A colonial mansion2, a hereditary3 estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much of fate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition4, and he scoffs5 openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.
John is a physician, and PERHAPS—(I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind)—PERHAPS that is one reason I do not get well faster.
You see he does not believe I am sick!
And what can one do?
If a physician of high standing6, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical7 tendency—what is one to do?
My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.
So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics8, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to "work" until I am well again.
Personally, I disagree with their ideas.
Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.
But what is one to do?
I did write for a while in spite of them; but it DOES exhaust me a good deal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition9.
I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.
So I will let it alone and talk about the house.
The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.
There is a DELICIOUS garden! I never saw such a garden—large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.
There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.
There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and coheirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.
That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid, but I don't care—there is something strange about the house—I can feel it.
I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a DRAUGHT10, and shut the window.
I get unreasonably11 angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.
But John says if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself—before him, at least, and that makes me very tired.
I don't like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza12 and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.
He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.
He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.
I have a schedule prescription13 for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.
He said we came here solely14 on my account, that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. "Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear," said he, "and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time." So we took the nursery at the top of the house.
It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.
The paint and paper look as if a boys' school had used it. It is stripped off—the paper—in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.
One of those sprawling15 flamboyant16 patterns committing every artistic17 sin.
It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame18 uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide—plunge off at outrageous19 angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.
The color is repellent, almost revolting; a smouldering unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.
It is a dull yet lurid20 orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint21 in others.
No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.
There comes John, and I must put this away,—he hates to have me write a word.
We have been here two weeks, and I haven't felt like writing before, since that first day.
I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.
John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.
I am glad my case is not serious!
But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.
John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no REASON to suffer, and that satisfies him.
Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!
I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!
Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able,—to dress and entertain, and order things.
It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!
And yet I CANNOT be with him, it makes me so nervous.
I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall-paper!
At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.
He said that after the wall-paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.
"You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, dear, I don't care to renovate22 the house just for a three months' rental23."
"Then do let us go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms there."
Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed24 into the bargain.
But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.
It is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim25.
I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid26 paper.
Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deepshaded arbors, the riotous27 old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.
Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf28 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 stimulating29 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 positively30 angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness31. 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 kindly32 wink33 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 hop34 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 ravages35 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 perseverance36 as well as hatred37.
Then the floor is scratched and gouged38 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 housekeeper39, 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 winding40 road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet41 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 skulk42 about behind that silly and conspicuous43 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 Weir44 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 undertaking45 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 a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.
So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal.
I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall-paper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wall-paper.
It dwells in my mind so!
I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I WILL follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.
I know a little of the principle of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.
It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.
Looked at in one way each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes—a kind of "debased Romanesque" with delirium46 tremens—go waddling47 up and down in isolated48 columns of fatuity49.
But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting50 waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.
The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.
They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze51, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.
There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the crosslights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation after all,—the interminable grotesques52 seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges53 of equal distraction54.
It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap I guess.
I don't know why I should write this.
I don't want to.
I don't feel able.
And I know John would think it absurd. But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way—it is such a relief!
But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.
Half the time now I am awfully55 lazy, and lie down ever so much.
John says I musn't lose my strength, and has me take cod56 liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.
Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.
But he said I wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.
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1
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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mansion
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| n.大厦，大楼；宅第 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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scoffs
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| 嘲笑，嘲弄( scoff的第三人称单数 ) | |
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6
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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7
hysterical
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| adj.情绪异常激动的，歇斯底里般的 | |
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8
tonics
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| n.滋补品( tonic的名词复数 )；主音；奎宁水；浊音 | |
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9
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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unreasonably
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| adv. 不合理地 | |
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piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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13
prescription
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| n.处方，开药；指示，规定 | |
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solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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15
sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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16
flamboyant
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| adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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18
lame
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| adj.跛的，(辩解、论据等)无说服力的 | |
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outrageous
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| adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的 | |
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lurid
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| adj.可怕的；血红的；苍白的 | |
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21
tint
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| n.淡色，浅色；染发剂；vt.着以淡淡的颜色 | |
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22
renovate
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| vt.更新，革新，刷新 | |
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rental
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| n.租赁，出租，出租业 | |
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24
whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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horrid
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| adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的 | |
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riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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wharf
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| n.码头，停泊处 | |
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stimulating
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| adj.有启发性的，能激发人思考的 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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everlastingness
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32
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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33
wink
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| n.眨眼，使眼色，瞬间；v.眨眼，使眼色，闪烁 | |
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34
hop
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| n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过 | |
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35
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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36
perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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38
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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39
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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40
winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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41
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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42
skulk
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| v.藏匿；潜行 | |
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43
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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44
weir
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| n.堰堤，拦河坝 | |
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45
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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46
delirium
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| n. 神智昏迷,说胡话;极度兴奋 | |
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47
waddling
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| v.（像鸭子一样）摇摇摆摆地走( waddle的现在分词 ) | |
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48
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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49
fatuity
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| n.愚蠢，愚昧 | |
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50
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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51
frieze
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| n.(墙上的)横饰带，雕带 | |
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52
grotesques
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| n.衣着、打扮、五官等古怪，不协调的样子( grotesque的名词复数 ) | |
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53
plunges
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| n.跳进，投入vt.使投入，使插入，使陷入vi.投入，跳进，陷入v.颠簸( plunge的第三人称单数 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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54
distraction
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| n.精神涣散，精神不集中，消遣，娱乐 | |
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55
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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56
cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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