The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin

1 Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her (1)as gently as possible the news of her husbands death. 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 (2)to assure himself of it’s truth by a second telegram and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.

2 She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. (3)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. 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. (4)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 (5)patches of blue sky showing here and their through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.

3 She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, (6)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.

4 There was (7)something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? (8)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 her breath: "free, free, free!" (9)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 (10)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 (11)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. Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.

5 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? (12)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.

6 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. (13)She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. 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 (14)far from the scene of 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.(15)But Richards was to late. When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease — of joy that kills.

1)
In the opening sentence, the author establishes
A) the frail health of the narrator.
B) the robust health of the narrator.
C) the frail health of the main character.
D) the robust health of the main character.