The Yellow Wallpaper [2]
and good sense
to check the tendency. So I try.
I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a
little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.
But I find I get pretty tired when I try.
It is so discouraging not to have any advice and
companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says
we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he
says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let
me have those stimulating people about now.
I wish I could get well faster.
But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as
if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had!
There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a
broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.
I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the
everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those
absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where
two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the
line, one a little higher than the other.
I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before,
and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie
awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of
blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in
a toy store.
I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old
bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed
like a strong friend.
I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too
fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.
The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious,
however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose
when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery
things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the
children have made here.
The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and
it sticketh closer than a brother--they must have had
perseverance as well as hatred.
Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the
plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy
bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been
through the wars.
But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper.
There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and
so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.
She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for
no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the
writing which made me sick!
But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off
from these windows.
There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding
road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely
country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.
This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different
shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in
certain lights, and not clearly then.
But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is
just so--I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure,
that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front
design.
There's sister on the stairs!
Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I
am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little
company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down
for a week.
Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything
now.
But it tired me all the same.
John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir
Mitchell in the fall.
But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was
in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my
brother, only more so!
Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.
I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over
for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.
I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.
Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but
when I am alone.
And I am alone
to check the tendency. So I try.
I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a
little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.
But I find I get pretty tired when I try.
It is so discouraging not to have any advice and
companionship about my work. When I get really well, John says
we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he
says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillow-case as to let
me have those stimulating people about now.
I wish I could get well faster.
But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as
if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had!
There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a
broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down.
I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the
everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those
absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where
two breadths didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the
line, one a little higher than the other.
I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before,
and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie
awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of
blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in
a toy store.
I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big, old
bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed
like a strong friend.
I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too
fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.
The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious,
however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose
when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery
things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the
children have made here.
The wall-paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and
it sticketh closer than a brother--they must have had
perseverance as well as hatred.
Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the
plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy
bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been
through the wars.
But I don't mind it a bit--only the paper.
There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and
so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.
She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for
no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the
writing which made me sick!
But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off
from these windows.
There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding
road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely
country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.
This wall-paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different
shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in
certain lights, and not clearly then.
But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is
just so--I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure,
that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front
design.
There's sister on the stairs!
Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I
am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little
company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down
for a week.
Of course I didn't do a thing. Jennie sees to everything
now.
But it tired me all the same.
John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir
Mitchell in the fall.
But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was
in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my
brother, only more so!
Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.
I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over
for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.
I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.
Of course I don't when John is here, or anybody else, but
when I am alone.
And I am alone