If she had married, she could likely afford plusher accommodations and a servant or two. While she has many windows in her front room (the equivalent of a living room), they are terribly dirty, a testament to not only her lack of interest in housekeeping but also to the economic limits on single women. Yet there are disadvantages to her existence, as well. Mademoiselle Reisz's isolation, both physical and social, provides more time for her art and herself. Her respect for honesty is such, however, that she is "greatly pleased" by Edna's candid admission that she doesn't know whether or not she actually likes her. Mademoiselle Reisz's frank appraisal of others' behaviors and virtues (or lack thereof) renders her unlikable to most everyone. Mademoiselle Reisz tries to avoid the traffic of ordinary life, choosing a top floor apartment to "discourage the approach of beggars, peddlers, and callers." Her unrelenting honesty about human nature and the prescribed niceties of genteel culture underlie her desire to be removed from such pedestrian distractions. This chapter is significant for its presentation of Mademoiselle Reisz's abode, an apartment highly symbolic of her life and of the life of an artist and independent person. She leaves in tears, asking leave to come visit again. She also laughingly informs Mademoiselle Reisz that she is becoming a painter, to which Mademoiselle Reisz replies that artists require "brave souls." While Mademoiselle Reisz plays the Chopin piece, Edna reads the letter and weeps with emotion, moved by the music and the indirect contact with Robert. Edna convinces Mademoiselle Reisz to allow her to read Robert's letter. She tells Edna she has received a letter from Robert in which he spoke constantly of Edna and asked Mademoiselle Reisz to play Chopin's "Impromptu" for her. Edna visits Mademoiselle Reisz, who is delighted to see her.
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