Chapter 28
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After Arobin leaves, Edna cries. This paragraph-long chapter explores her conflicted emotional reaction to the kiss, but the emotion that dominates is "understanding" of herself-a resolution to the question Edna contemplated in the previous chapter, "what character of woman I am." This note of "understanding" also harkens back to the book's repeating musical motif: si tu savais-"if you knew." Edna now does know who she is, and what life is, a "monster made up of beauty and brutality." Two emotions Edna does not feel are shame and remorse. Her only regret is that the kiss which sparked this emotional revelation had not been the kiss of true love.
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