凯特·肖邦，美国女作家，本名凯萨琳·欧福拉赫蒂，出生于美国圣路易斯。肖邦在快四十岁时出版了第一本小说《故障》（At Fault 1890）。她的短篇小说开始出现在世纪（Century）和哈泼杂志（Harper's Magazine）。随后又出版了两个选集：《支流人》（Bayou Folk 1894）和《阿卡迪一夜》（A Night in Arcadie 1897）。《觉醒》（The Awakening 1899）是其代表作，但由于小说以对通奸同情的笔调刻画女主人公"性意识"的觉醒，大胆表露追求婚外情的爱情观，小说一出版便在美国文坛上引起了轩然大波，震惊了全美的书评人和读者。

     Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is now considered by some scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald.

　　The Awakening was first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century. It is widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics. 

　　The novel's blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. 

　　Chopin did not write another novel after The Awakening and had difficulty publishing stories after its release. When she died five years later, she was on her way to being forgotten. In 1960s Per Seyersted, a Norwegian literary scholar rediscovered Chopin, leading The Awakening to be remembered as the feminist fiction it is today.

　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.

　　Mr. Pontellier wore eye-glasses. He was a man of forty, of medium height and rather slender build; he stooped a little. His hair was brown and straight, parted on one side. His beard was neatly and closely trimmed.

　　Once in a while he withdrew his glance from the newspaper and looked about him. There was more noise than ever over at the house. The main building was called "the house," to distinguish it from the cottages. The chattering and whistling birds were still at it. Two young girls, the Farival twins, were playing a duet from "Zampa" upon the piano. Madame Lebrun was bustling in and out, giving orders in a high key to a yard-boy whenever she got inside the house, and directions in an equally high voice to a dining-room servant whenever she got outside. She was a fresh, pretty woman, clad always in white with elbow sleeves. Her starched skirts crinkled as she came and went. Farther down, before one of the cottages, a lady in black was walking demurely up and down, telling her beads. A good many persons of the pension had

gone over to the Cheniere Caminada in Beaudelet's lugger to hear mass. Some young people were out under the wateroaks playing croquet. Mr. Pontellier's two children were there - sturdy little fellows of four and five. A quadroon nurse followed them about with a faraway, meditative air.

　　Mr. Pontellier finally lit a cigar and began to smoke, letting the paper drag idly from his hand. He fixed his gaze upon a white sunshade that was advancing at snail's pace from the beach. He could see it plainly between the gaunt trunks of the wateroaks and across the stretch of yellow camomile. The gulf looked far away, melting hazily into the blue of the horizon. The sunshade continued to approach slowly. Beneath its pink-lined shelter were his wife, Mrs. Pontellier, and young Robert Lebrun. When they reached the cottage, the two seated themselves with some appearance of fatigue upon the upper step of the porch, facing each other, each leaning against a supporting post.

　　"What folly! to bathe at such an hour in such heat!" exclaimed Mr. Pontellier. He himself had taken a plunge at daylight. That was why the morning seemed long to him.

Chapter 1 

Chapter 2 

Chapter 3 

Chapter 4 

Chapter 5 

Chapter 6 

Chapter 7 

Chapter 8 

Chapter 9 

Chapter 10 

Chapter 11 

Chapter 12 

Chapter 13 

Chapter 14 

Chapter 15 

Chapter 16 

Chapter 17 

Chapter 18 

Chapter 19 

Chapter 20 

Chapter 21 

Chapter 22 

Chapter 23 

Chapter 24 

Chapter 25 

Chapter 26 

Chapter 27 

Chapter 28 

Chapter 29 

Chapter 30 

Chapter 31 

Chapter 32 

Chapter 33 

Chapter 34 

Chapter 35 

Chapter 36 

Chapter 37 

Chapter 38 

Chapter 39