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Ethan Frome

Edith Wharton

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EEddiittoorriiaall

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The Life and Works of Edith Wharton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Echoes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

Time Line of Wharton’s Life. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii

The Historical Context of Ethan Frome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x

Characters in Ethan Frome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii

Illustration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Introduction by Edith Wharton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiv

Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chapter 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Chapter 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Chapter 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Chapter 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Plot Analysis of Ethan Frome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Creative Writing Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Critical Writing Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Selections for Additional Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Handbook of Literary Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Table of Contents

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF

Edith Wharton

EEddiitthh WWhhaarrttoonn ((11886622––11993377)).. In 1862, Edith Newbold Jones was born into a wealthy and distinguished New York family. Her family traveled to Europe when she was three years old to escape the inflation that followed the Civil War. There they remained for eight years. Her private education by a gov- erness was supplemented by her own voracious reading. At the age of seventeen, Wharton made her debut into society. Her first engagement was broken by her fiancé’s mother, who was angered by the cold reception she received from the Jones family. Shortly after this incident, Wharton met Walter Berry and, although they did not meet again for sev- eral years, the two became lifelong friends. In 1885, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, a rich Boston banker twelve years her senior.

In the early 1890s, Wharton began to suffer from severe depression. After a series of rest cures, she recovered only to dis- cover her husband’s mental illness. In 1901, she designed and built The Mount, a country house in Lenox, Massachusetts, which served as a retreat from society where she could work steadily. Concern for her husband’s ill health kept her from making The Mount her permanent home, but for several years the Whartons spent summer and autumn there. Teddy Wharton’s condition grew worse; beginning in the spring of 1908, he had several affairs and used his wife’s money to sup- port his social interests. Wharton had an affair as well, with Morton Fullerton, also a writer. A stay in a sanitarium seemed to help Teddy’s condition, but Wharton’s marriage did not improve. She decided to sell The Mount and move permanently to France. Wharton’s unhappy and unsatisfy- ing marriage to Teddy Wharton ended in divorce in 1913.

Wharton lived as an expatriate in France for the rest of her life. During World War I she dedicated four years to the war effort, serving as the head of the American committee of an organization called the Accueil Franco-American, which dis- tributed meals, clothing, and information. When asked by the queen of Belgium to aid 650 orphans, she established the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee to care for the children

iv ETHAN FROME

Edith Wharton

and place them in homes; she took six children into her own home. To support the cause, Wharton organized The Book of the Homeless, a compilation of works donated by musicians, such as Igor Stravinsky; artists, including Claude Monet and Auguste Rodin; and writers, including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and William Butler Yeats. Wharton translated the works that were not written in English.

Wharton’s war efforts taxed her health considerably. She spent her last winters at Pavillon Colombe, an eighteenth- century house outside of Paris that she began restoring in 1918, and her last summers at a restored monastery at Hyères. She maintained contact with her homeland through corre- spondence with the people she knew in the United States. She returned to her country rarely, on one occasion in 1923 for only a few days to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University. She was the first woman to be so honored. In 1924, she also became the first woman to receive the Gold Medal of the American Society of Arts and Letters. When Wharton died in 1937, she was buried in Cimetière des Gonards at Versailles next to the ashes of Walter Berry.

From childhood, Wharton had a passion for words and writing. Her efforts were not taken seriously, however, and were often referred to as “scribbling.” When she was sixteen, she wrote a volume of poetry which her parents, despite their disapproval of her literary activity, had published pri- vately. Wharton struggled with the expectations of her social role as a woman of the upper class and her own liter- ary aspirations for many years. During her early years as a writer, she had little encouragement other than from Berry, who greatly influenced her work and aided in the editing and revising process. Her husband did not share her literary and creative interests, but the two did share a passion for travel. After a trip to Europe with her husband in 1888, Wharton’s productivity began to escalate. She published poetry and short stories in magazines such as Scribner’s and Harper’s. Critics called her stories of this period Jamesian in reference to qualities they shared with the writings of American writer Henry James. After reading several of Wharton’s short stories, James wrote to her, and they met in 1903 in London. James visited Wharton at The Mount and in Paris; they also traveled together. The two authors shared an interest in literary theory and in examining the craft of fiction. Wharton was only beginning her career when she met James, who had already published several distinguished works. She was, however, not his disciple; her work is not derivative of his. Rather, each author supported the other.

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF EDITH WHARTON v

During her early career, Wharton distinguished herself with nonfiction writing as well as with short stories. An interest in order and aesthetics and her desire to improve her home in Newport, Rhode Island, led Wharton to collaborate with architect Ogden Codman, Jr. on a book entitled The Decoration of Houses, which was published in 1897. Other nonfiction works include Italian Villas and Their Gardens and Italian Backgrounds. Throughout her career, Wharton wrote about both European and American subjects and settings. Her first novellas, The Touchstone and Sanctuary, were not as well polished as her short stories. They were followed by sev- eral novels which established her as one of America’s great writers. Her first novel, Valley of Decision, addresses a recur- ring theme in her work, the struggle between individual free- dom and the role of society, a struggle Wharton herself knew well. The House of Mirth, published in 1905, established Wharton’s fame and is still considered one of her best works. Two years later, Madame de Treymes and The Fruit of the Tree were published.

Ethan Frome was published in 1911, first serially in Scribner’s Magazine, and then in book form. The novella, now perhaps Wharton’s best known and most widely read work, did not achieve wide commercial or critical success until the 1920s. Wharton’s other novels include The Reef; The Buccaneers; The Custom of the Country, which critics deem one of her highest achievements; and The Age of Innocence, another critically acclaimed novel, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Wharton’s complete works include other novels; several collections of short stories; collections of poetry; many reviews and articles; The Writing of Fiction, Wharton’s ideas about the craft of writing; and A Backward Glance, her autobiography.

vi ETHAN FROME

ECHOES vii

Echoes: Quotations from Edith Wharton

My poor little group of hungry, lonely New England villagers will live again for a while on their stony hill-side before finally joining their forebears under the vil- lage headstones.

—from Wharton’s introduction to the dramatic adaptation of Ethan Frome

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immatu- rity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

—from The Art of Writing Fiction

The New York of Newland Archer’s day was a small and slippery pyramid, in which, as yet, hardly a fissure had been made or a foothold gained. At its base was a firm foundation of what Mrs. Archer called “plain people”; an honorable but obscure majority of respectable families who . . . had been raised above their level by marriage with one of the ruling clans. People, Mrs. Archer always said, were not as particular as they used to be; and with old Catherine Spicer ruling one end of Fifth Avenue, and Julius Beaufort the other, you couldn’t expect the old traditions to last much longer.

—from The Age of Innocence

She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.

—from The House of Mirth

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.

—from Xingu

There are two ways of spreading light—to be the candle or the mirror that reflects the candle.

Life is the saddest thing, next to death.

If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral issue.

viii ETHAN FROME

1862

1865–1872

1872–1879

1879

1880–1882

1882

1884

1885

1888

early 1890s

1891–1893

1897

1900

1901

1902

1903

1904

1905

1907

1909

1910

1911

Time Line of Wharton’s Life

Edith (Newbold Jones) Wharton is born on January 24 in New York.

Wharton lives in Europe with her family.

Wharton spends winters in New York and summers at the family home in Newport, Rhode Island.

Wharton makes her social debut.

Wharton travels in France and Italy.

Wharton’s father dies, and Wharton lives with her mother in New York City and Newport.

Wharton meets Walter Berry, who becomes a dear friend.

Edith marries Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton.

Wharton and her husband cruise the Aegean for three months. They return to Land’s End in Newport.

Wharton suffers from depression.

Wharton writes “Bunner Sisters.”

Wharton publishes The Decoration of Houses, a book that she wrote with architect Ogden Codman, Jr.

Wharton publishes her first novella, The Touchstone.

Wharton builds The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Wharton publishes her first novel, Valley of Decision.

Wharton meets fellow author Henry James. Teddy Wharton begins to show signs of mental illness.

Wharton publishes Descent of Man and Other Stories and Italian Villas and Their Gardens.

Italian Backgrounds and The House of Mirth are published.

Wharton travels in France with her husband and Henry James. She pub- lishes Madam de Treymes, A Motor Flight Through France, The Greater Inclination, and The Fruit of the Tree. Teddy Wharton has a severe mental breakdown. The Whartons take a winter home in Paris.

Wharton moves to a new home in France where she will live until 1920. Artemis to Actaeon, a collection of poetry, is published.

Teddy Wharton has continued mental health problems.

Ethan Frome is published. Wharton separates from her husband and sells The Mount.

TIME LINE OF WHARTON’S LIFE ix

The Reef is published.

Wharton divorces her husband. She travels in Germany with Bernard Berenson. The Custom of the Country is published.

Wharton travels in northern Africa with Percy Lubbock and Gaillard Lapsley and in Majorca with Walter Berry. She returns to Paris and orga- nizes war relief.

Fighting France is published.

The Book of the Homeless is published. Wharton takes charge of more than six hundred Belgian orphans. Henry James dies.

Summer and Xingu and Other Stories are published. Belgium awards Wharton the Order of Leopold. She is made a member of the French Legion of Honor.

Wharton buys Pavillon Colombe, a house near Paris.

In Morocco and The Age of Innocence are published. Wharton restores a medieval monastery on the Riviera as a summer home.

Wharton receives the Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence.

Wharton is the first woman to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by Yale University. She makes her last trip to the United States to receive it.

The Mother’s Recompense and The Writing of Fiction are published.

Twelve Poems and Here and Beyond are published. Wharton charters a yacht to repeat her Aegean cruise of 1888.

Twilight Sleep is published. Walter Berry dies.

Teddy Wharton dies.

Hudson River Bracketed is published. Wharton is seriously ill.

Certain People is published. Wharton is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Wharton’s autobiography, A Backward Glance, is published.

Ghosts and Buccaneers are published. Wharton dies on August 11, follow- ing a stroke. She is buried in Cimetière des Gonards at Versailles next to the ashes of Walter Berry.

1912

1913

1914

1915

1916

1917

1918

1920

1921

1923

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1934

1937

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF

Ethan Frome

Sources of Ethan Frome and Wharton’s Literary Background

Edith Wharton first wrote the seed of the story that would become Ethan Frome as part of an exercise given to her by her French tutor. The French story is a mere skeleton and differs greatly from the final version of Ethan Frome; in the final ver- sion, Wharton introduces a more complex structure and delves deeper into the emotional despair of the relationships Ethan Frome has with his wife and with Mattie Silver. The idea of the dramatic “smash-up,” mentioned early in the story, may have come from a newspaper account of an actual sledding accident in western Massachusetts (see Selections for Additional Reading, page 111).

Wharton read widely and liked to examine the technical aspects of writing, including how books are structured. The structure of Ethan Frome, in which a first-person narrator opens a frame for the central story, can be compared to Emily Brontë’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights. In Wharton’s introduction to Ethan Frome, she tells the reader that she has chosen a form used by Honoré de Balzac in La Grande Bretêche and by Robert Browning in The Ring and the Book (see page xvi). Both of these works explore different versions of a single story and struggle to find truth amid the various details; in the same way, the narrator of Ethan Frome tries to satisfy his own curiosity by collecting the pieces of Frome’s story and putting them together.

Local-Color Writing and Wharton’s New England

The literature of the early nineteenth century in America was dominated by Romanticism and centered in New England. Romantic writers usually wrote sentimental, nos- talgic, and idealistic pieces, designed to inspire lofty emotions. In the latter part of the century, regional local-color writing became increasingly popular. As the United States expanded, interest in other areas of the growing country increased, and writers such as Brett Harte and Mark Twain vividly depicted the unique dialect and social customs of the West or along the Mississippi. During the post–Civil War period, local-color writing, which was often nostalgic in nature, also served to

x ETHAN FROME

celebrate a past way of life and to glorify the far-flung regions of the newly united country. Local-color writers combined elements of Romanticism and Realism to create a detailed, though often idealistic, view of a region. Wharton shunned the sentimentality of many New England local-color writers, noting, “I had had an uneasy sense that the New England of fiction bore little—except a vague botanical and dialectical— resemblance to the harsh and beautiful land as I had seen it.” She believed that the work of such writers as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, and Sarah Orne Jewett denied the substance of the New England experience. Wharton’s often hard-edged and bleak depictions of New England earned her a great deal of criticism.

Unlike many of Wharton’s novels, including The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence, which focus on the lives of the wealthy and socially powerful people of turn-of-the-century New York, Ethan Frome is set in a rural New England village and addresses the lives of the destitute inhabitants of this isolated area. One critic mistakenly called the novella “an interesting example of a successful New England story writ- ten by someone who knew nothing of New England.” In fact, Wharton did know New England, living for several years at The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. During this time she often drove through the countryside, examining the landscape and the people of the region she toured. In the late nineteenth century, many small communities in rural New England declined, presenting Wharton with a starkness she later depicted in her fiction. Wharton also notes the devastation and grimness of the winters that made life there even more difficult and added to its isolation.

TThhee GGrroowwtthh ooff CCiittiieess aanndd WWeessttwwaarrdd EExxppaannssiioonn

The declining population in rural New England can be attributed to several causes, including an exodus to urban areas and the lure of the West. By 1900, 40 percent of the American population lived in urban areas. Many who lost hope in the crowded cities of the East set out for a new life in the West. The Homestead Act of 1862, which, for a small fee, granted 160 acres of land in the Western Territories to anyone who would live on the land for five years, as well as gold rushes prompted many to seek their fortunes in the West. The lure of the West continued in the following decades.

Ethan Frome is set in Starkfield, an isolated village, during a time when cities were preeminent. Ethan continues to farm as the economy shifts to industry, but like many people of the period, when he finally seeks a way out of the life he knows, he looks to the West for a new start.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF ETHAN FROME xi

Characters in Ethan Frome

Main Characters

EEtthhaann FFrroommee.. The title character of the novel, Ethan Frome is first presented as a broken man, aged beyond his years. His disfiguration and tragic appearance catch the attention of the narrator, who offers a “vision” of the story that led to his “smash-up.”

ZZeennoobbiiaa ((ZZeeeennaa)) FFrroommee.. Zeena is Ethan’s wife. She came to Starkfield to nurse his ailing mother. She often complains of being sickly herself.

MMaattttiiee SSiillvveerr.. Mattie Silver is a cousin to Zeena. After the death of her parents, she was left without home or money. Zeena takes her in to help around the house.

NNaarrrraattoorr.. The narrator’s name is never revealed. He is an out- sider who has been sent to the small town of Starkfield to work on an engineering project. He is fascinated by the story of Ethan Frome, some of which he learns from Harmon Gow, some from Mrs. Ned Hale with whom he is staying, and some when he is thrust into the Frome house.

Minor Characters

HHaarrmmoonn GGooww.. Harmon Gow works at the post office and shares stories and local information with the narrator.

RRuutthh VVaarrnnuumm ((MMrrss.. NNeedd HHaallee)).. The narrator stays with Mrs. Ned Hale, whose maiden name was Ruth Varnum. As young women, Ruth and Mattie were close friends. She was one of the first to see Mattie after the “smash-up.”

NNeedd HHaallee.. Ned Hale is a young man of about Mattie Silver’s age. He marries Ruth Varnum.

AAnnddrreeww HHaallee.. Andrew Hale is a friendly and happy-go-lucky builder to whom Ethan sells lumber. He is Ned’s father.

DDeenniiss EEaaddyy.. Denis Eady is the son of a merchant. He is infat- uated with Mattie Silver.

JJootthhaamm PPoowweellll.. Jotham Powell sometimes works as a handy- man on Ethan’s farm. He is often glad of a free meal.

xii ETHAN FROME

ILLUSTRATION xiii

“The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk, gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night opening out below them and the air singing by like an organ.”

INTRODUCTION

by Edith Wharton

I had known something of New England village life long before I made my home in the same county as my imaginary Starkfield; though, during the years spent there, certain of its aspects became much more familiar to me.

Even before that final initiation, however, I had had an uneasy sense that the New England of fiction bore little— except a vague botanical and dialectical—resemblance to the harsh and beautiful land as I had seen it. Even the abundant enumeration of sweet-fern, asters and mountain-laurel, and the conscientious reproduction of the vernacular, left me with the feeling that the outcropping granite had in both cases been overlooked. I give the impression merely as a per- sonal one; it accounts for Ethan Frome, and may, to some readers, in a measure justify it.

So much for the origin of the story; there is nothing else of interest to say of it, except as concerns its construction.

The problem before me, as I saw in the first flash, was this: I had to deal with a subject of which the dramatic climax, or rather the anti-climax, occurs a generation later than the first acts of the tragedy. This enforced lapse of time would seem to anyone persuaded—as I have always been—that every subject (in the novelist’s sense of the term) implicitly con- tains its own form and dimensions, to mark Ethan Frome as the subject for a novel. But I never thought this for a moment, for I had felt, at the same time, that the theme of my tale was not one on which many variations could be played. It must be treated as starkly and summarily as life had always pre- sented itself to my protagonists; any attempt to elaborate and complicate their sentiments would necessarily have falsified the whole. They were, in truth, these figures, my granite outcroppings; but half-emerged from the soil, and scarcely more articulate.

This incompatibility between subject and plan would per- haps have seemed to suggest that my “situation” was after all one to be rejected. Every novelist has been visited by the insinuating wraiths of false “good situations,” siren-subjects luring his cockle-shell to the rocks; their voice is oftenest heard, and their mirage-sea beheld, as he traverses the

xiv ETHAN FROME

waterless desert which awaits him half-way through what- ever work is actually in hand. I knew well enough what song those sirens sang, and had often tied myself to my dull job until they were out of hearing—perhaps carrying a lost mas- terpiece in their rainbow veils. But I had no such fear of them in the case of Ethan Frome. It was the first subject I had ever approached with full confidence in its value, for my own purpose, and a relative faith in my power to render at least a part of what I saw in it.

Every novelist, again, who “intends upon” his art, has lit upon such subjects, and been fascinated by the difficulty of presenting them in the fullest relief, yet without an added ornament, or a trick of drapery or lighting. This was my task, if I were to tell the story of Ethan Frome; and my scheme of construction—which met with the immediate and unquali- fied disapproval of the few friends to whom I tentatively outlined it—I still think justified in the given case. It appears to me, indeed, that, while an air of artificiality is lent to a tale of complex and sophisticated people which the nov- elist causes to be guessed at and interpreted by any mere looker-on, there need be no such drawback if the looker-on is sophisticated, and the people he interprets are simple. If he is capable of seeing all around them, no violence is done to probability in allowing him to exercise this faculty; it is natural enough that he should act as the sympathizing intermediary between his rudimentary characters and the more complicated minds to whom he is trying to present them. But this is all self-evident, and needs explaining only to those who have never thought of fiction as an art of composition.

The real merit of my construction seems to me to lie in a minor detail. I had to find means to bring my tragedy, in a way at once natural and picture-making, to the knowledge of its narrator. I might have sat him down before a village gos- sip who would have poured out the whole affair to him in a breath, but in doing this I should have been false to two essential elements of my picture: first, the deep rooted reti- cence and inarticulateness of the people I was trying to draw, and secondly the effect of “roundness” (in the plastic sense) produced by letting their case be seen through eyes as differ- ent as those of Harmon Gow and Mrs. Ned Hale. Each of my chroniclers contributes to the narrative just so much as he or she is capable of understanding of what, to them, is a com- plicated and mysterious case; and only the narrator of the tale has scope enough to see it all, to resolve it back into simplicity, and to put it in its rightful place among his larger categories.

INTRODUCTION xv

I make no claim for originality in following a method of which La Grande Bretêche and The Ring and the Book had set me the magnificent example; my one merit is, perhaps to have guessed that the proceeding there employed was also applic- able to my small tale.

I have written this brief analysis—the first I have ever published of any of my books—because, as an author’s introduction to his work, I can imagine nothing of any value to his readers except a statement as to why he decided to attempt the work in question, and why he selected one form rather than another for its embodiment. These primary aims, the only ones that can be explicitly stated, must, by the artist, be almost instinctively felt and acted upon before there can pass into his creation that imponderable some- thing more which causes life to circulate in it, and preserves it for a little from decay.

EDITH WHARTON.

xvi ETHAN FROME

PROLOGUE

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post office. If you know the post office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay1 and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colon nade:2 and you must have asked who he was.

It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank longitude3 from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley4 days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.

‘’He’s looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago come next February,” Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.

The “smash-up” it was—I gathered from the same infor- mant—which besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome’s fore head, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post office window. He used to drive in from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of the

PROLOGUE 1

1. bbaayy.. Reddish-brown horse 2. ccoolloonnnnaaddee.. Set of columns supporting a roof 3. lloonnggiittuuddee.. Length. Here, height 4. pprree--ttrroolllleeyy.. Before the coming of trolleys, electric streetcars that got their

power from overhead wires

WWords For EverydayUse stri • king (str�¯́ki˜) adj., outstanding, impressivelank (lãk) adj., long and slendergriz • zled (�riz´əld´) adj., gray-hairedchron • i • cle (krän´i kəl) n., historical record of facts and events in the order inwhich they happenedrem • i • nis • cent (rem´ə niś́ ənt) adj., characterized by recall of the past

√ Why is Ethan Frome a striking fig- ure? What else does the narrator notice about his figure? What surprises the narrator?

√ What effect has the “smash-up” had on Ethan?

distributing hand behind the grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a glance into his sagging pocket. At intervals, however, the postmas- ter would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia—or Mrs. Zeena—Frome, and usually bearing con- spicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his spe- cific.5 These documents my neighbor would also pocket without a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post master.

Everyone in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for a word. When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the speaker’s face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.

“It was a pretty bad smash-up?” I questioned Harmon, looking after Frome’s retreating figure, and thinking how gal- lantly his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent out of shape.

“Wust6 kind,” my informant assented. “More’n enough to kill most men. But the Fromes are tough. Ethan’ll likely touch a hundred.”

“Good God!” I exclaimed. At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box—also with a druggist’s label on it—which he had placed in the back of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought himself alone. “That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!”

Harmon drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off a wedge and pressed it into the leather pouch of his cheek.

2 ETHAN FROME

5. ssppeecciiffiicc.. Medicine having a specific effect on a disease 6. WWuusstt.. Worst

WWords For EverydayUse con • spic • u • ous • ly (kən spik´yo�o— əs lē)adv., noticeablytem • pered (tem´pərd) adj., adjustedgrave (�rāv) adj., serious mien (mēn) n., way of looking, appearanceta • ci • turn • i • ty (tas´ə t r´nə tē) n.,silence, dislike of much conversation

® What does Ethan usually receive in the mail? How does he react to what he receives?

“Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters. Most of the smart ones get away.”

“Why didn’t he?” “Somebody had to stay and care for the folks. There

warn’t ever anybody but Ethan. Fust7 his father—then his mother—then his wife.”

“And then the smash-up?” Harmon chuckled sardonically. “That’s so. He had to stay

then.” “I see. And since then they’ve had to care for him?” Harmon thoughtfully passed his tobacco to the other cheek.

“Oh, as to that: I guess it’s always Ethan done the caring.” Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his

mental and moral reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps. But one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus8 about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: “Guess he’s been in Starkfield too many winters.”

Before my own time there was up I had learned to know what that meant. Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural delivery,9 when communication was easy between the scattered mountain villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and Shadd’s Falls, had libraries, theaters and YMCA halls to which the youth of the hills could descend for recreation. But when winter shut down on Starkfield, and the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life there—or rather its negation—must have been in Ethan Frome’s young manhood.

I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters’ strike had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield—the nearest habitable spot—for the best part of the winter. I chafed at first, and then, under the hypnotizing effect of routine, gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life. During the early part of my stay I had been struck by the contrast between the

PROLOGUE 3

7. FFuusstt.. First 8. nnuucclleeuuss.. Center around which other things are grouped 9. rruurraall ddeelliivveerryy.. Mail delivery to those in remote farm areas

WWords For EverydayUse sub • se • quent (sub´si kwənt) adj., followingin • fer • ence (in´ fər əns) n., conclusionbased on direct evidencede • gen • er • ate (dē jeń ə rit) adj., having sunk below a previous or normal conditionne • ga • tion (ni �ā´shən) n., lack or opposite of some positive traitchafe (chāf) vt., rebel

√ What effect does Harmon suggest the winters in Starkfield have had on Ethan? Why didn’t Ethan get away?

√ What does the narrator realize about the winters in Starkfield during Ethan’s youth?

√ In what way does the weather contrast with the life in the community?

vitality of the climate and the deadness of the community. Day by day, after the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their sup- port; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months’ siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.10 Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer, and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister force of Harmon’s phrase: “Most of the smart ones get away.” But if that were the case, how could any combination of obstacles have hin- dered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome?

During my stay at Starkfield I lodged with a middle-aged widow colloquially known as Mrs. Ned Hale. Mrs. Hale’s father had been the village lawyer of the previous genera- tion, and “lawyer Varnum’s house,” where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable mansion in the village. It stood at one end of the main street, its clas- sic portico11 and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational church. It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb,12 but the two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs. Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keep- ing with her pale old-fashioned house.

In the “best parlor,” with its black horsehair13 and

4 ETHAN FROME

10. ppiittcchheedd wwhhiittee tteennttss .. .. .. wwiitthhoouutt qquuaarrtteerr.. Extended metaphor in which the storms of February set up camp for battle, are aided by the winds of March, and the town comes out of a period of being attacked and held prisoner, after six months of winter, like a hungry group of soldiers who surrender without receiving mercy 11. ppoorrttiiccoo.. Covered porch, its roof supported by columns 12. eebbbb.. Low point 13. hhoorrsseehhaaiirr.. Stiff, upholstery cloth made of the hair from a horse’s mane or tail

WWords For EverydayUse re • tard • ing (rē tär´di˜) n., slowingslug • gish (slu�´ish) adj., unwilling tomove, slowbe • lea • guered (bē lē´�ərd) adj., attacked sin • i • ster (sin´ is tər) adj., threatening evilwan (wän) adj., weak, pale

mahogany weakly illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle. It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sen- sibility and a little more education had put just enough dis- tance between herself and her neighbors to enable her to judge them with detachment. She was not unwilling to exer- cise this faculty, and I had great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome’s story, or rather such a key to his character as should coordinate the facts I knew. Her mind was a storehouse of innocuous anecdote and any ques- tion about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unex- pectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low “Yes, I knew them both . . . it was awful . . .” seeming to be the utmost concession that her distress could make to my curiosity.

So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case anew to my village oracle,14 Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an uncomprehending grunt.

“Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of it, she was the first one to see ’em after they was picked up. It happened right below lawyer Varnum’s, down at the bend of the Corbury road, just round about the time that Ruth got engaged to Ned Hale. The young folks was all friends, and I guess she just can’t bear to talk about it. She’s had troubles enough of her own.”

All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable commu- nities, had had troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to those of their neighbors, and though all conceded that Ethan Frome’s had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put there. Nevertheless, I might have contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had it not been for the

PROLOGUE 5

14. oorraaccllee.. Person of great knowledge

WWords For EverydayUse sen • si • bil • i • ty (sen´sə bil´́ə tē) n., abilityto feel or notice thingsde • tach • ment (dē tach´mənt) n., distance in • noc • u • ous (in näk´yo�o— əs) adj., harmlessret • i • cent (ret́ ə sint) adj., holding back in • sur • mount • a • ble (iń s r mount ´́əbəl) adj., unbeatablein • i • ti • a • tion (in ish´ē ā´́shən) n., priv-ileged information

√ From whom does the narrator receive a second version of the story of Ethan Frome? In what way does this story differ from the story told by Harmon Gow?

√ Is the narrator satisfied with the answers to his ques- tions about Ethan Frome? Why, or why not?

√ What reason does Harmon suggest for Ruth’s reticence?

provocation of Mrs. Hale’s silence, and—a little later—for the accident of personal contact with the man.

On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish gro- cer who was the proprietor of Starkfield’s nearest approach to a livery stable,15 had entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where I had to pick up my train for the Junction. But about the middle of the winter Eady’s horses fell ill of a local epidemic. The illness spread to the other Starkfield stables and for a day or two I was put to it to find a means of transport. Then Harmon Gow suggested that Ethan Frome’s bay was still on his legs and that his owner might be glad to drive me over.

I stared at the suggestion. “Ethan Frome? But I’ve never even spoken to him. Why on earth should he put himself out for me?”

Harmon’s answer surprised me still more. “I don’t know as he would; but I know he wouldn’t be sorry to earn a dollar.”

I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the sawmill and the arid acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon’s words implied, and I expressed my wonder.

“Well, matters ain’t gone any too well with him,” Harmon said. “When a man’s been setting round like a hulk for twenty years or more, seeing things that want doing, it eats inter him, and he loses his grit. That Frome farm was always ’bout as bare’s a milk pan when the cat’s been round; and you know what one of them old watermills is wuth nowa- days. When Ethan could sweat over ’em both from sun-up to dark he kinder choked a living out of ’em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then, and I don’t see how he makes out now. Fust his father got a kick, out haying,16 and went soft in the brain, and gave away money like Bible texts afore he died. Then his mother got queer17 and dragged along for years as weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she’s always been the greatest hand at doctoring in the county. Sickness and trouble: that’s what Ethan’s had his plate full up with, ever since the very first helping.”

6 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse pro • vo • ca • tion (präv´ə kā´́shin) n., that which excitesaction or feelinga • rid (ar´id) adj., dry and barren 15. lliivveerryy ssttaabbllee.. Place where horses could be rented 16. ggoott aa kkiicckk,, oouutt hhaayyiinngg.. Was kicked by a horse while cutting hay in the fields 17. qquueeeerr.. Mentally unstable

® Under what con- ditions does the nar- rator meet Ethan?

® What troubles have plagued the Frome family?

The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow- backed bay between the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin, made room for me in the sleigh at his side. After that, for a week, he drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to Starkfield. The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old bay’s pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were nearly an hour on the way. Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the bronze image of a hero. He never turned his face to mine, or answered, except in monosyllables, the questions I put, or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived in a depth of moral isola- tion too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.

Only once or twice was the distance between us bridged for a moment; and the glimpses thus gained confirmed my desire to know more. Once I happened to speak of an engi- neering job I had been on the previous year in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise Frome said suddenly, “Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter. But now it’s all snowed under.”

He said no more, and I had to guess the rest from the inflection of his voice and his sharp relapse into silence.

Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a volume of popular science—I think it was on some recent discoveries in biochemistry—which I had carried with me to read on the way. I thought no more about it till I got into the sleigh again that evening, and saw the book in Frome’s hand.

“I found it after you were gone,” he said.

PROLOGUE 7

WWords For EverydayUse ven • ture (veń chər) vt., undertake the risk ofmute (myo�o— t) adj., silentmel • an • cho • ly (mel´ən kä´lē) adj., sadin • car • na • tion (in kär nā´shən) n., example in human form of a qualitysen • tient (sen´shənt) adj., capable of feelingin • flec • tion (in flek´shən) n., change intone or pitch of the voice

√ Where had Ethan once visited? What does his comment about his memory of this place suggest about the winters in Starkfield?

I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his face to mine.

“There are things in that book that I didn’t know the first word about,” he said.

I wondered less at his words than at the queer note of resentment in his voice. He was evidently surprised and slightly aggrieved at his own ignorance.

“Does that sort of thing interest you?” I asked. “It used to.” “There are one or two rather new things in the book: there

have been some big strides lately in that particular line of research.’’ I waited a moment for an answer that did not come; then I said, “If you’d like to look the book through I’d be glad to leave it with you.”

He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, “Thank you—I’ll take it,” he answered shortly.

I hoped that this incident might set up some more direct communication between us. Frome was so simple and straightforward that I was sure his curiosity about the book was based on a genuine interest in its subject. Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least unseal his lips. But something in his past history, or in his present way of living, had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any casual impulse to draw him back to his kind. At our next meeting he made no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.

Frome had been driving me over to the Flats for about a week when one morning I looked out of my window into a thick snow fall. The height of the white waves massed against the garden fence and along the wall of the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night, and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. I thought it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I

8 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse ag • grieved (ə �rēvd´) adj., offendedin • er • tia (in r´shə) n., state of beingresistent to action or changeac • quire • ment (ə kw�¯r´ ment) n., learned skill or knowledgepoign • ant (poiń yənt) adj., sadly affectingor touchingal • lu • sion (ə lo�o— ´zhin) n., reference

® What tone does the narrator note in Ethan’s voice when he talks about the content of the book the narrator had left in the sleigh? Why might Ethan have such a reaction?

decided, if Frome turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait there till my train came in. I don’t know why I put it in the conditional, however, for I never doubted that Frome would appear. He was not the kind of man to be turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a stage apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.

I was getting to know him too well to express either won- der or gratitude at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him turn his horse in a direc- tion opposite to that of the Corbury road.

“The railroad’s blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift below the Flats,” he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging whiteness.

“But look here—where are you taking me, then?” “Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way,” he

answered, pointing up School House Hill with his whip. “To the Junction—in this storm? Why, it’s a good ten

miles!” “The bay’ll do it if you give him time. You said you had

some business there this afternoon. I’ll see you get there.” He said it so quietly that I could only answer, “You’re

doing me the biggest kind of a favor.” “That’s all right,” he rejoined. Abreast18 of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we

dipped down a lane to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the weight of the snow. I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew that the soli- tary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was that of Frome’s sawmill. It looked exanimate19

enough, with its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sag- ging under their white load. Frome did not even turn his head as we drove by, and still in silence we began to mount the next slope. About a mile farther, on a road I had never traveled, we came to an orchard of starved apple trees writhing over a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow like animals pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, their

PROLOGUE 9

18. AAbbrreeaasstt.. Next to 19. eexxaanniimmaattee.. Dead, without spirit or movement

WWords For EverydayUse ap • pa • ri • tion (ap´ə rish´́ən) n., ghost;strange figureloom (lo�o—m) vi., appear large and threateningwrithe (r �̄ th) vi., twist and turn out • crop • ping (out́ krä pi˜) n., exposedrocknuz • zle (nuz´əl) vi., rub with the nose

√ What does the narrator recognize about Ethan? Why is he surprised when Ethan turns? What does Ethan’s action suggest about his character?

boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farmhouses that make the landscape lonelier.

“That’s my place,” said Frome, with a sideway jerk of his lame elbow; and in the distress and oppression of the scene I did not know what to answer. The snow had ceased, and a flash of watery sunlight exposed the house on the slope above us in all its plaintive ugliness. The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.

“The house was bigger in my father’s time: I had to take down the ‘L,’ a while back,” Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein the bay’s evident intention of turn- ing in through the broken-down gate.

I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the “L”: that long deep-roofed adjunct20 usually built at right angles to the main house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and toolhouse, with the woodshed and cowbarn. Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get to their morning’s work without facing the weather, it is certain that the “L” rather than the house itself seems to be the center, the actual hearthstone of the New England farm. Perhaps this connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome’s words, and to see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.

“We’re kinder side-tracked here now,” he added, “but there was considerable passing before the railroad was car- ried through to the Flats.” He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for any farther pretense of reserve, he went on slowly, “I’ve always set down the

10 ETHAN FROME

20. aaddjjuunncctt.. Addition of secondary importance

WWords For EverydayUse con • so • la • to • ry (kan sä´́ lə tôr´ē) adj., comforting

® What effect does Ethan’s house have on the landscape?

® What makes Ethan’s house look especially forlorn?

® What effect has the train had on the Fromes? In what way did the railroad especially affect Ethan’s mother?

worst of mother’s trouble to that. When she got the rheuma- tism so bad she couldn’t move around she used to sit up there and watch the road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate most days to see him. But after the trains begun running nobody ever come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died.”

As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome’s silence fell with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence. This time the wind did not cease with the return of the snow. Instead, it sprang up to a gale which now and then, from a tattered sky, flung pale sweeps of sunlight over a landscape chaotically tossed. But the bay was as good as Frome’s word, and we pushed on to the Junction through the wild white scene.

In the afternoon the storm held off, and the clearness in the west seemed to my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I finished my business as quickly as possible, and we set out for Starkfield with a good chance of getting there for supper. But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning. It seemed to be a part of the thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself descending on us layer by layer.

The small ray of Frome’s lantern was soon lost in this smothering medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay’s homing instinct, finally ceased to serve us. Two or three times some ghostly landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse began to show signs of exhaustion. I felt myself to blame for hav- ing accepted Frome’s offer, and after a short discussion I per- suaded him to let me get out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the bay’s side. In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me formless night, said,

PROLOGUE 11

WWords For EverydayUse cha • ot • ic • al • ly (kā ôt́ ik lē) adv., in a wild, meaninglessmannerpledge (plej) n., promisedif • fu • sion (di fyo�o— ´zhen) n., scattering; spread

“That’s my gate down yonder.” The last stretch had been the hardest part of the way. The

bitter cold and the heavy going had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I could feel the horse’s side ticking like a clock under my hand.

“Look here, Frome,” I began, “there’s no earthly use in your going any farther—” but he interrupted me: “Nor you neither. There’s been about enough of this for anybody.”

I understood that he was offering me a night’s shelter at the farm, and without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired horse. When this was done he unhooked the lantern from the sleigh, stepped out again into the night, and called to me over his shoulder, “This way.”

Far off above us a square of light trembled through the screen of snow. Staggering along in Frome’s wake I floun- dered toward it, and in the darkness almost fell into one of the deep drifts against the front of the house. Frome scram- bled up the slippery steps of the porch, digging a way through the snow with his heavily booted foot. Then he lifted his lantern, found the latch, and led the way into the house. I went after him into a low unlit passage, at the back of which a ladder-like staircase rose into obscurity. On our right a line of light marked the door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the door I heard a woman’s voice droning querulously.

Frome stamped on the worn oilcloth to shake the snow from his boots, and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of furniture in the hall. Then he opened the door.

“Come in,” he said; and as he spoke the droning voice grew still. . . .

It was that night that I found the clue to Ethan Frome, and began to put together this vision of his story.

12 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse ob • scur • i • ty (əb skyo�o— r´ə tē) n., darknessquer • u • lous • ly (kwer´ə ləs lē) adv., complainingly, peevishly

® What does Ethan do on account of the severity of the storm?

Responding to the Selection Harmon Gow says about Ethan, “Guess he’s been in

Starkfield too many winters.” What does Harmon’s com- ment imply about the effect of winters in Starkfield? In what way can weather, especially when it lasts for a long time, affect people’s moods? Write about a time when the weather affected your mood.

RReevviieewwiinngg tthhee SSeelleeccttiioonn

Recalling and Interpreting 1. RR:: What characteristics of Ethan Frome attract the nar- rator’s attention? What does the narrator learn about Ethan Frome that surprises him?

2. II:: What besides the physical effects of the “smash-up” might have caused Ethan to age so much and to look “as if he was dead and in hell now”?

3. RR:: What does Harmon say about Starkfield winters? What does the narrator think winters must have been like during Ethan’s youth?

4. II:: Why might too many winters have such a powerful, negative effect?

5. RR:: What event allows the narrator to make the acquain- tance of Ethan? What tone does the narrator recognize in Ethan’s voice when they discuss the narrator’s book?

6. II:: What do the two men have in common? What feel- ings does the narrator have toward Ethan? What feelings do you think Ethan has toward the narrator? Explain your responses.

7. RR:: What does Ethan do because of the severity of the storm and the difficulty of traveling in it? What does the narrator hear as the door is opened? What does the narra- tor discover about Ethan Frome?

8. II:: Why might the narrator be able to learn more about Ethan’s story in this latest situation than he did during their sleigh rides?

PROLOGUE 13

Synthesizing 9. Why is the narrator so interested in Ethan Frome? Why is the fact that the narrator is an outsider important to the story?

10. Edith Wharton grew up with money and spent much of her life in the high society of cosmopolitan areas, yet she has created a convincing picture of village life and poverty. Identify several details that create this vivid picture.

UUnnddeerrssttaannddiinngg LLiitteerraattuurree (QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION) 1. NNaarrrraattoorr.. A nnaarrrraattoorr is someone who tells a story. The narrator says, “I had the story, bit by bit, from various peo- ple, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.” What effect does this statement have on your perception of the story the narrator is about to tell? What does the narrator claim he has done with the bits he has gathered? Do you think the narrator is reliable? Explain.

2. SSeettttiinngg aanndd SSyymmbbooll.. The sseettttiinngg of a literary work is the time and place in which it occurs, together with all the details used to create a sense of a particular time and place. In fiction, setting is most often revealed by means of description of such elements as landscape, scenery, build- ings, furniture, clothing, the weather, and the season. Where is Ethan Frome set? In what season is the story set? A ssyymmbbooll is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and something else. In what way is the name of the village in which the story is set symbolic? What mood does it cre- ate? What does it suggest about Ethan’s life? Why is the season also symbolic?

14 ETHAN FROME

CHAPTER 1

The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion1 flashed his cold fires. The moon had set, but the night was so transparent that the white house- front between the elms looked gray against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the basement win- dows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across the endless undulations.

Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past the bank and Michael Eady’s new brick store and Lawyer Varnum’s house with the two black Norway spruces at the gate. Opposite the Varnum gate, where the road fell away toward the Corbury valley, the church reared its slim white steeple and narrow peristyle.2 As the young man walked toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars, illuminat- ing many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with heavily blanketed horses.

The night was perfectly still, and the air so dry and pure that it gave little sensation of cold. The effect produced on Frome was rather of a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than ether3 intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic dome over- head. “It’s like being in an exhausted receiver,”4 he thought. Four or five years earlier he had taken a year’s course at a technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the labo- ratory with a friendly professor of physics: and the images supplied by that experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally different associations of thought in which he had since been living. His father’s death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature

CHAPTER 1 15

1. DDiippppeerr .. .. .. OOrriioonn.. The Big Dipper and Orion the Hunter; constellations of stars in the winter sky 2. ppeerriissttyyllee.. Row of columns supporting a roof 3. eetthheerr.. Theoretical or imagined substance that fills empty space 4. eexxhhaauusstteedd rreecceeiivveerr.. Empty receptacle through which chemical distillations pass

WWords For EverydayUse un • du • la • tion (uń dyo�o— lā´́shən) n., wavelike formten • u • ous (teń yo�o— əs) adj., not substantial, flimsyin • ter • vene (iń tər vēn´́) vi., come betweenpre • ma • ture (prē mə ch r´) adj., too early

√ What conditions in the village are similar to those on the night through which Ethan and the narrator traveled? How do you know that the narrator is now telling about an earlier time?

√ What subjects had Ethan studied in Worcester? Why has he stopped his stud- ies? What effect have his studies had on him?

end to Ethan’s studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.

As he strode along through the snow the sense of such meanings glowed in his brain and mingled with the bodily flush produced by his sharp tramp. At the end of the village he paused before the darkened front of the church. He stood there a moment, breathing quickly, and looking up and down the street, in which not another figure moved. The pitch of the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum’s spruces, was the favorite coasting ground of Starksfield, and on clear evenings the church corner rang till late with the shouts of the coasters, but tonight not a sled darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.5 The hush of midnight lay on the vil- lage, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church windows, from which strains of dance music flowed with the broad bands of yellow light.

The young man, skirting the side of the building, went down the slope toward the basement door. To keep out of range of the revealing rays from within he made a circuit through the untrodden snow and gradually approached the farther angle of the basement wall. Thence, still hugging the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window, holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a glimpse of the room.

Seen thus, from the pure and frosty darkness in which he stood, it seemed to be seething in a mist of heat. The metal reflectors of the gas jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though they were heaving with vol- canic fires. The floor was thronged with girls and young men. Down the side wall facing the window stood a row of kitchen chairs from which the older women had just risen. By this time the music had stopped, and the musicians—a fiddler, and the young lady who played the harmonium6 on Sundays—were hastily refreshing themselves at one corner of the supper table which aligned its devastated pie dishes and ice cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall. The

16 ETHAN FROME

5. ddeecclliivviittyy.. Downward slope 6. hhaarrmmoonniiuumm.. Small organ

WWords For EverydayUse flank (flãk) n., side, usually the fleshy part of a person or ani-mal from the ribs to the hip

® What activity do people usually enjoy on the Corbury road?

® What event is Ethan watching from the window? What is happening as he arrives?

guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of the floor and clapped his hands. The signal took instant effect. The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers—some already half-muffled for departure—fell into line down each side of the room, the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl who had already wound a cherry-colored “fascinator” about her head, and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.

Frome’s heart was beating fast. He had been straining for a glimpse of the dark head under the cherry-colored scarf and it vexed him that another eye should have been quicker than his. The leader of the reel, who looked as if he had Irish blood in his veins, danced well, and his partner caught his fire. As she passed down the line, her light figure swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points in a maze of flying lines.

The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musi- cians, to keep up with them, belabored their instruments like jockeys lashing their mounts on the homestretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window that the reel would never end. Now and then he turned his eyes from the girl’s face to that of her partner, which, in the exhilaration of the dance, had taken on a look of almost impudent ownership. Denis Eady was the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness and effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of “smart” business methods, and whose new brick store testified to the success of the attempt. His son seemed likely to follow in his steps, and was meanwhile applying the same arts to the conquest of the Starkfield maidenhood. Hitherto Ethan Frome had been content to think him a mean fellow, but now he positively invited a horse-whipping. It was strange that the girl did not seem aware of it: that she could lift her rapt face to her dancer’s,