that the hullaballoo surrounding it probably contributed to the cancellation of the contract for what would have been her final book, the story collection A Vocation and a Voice. The book’s demise, biographer Per Seyersted speculated, may have convinced Chopin that “she had become a literary outcast.” She continued writing and publishing stories, but her output dwindled as her health declined, and she died at the age of fifty-four in August 1904.

Although The Awakening was certainly greeted with numerous condemnatory notices upon its publication, scholars have since discovered little evidence that Chopin was “banned” in any significant measure. In fact, only two incidents have been found, and both occurred three years after the book was published: the public library in Evanson, Illinois, and a private library in her hometown of St. Louis each removed the book from its shelves after some patrons objected to it. (Our introduction to Chopin’s story “Fedora” discusses the novel’s reception in greater detail.)

As for Kate Chopin’s third story collection, we may never know for certain why it was not published. In 1898 Chopin had sold the book, along with The Awakening, to the Chicago firm of Way & Williams, which had published her previous story collection, A Night in Arcadie. Unfortunately, that same year the company closed its doors and the inventory was sold to another publisher, Herbert Stone & Company, which “assumed no obligation to complete Way & Williams’ contracts for future publications.” Nevertheless, Stone agreed to publish The Awakening, and it was issued in April 1900. While by no means a bestseller, the book seems to have sold relatively well; by the end of the year Chopin’s royalties totaled $102—more than the combined sum earned by her two previous books. Sidney Kramer, the company’s historian, suggests that there was at least one reprint, and the novel was even reissued by another publisher in 1906, after Chopin’s death.

Yet in February 1900 the manuscript for A Vocation and a Voice was returned to her. Any correspondence that might have accompanied the book has not survived, but literary historian Charles Johanningsmeier suggests an explanation: just days earlier, on January 26, 1900, Way & Williams assigned their copyrights to the Doubleday, McClure Company in New York. Within months, however, Doubleday, McClure dissolved into two companies: Doubleday, Page and McClure, Philips. In other words, Stone, who was in the process of scaling down his own list, might not have “cancelled” the contract simply because he had never negotiated one for this collection, and it is possible that Chopin’s contract was overlooked or abandoned in the transfer of licenses for Way & Williams’s publications during a chaotic period of corporate restructuring. Perhaps discouraged by this chain of events, Chopin herself does not seem to have pursued publication of the collection with Doubleday, McClure or its spinoffs or any other publisher.

The book would have been a notable departure for Chopin, whose two previous collections were of stories mostly set among the Creole communities of Louisiana. When Penguin Classics finally published it in 1991, biographer Emily Toth noted in the introduction, “Kate Chopin abandoned Louisiana as a setting and local color as a mode of expression.” The stories, twenty-two in all, are far more experimental and impressionistic than her earlier work, and nine of them had appeared in Vogue, which during the 1890s published Chopin’s tales when they were too avant-garde or socially transgressive for mainstream publications.

A Vocation and a Voice includes the previous Story of the Week selections “Fedora,” “Her Letters,” and “A Morning Walk,” and below we present “The Kiss,” one of the pieces that had appeared in Vogue. “The tale mocks women who deny true love and passion for money,” writes Heidi Johnsen in an essay about Chopin’s writings for Vogue. “The magazine thrived on readers having an interest in the upper class, and yet Chopin laughs at them when she has Nathalie play the fool.” Choosing between money and love was the stuff of English and American literature from Jane Austen to Henry James, of course. “What is new, however,” notes Seyersted, “is the author’s amoral, detached attitude toward infidelity, and the wonderful light touch with which she ends such a story.”

* * *

For this week’s selection, we reproduce Chopin’s story in its entirety below. You may also download it as a PDF or view it in Google Docs.

The Kiss

It was still quite light out of doors, but inside with the curtains drawn and the smouldering fire sending out a dim, uncertain glow, the room was full of deep shadows.

Brantain sat in one of these shadows; it had overtaken him and he did not mind. The obscurity lent him courage to keep his eyes fastened as ardently as he liked upon the girl who sat in the firelight.

She was very handsome, with a certain fine, rich coloring that belongs to the healthy brune type. She was quite composed, as she idly stroked the satiny coat of the cat that lay curled in her lap, and she occasionally sent a slow glance into the shadow where her companion sat. They were talking low, of indifferent things which plainly were not the things that occupied their thoughts. She knew that he loved her—a frank, blustering fellow without guile enough to conceal his feelings, and no desire to do so. For two weeks past he had sought her society eagerly and persistently. She was confidently waiting for him to declare himself and she meant to accept him. The rather insignificant and unattractive Brantain was enormously rich; and she liked and required the entourage which wealth could give her.

During one of the pauses between their talk of the last tea and the next reception the door opened and a young man entered whom Brantain knew quite well. The girl turned her face toward him. A stride or two brought him to her side, and bending over her chair—before she could suspect his intention, for she did not realize that he had not seen her visitor—he pressed an ardent, lingering kiss upon her lips.

Brantain slowly arose; so did the girl arise, but quickly, and the newcomer stood between them, a little amusement and some defiance struggling with the confusion in his face.

“I believe,” stammered Brantain, “I see that I have stayed too long. I—I had no idea—that is, I must wish you goodby.”

He was clutching his hat with both hands, and probably did not perceive that she was extending her hand to him, her presence of mind had not completely deserted her; but she could not have trusted herself to speak.

“Hang me if I saw him sitting there, Nattie! I know it’s deuced awkward for you. But I hope you’ll forgive me this once—this very first break. Why, what’s the matter?”

“Don’t touch me; don’t come near me,” she returned angrily. “What do you mean by entering the house without ringing?”

“I came in with your brother, as I often do,” he answered coldly, in self-justification. “We came in the side way. He went upstairs and I came in here hoping to find you. The explanation is simple enough and ought to satisfy you that the misadventure was unavoidable. But do say that you forgive me, Nathalie,” he entreated, softening.

“Forgive you! You don’t know what you are talking about. Let me pass. It depends upon—a good deal whether I ever forgive you.”

At that next reception which she and Brantain had been talking about she approached the young man with a delicious frankness of manner when she saw him there.

“Will you let me speak to you a moment or two, Mr. Brantain?” she asked with an engaging but perturbed smile. He seemed extremely unhappy; but when she took his arm and walked away with him, seeking a retired corner, a ray of hope mingled with the almost comical misery of his expression. She was apparently very outspoken.

“Perhaps I should not have sought this interview, Mr. Brantain; but—but, oh, I have been very uncomfortable, almost miserable since that little encounter the other afternoon. When I thought how you might have misinterpreted it, and believed things”—hope was plainly gaining the ascendancy over misery in Brantain’s round, guileless face—“of course, I know it is nothing to you, but for my own sake I do want you to understand that Mr. Harvy is an intimate friend of long standing. Why, we have always been like cousins—like brother and sister, I may say. He is my brother’s most intimate associate and often fancies that he is entitled to the same privileges as the family. Oh, I know it is absurd, uncalled for, to tell you this; undignified even,” she was almost weeping, “but it makes so much difference to me what you think of—of me.” Her voice had grown very low and agitated. The misery had all disappeared from Brantain’s face.

“Then you do really care what I think, Miss Nathalie? May I call you Miss Nathalie?” They turned into a long, dim corridor that was lined on either side with tall, graceful plants.

They walked slowly to the very end of it. When they turned to retrace their steps Brantain’s face was radiant and hers was triumphant.

* * *

Harvy was among the guests at the wedding; and he sought her out in a rare moment when she stood alone. “Your husband,” he said, smiling, “has sent me over to kiss you.”
A quick blush suffused her face and round polished throat.

“I suppose it’s natural for a man to feel and act generously on an occasion of this kind. He tells me he doesn’t want his marriage to interrupt wholly that pleasant intimacy which has existed between you and me. I don’t know what you’ve been telling him,” with an insolent smile, “but he has sent me here to kiss you.”

She felt like a chess player who, by the clever handling of his pieces, sees the game taking the course intended. Her eyes were bright and tender with a smile as they glanced up into his; and her lips looked hungry for the kiss which they invited.

“But, you know,” he went on quietly, “I didn’t tell him so, it would have seemed ungrateful, but I can tell you. I’ve stopped kissing women; it’s dangerous.”

Well, she had Brantain and his million left. A person can’t have everything in this world; and it was a little unreasonable of her to expect it.

Originally published in the January 17, 1895, issue of Vogue.

Sunday, November 8, 2026

The Kiss