The Yellow Wallpaper [5]
paper.
At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light,
lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The
outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as
can be.
I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that
showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it
is a woman.
By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the
pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me
quiet by the hour.
I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me,
and to sleep all I can.
Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an
hour after each meal.
It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't
sleep.
And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm
awake--O no!
The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.
He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an
inexplicable look.
It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific
hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the paper!
I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and
come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and
I've caught him several times LOOKING AT THE PAPER! And Jennie
too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.
She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a
quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner
possible, what she was doing with the paper--she turned around as
if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry--asked me
why I should frighten her so!
Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched,
that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's,
and she wished we would be more careful!
Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying
that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out
but myself!
Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You
see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to
watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.
John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little
the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my
wall-paper.
I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling
him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me.
He might even want to take me away.
I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There
is a week more, and I think that will be enough.
I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at
night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I
sleep a good deal in the daytime.
In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.
There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of
yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have
tried conscientiously.
It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me
think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones
like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.
But there is something else about that paper--the smell! I
noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air
and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain,
and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.
It creeps alll over the house.
I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the
parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
It gets into my hair.
Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and
surprise it--there is that smell!
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to
analyze it, to find what it smelled like.
It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the
subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.
In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and
find it hanging over me.
It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of
burning the house--to reach the smell.
But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that
it is like is the COLOR of the paper! A yellow smell.
There is a very funny mark on this
At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light,
lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The
outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as
can be.
I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that
showed behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it
is a woman.
By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the
pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me
quiet by the hour.
I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me,
and to sleep all I can.
Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an
hour after each meal.
It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't
sleep.
And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm
awake--O no!
The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.
He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an
inexplicable look.
It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific
hypothesis,--that perhaps it is the paper!
I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and
come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and
I've caught him several times LOOKING AT THE PAPER! And Jennie
too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.
She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a
quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner
possible, what she was doing with the paper--she turned around as
if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry--asked me
why I should frighten her so!
Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched,
that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's,
and she wished we would be more careful!
Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying
that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out
but myself!
Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You
see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to
watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.
John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little
the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my
wall-paper.
I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling
him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper--he would make fun of me.
He might even want to take me away.
I don't want to leave now until I have found it out. There
is a week more, and I think that will be enough.
I'm feeling ever so much better! I don't sleep much at
night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I
sleep a good deal in the daytime.
In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.
There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of
yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have
tried conscientiously.
It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me
think of all the yellow things I ever saw--not beautiful ones
like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.
But there is something else about that paper--the smell! I
noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air
and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain,
and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.
It creeps alll over the house.
I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the
parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
It gets into my hair.
Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and
surprise it--there is that smell!
Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to
analyze it, to find what it smelled like.
It is not bad--at first, and very gentle, but quite the
subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.
In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and
find it hanging over me.
It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of
burning the house--to reach the smell.
But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that
it is like is the COLOR of the paper! A yellow smell.
There is a very funny mark on this