The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

mysterious
deepshaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes
and gnarly trees.
    Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little
private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded
lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see
people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has
cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that
with my imaginative power and habit of story-making, a nervous
weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited
fancies, and that I ought to use my will 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