Girl in hyacinth blue chapter 6 summary

Final Literature Essay

Topic 1: It has been written that "in many ways the world of My Ántonia is still with us, a neglected but significant part of America." The same may be said of The Marrow of Tradition. What relevance do these novels have today, and what do they reveal to us about our collective past?

Topic 2: Identify and discuss the main themes of Ethan Frome and Billy Budd.

Edith Wharton

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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,

CHAPTER 1 17

WWords For EverydayUse im • pu • dent (im´pyo�o— dənt) adj., bold, saucysup • ple • ness (sup´pəl nes) n., ability to bend; here,implying a shady twistiness of characteref • fron • te • ry (e frunt´ər ē) n., unashamed boldness

√ Why is Ethan vexed?

√ What expression does Ethan see on the face of Denis Eady? What earlier opinion had Ethan held of Denis? What does he now think? What might cause him to have this reaction to what he sees?

and drop her hands into his, without appearing to feel the offense of his look and touch.

Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his wife’s cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance of amusement drew her to the village. It was his wife who had suggested, when the girl came to live with them, that such opportunities should be put in her way. Mattie Silver came from Stamford, and when she entered the Fromes’ household to act as her cousin Zeena’s aid it was thought best, as she came without pay, not to let her feel too sharp a contrast between the life she had left and the isola- tion of a Starkfield farm. But for this—as Frome sardonically reflected—it would hardly have occurred to Zeena to take any thought for the girl’s amusement.

When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional evening out he had inwardly demurred at hav- ing to do the extra two miles to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give all its nights to revelry.

Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her; but no moments in her company were comparable to those when, her arm in his, and her light step flying to keep time with his long stride, they walked back through the night to the farm. He had taken to the girl from the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, “You must be Ethan!” as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking over her slight per- son: “She don’t look much on housework, but she ain’t a fretter, anyhow.” But it was not only that the coming to his house of a bit of hopeful young life was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth. The girl was more than the bright ser- viceable creature he had thought her. She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.

It was during their night walks back to the farm that he felt most intensely the sweetness of this communion. He had always been more sensitive than the people about him to the

18 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse sar • don • ic • al • ly (sär däń ik lē) adv., bitterly, sarcasticallyde • mur (dē m r´) vi., hesitatere • vel • ry (rev´əl rē) n., partygoing ser • vice • a • ble (s r´vis ə bəl) adj., usefulcom • mun • ion (kə myo�o— ń yən) n., shar-ing of thoughts and emotions

® Who is Mattie Silver? Why has she come to Starkfield?

® What was Ethan’s first reaction to giv- ing Mattie a night out? In what way have his feelings changed?

® Why has Ethan taken so strongly to Mattie?

appeal of natural beauty. His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful persua- sion. But hitherto the emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He did not even know whether anyone else in the world felt as he did, or whether he was the sole victim of this mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom he could say, “That’s Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones—like bees swarming—they’re the Pleiades . . .”7 or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the ice age, and the long dim stretches of succeeding time. The fact that admiration for his learning mingled with Mattie’s wonder at what he taught was not the least part of his pleasure. And there were other sensations, less definable but more exquis- ite, which drew them together with a shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter hills, the flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the intensely blue shadows of hemlocks8 on sunlit snow. When she said to him once, “It looks just as if it was painted!” it seemed to Ethan that the art of definition could go no farther, and that words had at last been found to utter his secret soul. . . .

As he stood in the darkness outside the church these memories came back with the poignancy of vanished things. Watching Mattie whirl down the floor from hand to hand he wondered how he could ever have thought that his dull talk interested her. To him, who was never gay but in her pres- ence, her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference. The face she lifted to her dancers was the same which, when she saw him, always looked like a window that has caught the sun- set. He even noticed two or three gestures which, in his fatu- ity,9 he had thought she kept for him: a way of throwing her

CHAPTER 1 19

7. OOrriioonn .. .. .. PPlleeiiaaddeess.. Orion and the Pleiades are constellations. Aldebaran is a bright star whose name means “the following” because it follows the Pleiades across the sky 8. hheemmlloocckkss.. Evergreen trees 9. ffaattuuiittyy.. Smug foolishness

WWords For EverydayUse e • voke (ē vōk´) vt., call forthen • tranced (en tranc’t´́) adj., filled with wonderpan • o • ram • a (pan ə ram´ə) n., grand, expansive view

√ What pleasure does Ethan take in talking to and teach- ing Mattie?

√ How does Ethan feel as he watches Mattie through the window?

head back when she was amused, as if to taste her laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when anything charmed or moved her.

The sight made him unhappy, and his unhappiness roused his latent fears. His wife had never shown any jeal- ousy of Mattie, but of late she had grumbled increasingly over the housework and found oblique ways of attracting attention to the girl’s inefficiency. Zeena had always been what Starkfield called “sickly,” and Frome had to admit that, if she were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the farm. Mattie had no natural turn for housekeeping, and her training had done nothing to remedy the defect. She was quick to learn, but forgetful and dreamy, and not disposed to take the matter seriously. Ethan had an idea that if she were to marry a man she was fond of the dor- mant instinct would wake, and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the county; but domesticity in the abstract did not interest her. At first she was so awkward that he could not help laughing at her; but she laughed with him and that made them better friends. He did his best to supplement her unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to light the kitchen fire, carrying in the wood overnight, and neglecting the mill for the farm that he might help her about the house during the day.

He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the churn10 and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.

Of late there had been other signs of her disfavor, as intan- gible but more disquieting. One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark, his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had heard her speak from the bed behind him.

“The doctor don’t want I should be left without anybody to do for me,” she said in her flat whine.

He had supposed her to be asleep and the sound of her voice had startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after long intervals of secretive silence.

20 ETHAN FROME

10. cchhuurrnn.. Device for making cream into butter

WWords For EverydayUse la • tent (lāt́ ’nt) adj., present but inactiveob • lique (ə blēk´) adj., indirectdor • mant (dôr´mənt) adj., sleeping, inactive in • tan • gi • ble (in tan´jə bəl) adj., noteasily defined or graspeddis • qui • et • ing (dis kw�¯´ə ti˜) adj., dis-turbing

® Why isn’t Mattie very helpful to Zeena? What does Ethan do to address this problem? Why might he act in this way?

He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a greyish tinge from the whiteness of the pillow.

“Nobody to do for you?” he repeated. “If you say you can’t afford a hired girl when Mattie goes.” Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped

to catch the reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking glass above the wash-stand.

“Why on earth should Mattie go?” “Well, when she gets married, I mean,” his wife’s drawl

came from behind him. “Oh, she’d never leave us as long as you needed her,” he

returned, scraping hard at his chin. “I wouldn’t ever have it said that I stood in the way of a

poor girl like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady,” Zeena answered in a tone of plaintive self-effacement.

Ethan, glaring at his face in the glass, threw his head back to draw the razor from ear to chin. His hand was steady, but the attitude was an excuse for not making an immediate reply.

“And the doctor don’t want I should be left without any- body,” Zeena continued. “He wanted I should speak to you about a girl he’s heard about, that might come—”

Ethan laid down the razor and straightened himself with a laugh.

“Denis Eady! If that’s all, I guess there’s no such hurry to look round for a girl.”

“Well, I’d like to talk to you about it,” said Zeena obstinately. He was getting into his clothes in fumbling haste. “All

right. But I haven’t got the time now; I’m late as it is,” he returned, holding his old silver turnip-watch11 to the candle.

Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence while he pulled his suspenders over his shoul- ders and jerked his arms into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and incisively, “I guess you’re always late, now you shave every morning.”

That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations about Denis Eady. It was a fact that since Mattie Silver’s coming he had taken to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be asleep when he left her side in the

CHAPTER 1 21

11. ttuurrnniipp--wwaattcchh.. Pocket watch

WWords For EverydayUse plain • tive (plāń tiv) adj., mournful, sorrowfulself- ef • face • ment (self´ i fās´mənt) n.,act of putting oneself in the background in • ci • sive • ly (in s�¯śəv lē) adv., in amanner that cuts to the heart of the matterin • sin • u • a • tion (in siń yo�o— á shən)n., sly hint or suggestion

√ What comment does Zeena make as Ethan is leaving? Why is Ethan surprised by this comment?

winter darkness, and he had stupidly assumed that she would not notice any change in his appearance. Once or twice in the past he had been faintly disquieted by Zenobia’s way of letting things happen without seeming to remark them, and then, weeks afterward, in a casual phrase, reveal- ing that she had all along taken her notes and drawn her inferences. Of late, however, there had been no room in his thoughts for such vague apprehensions. Zeena herself, from an oppressive reality, had faded into an insubstantial shade. All his life was lived in the sight and sound of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of its being otherwise. But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain. . . .

22 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse ap • pre • hen • sion (ap´rē heń shən) n.,anxious feeling about the futureop • press • ive (ə preś səv) adj., weighingheavily on the spirits in • sub • stan • tial (iń sub stań shəl) adj.,not real; weak or flimsycon • ceive (kän sēv´) vt., hold as one’s idea

CHAPTER 2

As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the projecting stormdoor, watched the segregation of the grotesquely muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a face flushed with food and danc- ing. The villagers, being afoot, were the first to climb the slope to the main street, while the country neighbors packed themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the shed.

“Ain’t you riding, Mattie?” a woman’s voice called back from the throng about the shed, and Ethan’s heart gave a jump. From where he stood he could not see the persons coming out of the hall till they had advanced a few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm-door; but through its cracks he heard a clear voice answer, “Mercy no! Not on such a night.”

She was there, then, close to him, only a thin board between. In another moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, accustomed to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though she stood in day- light. A wave of shyness pulled him back into the dark angle of the wall, and he stood there in silence instead of making his presence known to her. It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days, when he had tried to “jolly” the Worcester girls at a picnic.

He hung back, and she came out alone and paused within a few yards of him. She was almost the last to leave the hall, and she stood looking uncertainly about her as if wondering why he did not show himself. Then a man’s figure approached, coming so close to her that under their formless wrappings they seemed merged in one dim outline.

“Gentleman friend gone back on you? Say, Matt, that’s tough! No, I wouldn’t be mean enough to tell the other girls. I ain’t as lowdown as that.” (How Frome hated his cheap banter!) “But look a here, ain’t it lucky I got the old man’s cutter down there waiting for us?”

CHAPTER 2 23

WWords For EverydayUse seg • re • ga • tion (se�´rə �ā´́shən) n.,separationgro • tesque • ly (�rō tesk´lē) adv., in astrange, distorted manner dis • cern (də s rń ) vt., separate mentallyfrom otherslout • ish (lout́ əsh) adj., clumsy and brutish

√ Why doesn’t Ethan show or announce his pres- ence to Mattie?

Frome heard the girl’s voice, gaily incredulous, “What on earth’s your father’s cutter doin’ down there?”

“Why, waiting for me to take a ride. I got the roan colt1

too. I kinder knew I’d want to take a ride tonight,” Eady, in his triumph, tried to put a sentimental note into his brag- ging voice.

The girl seemed to waver, and Frome saw her twirl the end of her scarf irresolutely about her fingers. Not for the world would he have made a sign to her, though it seemed to him that his life hung on her next gesture.

“Hold on a minute while I unhitch the colt,” Denis called to her, springing toward the shed.

She stood perfectly still, looking after him, in an attitude of tranquil expectancy torturing to the hidden watcher. Frome noticed that she no longer turned her head from side to side, as though peering through the night for another fig- ure. She let Denis Eady lead out the horse, climb into the cut- ter and fling back the bearskin to make room for her at his side, then, with a swift motion of flight, she turned about and darted up the slope toward the front of the church.

“Good-bye! Hope you’ll have a lovely ride!” she called back to him over her shoulder.

Denis laughed, and gave the horse a cut that brought him quickly abreast of her retreating figure.

“Come along! Get in quick! It’s as slippery as thunder on this turn,” he cried, leaning over to reach out a hand to her.

She laughed back at him, “Goodnight! I’m not getting in.” By this time they had passed beyond Frome’s earshot and

he could only follow the shadowy pantomime2 of their sil- houettes3 as they continued to move along the crest of the slope above him. He saw Eady, after a moment, jump from the cutter and go toward the girl with the reins over one arm. The other he tried to slip through hers; but she eluded him nimbly, and Frome’s heart, which had swung out over a black void, trembled back to safety. A moment later he heard the jingle of departing sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing along toward the empty expanse of snow before the church.

24 ETHAN FROME

1. rrooaann ccoolltt.. Young male horse with a coat of solid color sprinkled with white hairs 2. ppaannttoommiimmee.. Actions and gestures without words 3. ssiillhhoouueetttteess.. Dark shapes outlined against a light background

WWords For EverydayUse in • cred • u • lous (in kred´yo�o— ləs) adj.,expressing disbeliefwa • ver (wā´vər) vi., show doubt or indeci-sion ir • res • o • lute • ly (ir rez´ə lo�o— t´ lē) adv.,indecisivelynim • bly (nim´blē) adv., quickly and skillfullyvoid (void) n., total emptiness

® What does Denis want Mattie to do? What is Mattie’s reaction?

In the black shade of the Varnum spruces he caught up with her and she turned with a quick “Oh!”

“Think I’d forgotten you, Matt?” he asked with sheepish glee. She answered seriously, “I thought maybe you couldn’t

come back for me.” “Couldn’t? What on earth could stop me?” “I knew Zeena wasn’t feeling any too good today.” “Oh, she’s in bed long ago.” He paused, a question strug-

gling in him. “Then you meant to walk home all alone?” “Oh, I ain’t afraid!” she laughed. They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an

empty world glimmering about them wide and grey under the stars. He brought his question out.

“If you thought I hadn’t come, why didn’t you ride back with Denis Eady?”

“Why, where were you? How did you know? I never saw you!”

Her wonder and his laughter ran together like spring rills4

in a thaw. Ethan had the sense of having done something arch and ingenious. To prolong the effect he groped for a dazzling phrase, and brought out, in a growl of rapture, “Come along.”

He slipped an arm through hers, as Eady had done, and fancied it was faintly pressed against her side; but neither of them moved. It was so dark under the spruces that he could barely see the shape of her head beside his shoulder. He longed to stoop his cheek and rub it against her scarf. He would have liked to stand there with her all night in the blackness. She moved forward a step or two and then paused again above the dip of the Corbury road. Its icy slope, scored by innumerable runners, looked like a mirror scratched by travelers at an inn.

“There was a whole lot of them coasting before the moon set,” she said.

“Would you like to come in and coast with them some night?” he asked.

“Oh, would you, Ethan? It would be lovely!” “We’ll come tomorrow if there’s a moon.” She lingered, pressing closer to his side. “Ned Hale and

CHAPTER 2 25

4. rriillllss.. Little brooks

WWords For EverydayUse sheep • ish (shēp´əsh) adj., embarrassedin • gen • ious (in �ēń yəs) adj., cleverrap • ture (rap´chər) n., great joy; ecstasy

√ How does Ethan feel when Mattie expresses her won- der? What does he want to do to pro- long this effect? What does he say?

√ What had Mattie seen as she watched the sledders?

Ruth Varnum came just as near running into the big elm at the bottom. We were all sure they were killed.” Her shiver ran down his arm. “Wouldn’t it have been too awful? They’re so happy!”

“Oh, Ned ain’t much at steering. I guess I can take you down all right!” he said disdainfully.

He was aware that he was “talking big,” like Denis Eady; but his reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflec- tion with which she had said of the engaged couple “They’re so happy!” made the words sound as if she had been think- ing of herself and him.

“The elm is dangerous, though. It ought to be cut down,” she insisted.

“Would you be afraid of it, with me?” “I told you I ain’t the kind to be afraid,” she tossed back

almost indifferently; and suddenly she began to walk on with a rapid step.

These alterations of mood were the despair and joy of Ethan Frome. The motions of her mind were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in the branches. The fact that he had no right to show his feelings, and thus provoke the expression of hers, made him attach a fantastic importance to every change in her look and tone. Now he thought she understood him, and feared; now he was sure she did not, and despaired. Tonight the pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward despair and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady. He mounted School House Hill at her side and walked on in silence till they reached the lane leading to the sawmill; then the need of some definite assurance grew too strong for him.

“You’d have found me right off if you hadn’t gone back to have that last reel with Denis,” he brought out awkwardly. He could not pronounce the name without a stiffening of the muscles of his throat.

“Why, Ethan, how could I tell you were there?” “I suppose what folks say is true,” he jerked out at her,

instead of answering. She stopped short, and he felt, in the darkness, that her

face was lifted quickly to his. “Why, what do folks say?” “It’s natural enough you should be leaving us,” he

floundered on, following his thought.

26 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse in • cal • cul • a • ble (in kal´kyo�o— lə bəl) adj., impossible tofigure out

® According to Ethan, what caused the near accident? What does Mattie say about the tree?

® What effect does saying Denis Eady’s name have on Ethan? Why does it have this effect?

“Is that what they say?” she mocked back at him then, with a sudden drop of her sweet treble:5 “You mean that Zeena—ain’t suited with me anymore?” she faltered.

Their arms had slipped apart and they stood motionless, each seeking to distinguish the other’s face.

“I know I ain’t anything like as smart as I ought to be,” she went on, while he vainly struggled for expression. “There’s lots of things a hired girl could do that come awkward to me still— and I haven’t got much strength in my arms. But if she’d only tell me I’d try. You know she hardly ever says any- thing, and sometimes I can see she ain’t suited, and yet I don’t know why.” She turned on him with a sudden flash of indignation. “You’d ought to tell me, Ethan Frome—you’d ought to! Unless you want me to go too—”

Unless he wanted her to go too! The cry was balm to his raw wound. The iron heavens seemed to melt and rain down sweetness. Again he struggled for the all-expressive word, and again, his arm in hers, found only a deep “Come along.”

They walked on in silence through the blackness of the hemlock-shaded lane, where Ethan’s sawmill gloomed through the night, and out again into the comparative clear- ness of the fields. On the farther side of the hemlock belt the open country rolled away before them grey and lonely under the stars. Sometimes their way led them under the shade of an overhanging bank or through the thin obscurity of a clump of leafless trees. Here and there a farmhouse stood far back among the fields, mute and cold as a gravestone. The night was so still that they heard the frozen snow crackle under their feet. The crash of a loaded branch falling far off in the woods reverberated like a musket-shot, and once a fox barked, and Mattie shrank closer to Ethan, and quickened her steps.

At length they sighted the group of larches at Ethan’s gate, and as they drew near it the sense that the walk was over brought back his words.

“Then you don’t want to leave us, Matt?” He had to stoop his head to catch her stifled whisper:

“Where’d I go if I did?”

CHAPTER 2 27

5. ttrreebbllee.. High-pitched voice

WWords For EverydayUse balm (bäm) n., something healing or soothingsti • fled (st�̄ ´fəld) adj., held in check; muffled

√ Why are Mattie’s words a “balm to his wound”? What does Ethan say?

The answer sent a pang through him but the tone suf- fused him with joy. He forgot what else he had meant to say and pressed her against him so closely that he seemed to feel her warmth in his veins.

“You ain’t crying are you, Matt?” “No, of course I’m not,” she quavered. They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded

knoll6 where, enclosed in a low fence, the Frome gravestones slanted at crazy angles through the snow. Ethan looked at them curiously. For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom. “We never got away—how should you?” seemed to be written on every headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a shiver, “I shall just go on living here till I join them.” But now all desire for change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure gave him a warm sense of continuance and stability.

“I guess we’ll never let you go, Matt,” he whispered, as though even the dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by the graves, he thought: “We’ll always go on living here together, and someday she’ll lie there beside me.”

He let the vision possess him as they climbed the hill to the house. He was never so happy with her as when he aban- doned himself to these dreams. Halfway up the slope Mattie stumbled against some unseen obstruction and clutched his sleeve to steady herself. The wave of warmth that went through him was like the prolongation of his vision. For the first time he stole his arm about her, and she did not resist. They walked on as if they were floating on a summer stream.

Zeena always went to bed as soon as she had had her sup- per, and the shutterless windows of the house were dark. A dead cucumber vine dangled from the porch like the crape7

streamer tied to the door for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan’s brain: “If it was there for Zeena—” Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bed- room asleep, her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed . . .

28 ETHAN FROME

6. kknnoollll.. Small mound of earth 7. ccrraappee.. Thin crinkled black ribbon used as a sign of mourning

WWords For EverydayUse pang (pã) n., sharp, sudden feeling of distressqua • ver (kwā´vər) vi., tremble in voicecon • spire (kən sp�¯r)́ vi., plan and act secretly togetherpro • long • a • tion (prō´́ lô˜ �ā´́shən) n., extension in time

® How does Mattie’s answer make Ethan feel?

® To Ethan, what do the Frome grave- stones seem to mock? What words does he imagine written on every headstone? What thought had he once had upon seeing the graves? Now what does this sight inspire in him?

® In what way do Ethan’s feelings con- trast with the wintry setting?

They walked around to the back of the house, between the rigid gooseberry bushes. It was Zeena’s habit, when they came back late from the village, to leave the key of the kitchen door under the mat. Ethan stood before the door, his head heavy with dreams, his arm still about Mattie. “Matt—” he began, not knowing what he meant to say.

She slipped out of his hold without speaking, and he stooped down and felt for the key.

“It’s not there!” he said, straightening himself with a start. They strained their eyes at each other through the icy

darkness. Such a thing had never happened before. “Maybe she’s forgotten it,” Mattie said in a tremulous whis-

per; but both of them knew that it was not like Zeena to forget. “It might have fallen off into the snow,” Mattie continued,

after a pause during which they had stood intently listening. ‘’It must have been pushed off, then,” he rejoined in the

same tone. Another wild thought tore through him. What if tramps had been there—what if . . .

Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneel- ing down, passed its light slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.

He was still kneeling when his eyes, on a level with the lower panel of the door, caught a faint ray beneath it. Who could be stirring in that silent house? He heard a step on the stairs, and again for an instant the thought of tramps tore through him. Then the door opened and he saw his wife.

Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the other held a lamp. The light, on a level with her chin, drew out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.8 To Ethan, still in the rosy haze of his hour with Mattie, the sight came with the intense precision of the last dream before waking. He felt as if he had never before known what his wife looked like.

CHAPTER 2 29

8. ccrriimmppiinngg--ppiinnss.. Devices to curl the hair

WWords For EverydayUse puck • ered (puk´ rd) adj., gathered into wrinklesprom • i • nence (präm´ə nəns) n., part that sticks out or up

√ Whom does Ethan see when the door opens? What is strange about his perception of this scene?

She drew aside without speaking, and Mattie and Ethan passed into the kitchen, which had the deadly chill of a vault after the dry cold of the night.

“Guess you forgot about us, Zeena,” Ethan joked, stamp- ing the snow from his boots.

“No. I just felt so mean9 I couldn’t sleep.” Mattie came forward, unwinding her wraps, the color of

the cherry scarf in her fresh lips and cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Zeena! Isn’t there anything I can do?”

“No; there’s nothing.” Zeena turned away from her. “You might ’a’ shook off that snow outside,” she said to her husband.

She walked out of the kitchen ahead of them and pausing in the hall raised the lamp at arm’s-length, as if to light them up the stairs.

Ethan paused also, affecting to fumble for the peg on which he hung his coat and cap. The doors of the two bed- rooms faced each other across the narrow upper landing, and tonight it was peculiarly repugnant to him that Mattie should see him follow Zeena.

“I guess I won’t come up yet awhile,” he said, turning as if to go back to the kitchen.

Zeena stopped short and looked at him. “For the land’s sake—what you going to do down here?”

“I’ve got the mill accounts to go over.” She continued to stare at him, the flame of the unshaded

lamp bringing out with microscopic cruelty the fretful lines of her face.

“At this time o’ night? You’ll ketch your death. The fire’s out long ago.”

Without answering he moved away toward the kitchen. As he did so his glance crossed Mattie’s and he fancied that a fugitive warning gleamed through her lashes. The next moment they sank to her flushed cheeks and she began to mount the stairs ahead of Zeena.

“That’s so. It is powerful cold down here,” Ethan assented and with lowered head he went up in his wife’s wake, and followed her across the threshold of their room.

30 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse vault (vôlt) n., burial chamberre • pug • nant (rē pu�´nənt) adj., disgustingas • sent (ə sent´) vi., accept an opinion

® Why does Ethan say that he will stay downstairs for a while?

9. mmeeaann.. Bad; ill

CHAPTER 3

There was some hauling to be done at the lower end of the wood lot, and Ethan was out early the next day.

The winter morning was as clear as crystal. The sunrise burned red in a pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood lot were darkly blue, and beyond the white and scin- tillating fields patches of far-off forest hung like smoke.

It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of mountain air, that Ethan did his clear- est thinking. He and Zeena had not exchanged a word after the door of their room had closed on them. She had mea- sured out some drops from a medicine bottle on a chair by the bed and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow flannel, had lain down with her face turned away. Ethan undressed hurriedly and blew out the light so that he should not see her when he took his place at her side. As he lay there he could hear Mattie moving about in her room, and her candle, sending its small ray across the landing, drew a scarcely perceptible line of light under his door. He kept his eyes fixed on the light till it vanished. Then the room grew perfectly black, and not a sound was audible but Zeena’s asthmatic breathing. Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie’s shoulder against his. Why had he not kissed her when he held her there? A few hours earlier he would not have asked himself the question. Even a few min- utes earlier, when they had stood alone outside the house, he would not have dared to think of kissing her. But since he had seen her lips in the lamplight he felt that they were his.

Now, in the bright morning air, her face was still before him. It was part of the sun’s red and of the pure glitter on the snow. How the girl had changed since she had come to Starkfield! He remembered what a colorless slip of a thing she had looked the day he had met her at the station. And all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like hail against the loose hung windows!

CHAPTER 3 31

WWords For EverydayUse scin • til • la • ting (sint´’l ā ti˜) adj., giving off sparklesper • cep • ti • ble (pər sep´tə bəl) adj., able to be noticedby the sensesau • di • ble (ô´də bəl) adj., able to be heard

√ How do Ethan and Zeena act when the door to their room shuts? What holds Ethan’s atten- tion after he is in bed?

He had been afraid that she would hate the hard life, the cold and loneliness; but not a sign of discontent escaped her. Zeena took the view that Mattie was bound to make the best of Starkfield since she hadn’t any other place to go to; but this did not strike Ethan as conclusive. Zeena, at any rate, did not apply the principle in her own case.

He felt all the more sorry for the girl because misfortune had, in a sense, indentured1 her to them. Mattie Silver was the daugh ter of a cousin of Zenobia Frome’s, who had inflamed his clan with mingled sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to her father’s thriving “drug”2 business. Unhappily Orin Silver, a man of far-reaching aims, had died too soon to prove that the end justifies the means. His accounts revealed merely what the means had been; and these were such that it was fortunate for his wife and daughter that his books were examined only after his impressive funeral. His wife died of the disclosure, and Mattie, at twenty, was left alone to make her way on the fifty dollars obtained from the sale of her piano. For this purpose her equipment,3 though varied, was inadequate. She could trim a hat,4 make molasses candy, recite “Curfew shall not ring tonight,” and play “The Lost Chord” and a potpourri5 from “Carmen.” When she tried to extend the field of her activities in the direction of stenogra- phy6 and bookkeeping her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of a department store did not tend to restore it. Her nearest relations had been induced to place their savings in her father’s hands, and though, after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted them- selves of the Christian duty of returning good for evil by giv- ing his daughter all the advice at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to supplement it by material aid. But when Zenobia’s doctor recommended her looking about for someone to help her with the housework, the clan instantly saw the chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie.

32 ETHAN FROME

1. iinnddeennttuurreedd.. Bound by an unbreakable contract to work as a servant 2. ““ddrruugg..” Pharmaceutical 3. eeqquuiippmmeenntt.. Available talents and skills 4. ttrriimm aa hhaatt.. Decorate a hat with ribbons, flowers, etc. 5. ppoottppoouurrrrii.. Mixture, miscellany 6. sstteennooggrraapphhyy.. Skilled work of writing down dictation in shorthand

WWords For EverydayUse dis • clo • sure (dis klō´zh r) n., revelationin • duce (in do�o— s´) vt., persuadesup • ple • ment (sup´lə mənt) vt., add toex • act (e� zakt́ ) vt., force a payment or other benefit

® How does Zeena explain Mattie’s good-natured, uncomplaining atti- tude? Why is her explanation inade- quate?

® Why are Mattie’s relatives unwilling to help her financially after the death of her parents? Why does Zenobia decide to bring her to Starkfield?

Zenobia, though doubtful of the girl’s efficiency, was tempted by the freedom to find fault without much risk of losing her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield.

Zenobia’s fault-finding was of the silent kind, but not the less penetrating for that. During the first months Ethan alter- nately burned with the desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear of the result. Then the situation grew less strained. The pure air, and the long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie, and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew less watchful of the girl’s omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on under the burden of his barren farm and failing sawmill, could at least imagine that peace reigned in his house.

There was really, even now, no tangible evidence to the contrary; but since the previous night a vague dread had hung on his skyline. It was formed of Zeena’s obstinate silence, of Mattie’s sudden look of warning, of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs as those which told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before night there would be rain.

His dread was so strong that, manlike, he sought to post- pone certainty. The hauling was not over till midday, and as the lumber was to be delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on foot, and drive the load down to the village himself. He had scrambled up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy grays,7 when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.

“If there’s going to be any trouble I want to be there,” was his vague reflection, as he threw to Jotham the unexpected order to unhitch the team and lead them back to the barn.

It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two men entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove and Zeena was already at the table. Her husband stopped short at sight of her. Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her best dress of brown merino,8 and above her thin strands of hair, which

CHAPTER 3 33

7. ggrraayyss.. Gray horses 8. mmeerriinnoo.. Soft, thin cloth made of fine woolen yarn

WWords For EverydayUse pen • e • tra • ting (pen ə trāt́ i˜) adj., keen, sharpe • las • tic • i • ty (i laś tis´́ə tē) n., ability to bounce backtan • gi • ble (tan´jə bəl) adj., graspable, materialstream • ing (strēm´i˜) adj., sweating

√ What intangible signs cause Ethan dread?

√ Why is Ethan sur- prised when he sees Zeena?

still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard perpendicular bon net, as to which Ethan’s clear- est notion was that he had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.9 On the floor beside her stood his old valise and a bandbox10 wrapped in newspapers.

“Why, where are you going, Zeena?” he exclaimed. “I’ve got my shooting pains so bad that I’m going over to

Bettsbridge to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor,” she answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into the storeroom to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go over the blankets.

In spite of her sedentary habits such abrupt decisions were not without precedent in Zeena’s history. Twice or thrice before she had suddenly packed Ethan’s valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost. Zeena always came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last visit to Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an electric battery of which she had never been able to learn the use. But for the moment his sense of relief was so great as to preclude all other feelings. He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying, the night before, that she had sat up because she felt “too mean” to sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual, she was wholly absorbed in her health.

As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively, “If you’re too busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over with the sorrel11 in time to ketch the train at the Flats.”

Her husband hardly heard what she was saying. During the winter months there was no stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and the trains which stopped at Corbury Flats were slow and infrequent. A rapid calculation showed Ethan that Zeena could not be back at the farm before the follow- ing evening. . . .

“If I’d supposed you’d ’a’ made any objection to Jotham Powell’s driving me over—” she began again, as though his

34 ETHAN FROME

9. EEmmppoorriiuumm.. Large store with a wide variety of merchandise 10. vvaalliissee aanndd aa bbaannddbbooxx.. Suitcase and a light, round hatbox 11. ssoorrrreell.. Horse of light, reddish brown

WWords For EverydayUse per • pen • dic • u • lar (p r´pən dik´yo�o— lər)adj., upright, straight up and downsed • en • ta • ry (sed´’n ter´́ē) adj., markedby much sitting a • brupt (ə brupt́ ) adj., sudden, unexpectedpre • ce • dent (pres´ə dənt) n., past actionthat acts as an examplepre • clude (prē klo�o— d´) vt., shut out

® Why does Ethan usually dislike Zeena’s expeditions? Why do his feelings differ this time?

silence had implied refusal. On the brink of departure she was always seized with a flux12 of words. “All I know is,” she continued, “I can’t go on the way I am much longer. The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or I’d ’a’ walked in to Starkfield on my own feet, sooner’n put you out, and asked Michael Eady to let me ride over on his wagon to the Flats when he sends to meet the train that brings his gro- ceries. I’d ’a’ had two hours to wait in the station, but I’d sooner ’a’ done it, even with this cold, than to have you say—”

“Of course Jotham’ll drive you over,” Ethan roused himself to answer. He became suddenly conscious that he was looking at Mattie while Zeena talked to him, and with an effort he turned his eyes to his wife. She sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth. Though she was but seven years her husband’s senior, and he was only twenty-eight, she was already an old woman.

Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was only one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time since Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night. He wondered if the girl were thinking of it too. . . .

He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and at first he could not think of a pre- text for not doing so; then he said, “I’d take you over myself, only I’ve got to collect the cash for the lumber.”

As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because they were untrue—there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment from Hale—but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic excur- sions. At the moment, however, his one desire was to avoid the long drive with her behind the ancient sorrel who never went out of a walk.

CHAPTER 3 35

12. fflluuxx.. Flood

WWords For EverydayUse ther • a • peu • tic (ther´ə pyo�o— t´́ik) adj., serving to cure orhealex • cur • sion (eks k r´zhən) n., short trip

√ What thought is on Ethan’s mind?

√ What excuse does Ethan make for not driving Zeena to the Flats himself? Why does he regret his words?

Zeena made no reply: she did not seem to hear what he had said. She had already pushed her plate aside, and was measuring out a draught from a large bottle at her elbow.

“It ain’t done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use it up,” she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward Mattie, “If you can get the taste out it’ll do for pickles.”

36 ETHAN FROME

Responding to the Selection In a few words, describe your opinion of each of the fol-

lowing characters: Ethan Frome, Zeena Frome, and Mattie Silver. If you were taking a long trip and one of these char- acters was going to be your traveling companion, which would you choose? Why?

RReevviieewwiinngg tthhee SSeelleeccttiioonn

Recalling and Interpreting 1. RR:: Who is Mattie Silver? Why has she come to Starkfield?

2. II:: What effect has Mattie Silver had on Ethan’s life? In what way would his life change if she were to leave?

3. RR:: To Ethan, what seems to be written on every head- stone of the Frome graves? What desire has vanished?

4. II:: Why does Ethan feel mocked by the gravestones? Why have his feelings changed?

5. RR:: What difficulty do Mattie and Ethan have when they arrive home? Whom does Ethan see when he looks up? What effect does this sight have on him?

6. II:: What does each woman, Mattie and Zeena, represent in Ethan’s life?

7. RR:: Why is Zeena going away? How does Ethan feel about her departure? What excuse does Ethan make to avoid taking Zeena to the Flats?

8. II:: What do you think will happen as a result of Zeena’s absence? What do you think will happen as a result of Ethan’s excuse?

Synthesizing

9. How does Zeena feel about Mattie? What does she know about the relationship between Ethan and Mattie? What does Zeena do to address the situation? Support your responses with evidence from the text.

10. In what way does young Ethan differ from the older Ethan who is depicted in the prologue? What characteristics are shown in both portraits of Ethan?

CHAPTERS 1–3 37

UUnnddeerrssttaannddiinngg LLiitteerraattuurree (QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION) 11.. FFoorreesshhaaddoowwiinngg aanndd IIrroonnyy.. FFoorreesshhaaddoowwiinngg is the act of presenting materials that hint at events to occur later in a story. IIrroonnyy is a difference between appearance and real- ity. Look at the passage in chapter 2 in which Mattie and Ethan discuss the near sledding accident. Ethan says, “I guess I can take you down all right!” and Mattie insists that “The elm is dangerous, though. It ought to be cut down.” What might this near accident and the conversation of Mattie and Ethan foreshadow? Why is Ethan’s statement ironic?

22.. SSiimmiillee aanndd MMoottiiff.. A ssiimmiillee is a comparison using like or as. A mmoottiiff is any element that recurs in one or more works of literature or art. What simile is used on page 28 to describe the dead cucumber vine? This simile is only one example of the death motif in the novella. Find another example of this motif in the novella so far.

38 ETHAN FROME

CHAPTER 4

As soon as his wife had driven off Ethan took his coat and cap from the peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, hum- ming one of the dance tunes of the night before. He said “So long, Matt,” and she answered gaily “So long, Ethan”; and that was all.

It was warm and bright in the kitchen. The sun slanted through the south window on the girl’s moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on the geraniums brought in from the doorway, where Ethan had planted them in the summer to “make a garden” for Mattie. He would have liked to linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm before night.

All the way down to the village he continued to think of his return to Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place, not “spruce” and shining as his mother had kept it in his boy- hood; but it was surprising what a homelike look the mere fact of Zeena’s absence gave it. And he pictured what it would be like that evening, when he and Mattie were there after supper. For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never heard her before.

The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears of “trouble” with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush, and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he drove through the snowy fields. There was in him a slumbering spark of sociability which the long Starkfield winters had not yet extinguished. By nature grave and inarticulate, he admired recklessness and gaiety in others and was warmed to the marrow1 by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though he had the name of keeping to himself and not being much of a hand at a good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and hailed as “Old Ethe” or “Old Stiff”; and the

CHAPTER 4 39

1. mmaarrrrooww.. Soft tissue in the cavity of bones, therefore “to the marrow” means “deeply” or “to the core”

WWords For EverydayUse ex • tin • guish (ek sti˜´�wish) vt., put out, smotherin • ar • tic • u • late (in´är tik´́yo�o— lit) adj., not able toexpress oneself easily

√ What does Ethan imagine the night without Zeena will be like?

√ Why is Ethan relieved? What effect does the image he creates and this relief have on him?

cessation of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return to Starkfield.

There the silence had deepened about him year by year. Left alone, after his father’s accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had had no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother fell ill the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that of the fields. His mother had been a talker in her day, but after her “trouble” the sound of her voice was seldom heard, though she had not lost the power of speech. Sometimes, in the long win- ter evenings, when in desperation her son asked her why she didn’t “say something,” she would lift a finger and answer, “Because I’m listening”; and on stormy nights, when the loud wind was about the house, she would com- plain, if he spoke to her, “They’re talking so out there that I can’t hear you.”

It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her, that human speech was heard again in the house. After the mortal silence of his long imprisonment Zeena’s volubility was music in his ears. He felt that he might have “gone like his mother” if the sound of a new voice had not come to steady him. Zeena seemed to understand his case at a glance. She laughed at him for not knowing the simplest sick-bed duties and told him to “go right along out” and leave her to see to things. The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance and magnified his sense of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed and dazzled him. She seemed to possess by instinct all the house- hold wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him. When the end came it was she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker, and she thought it “funny” that he had not settled beforehand who was to have his mother’s clothes and the sewing machine. After the funeral, when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was doing he had asked her to stay there with him. He had often thought since that it would not have happened if his mother had died in spring instead of winter. . . .

40 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse ces • sa • tion (ses ā´shən) n., endfa • mil • i • ar • i • ty (fə mil´ē er´́ə tē) n., intimate remarkcon • viv • i • al (kən viv´ē əl) adj., sociableloit • er • ing (loi´tər i˜) n., idle lingering

® What does Ethan think might have happened to him if he had not heard the sound of another human voice? Why does Ethan feel indebted to Zeena?

® What does Ethan ask Zeena to do after the funeral? What does he think might have made him act differently?

When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome’s long illness, they would sell the farm and sawmill and try their luck in a large town. Ethan’s love of nature did not take the form of a taste for agriculture. He had always wanted to be an engineer, and to live in towns, where there were lectures and big libraries and “fellows doing things.” A slight engineering job in Florida, put in his way during his period of study at Worcester, increased his faith in his ability as well as his eagerness to see the world; and he felt sure that, with a “smart” wife like Zeena, it would not be long before he had made himself a place in it.

Zeena’s native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married. But purchasers were slow in coming, and while he waited for them Ethan learned the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose to look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived in a place which looked down on her. Even Bettsbridge or Shadd’s Falls would not have been sufficiently aware of her, and in the greater cities which attracted Ethan she would have suffered a com- plete loss of identity. And within a year of their marriage she developed the “sickliness” which had since made her notable even in a community rich in pathological instances. When she came to take care of his mother she had seemed to Ethan like the very genius2 of health, but he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had been acquired by the absorbed obser- vation of her own symptoms.

Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable effect of life on the farm, or perhaps, as she sometimes said, it was because Ethan “never listened.” The charge was not wholly unfounded. When she spoke it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he had first formed the habit of not answering her, and finally of thinking of other things while she talked. Of late, however, since he had had reasons for observing her more closely, her silence had begun to trouble him. He recalled his mother’s growing tac- iturnity, and wondered if Zeena were also turning “queer.”

CHAPTER 4 41

2. ggeenniiuuss.. Spirit

WWords For EverydayUse path • o • log • i • cal (path´ə läj´́ə kəl) adj., having to dowith diseaseun • found • ed (un found´əd) adj., without basisre • tort (rē tôrt́ ) n., sharp answer

√ What unfulfilled dreams does Ethan have?

√ In what way did Zeena change within a year of her mar- riage to Ethan? What does Ethan realize about his early impressions of Zeena?

√ Why does Zeena fall silent? Why doesn’t Ethan listen to her when she does talk? Why has her silence troubled him recently?

Women did, he knew. Zeena, who had at her fingers’ ends the pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely farmhouses in the neighbor- hood where stricken creatures pined, and of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence. At times looking at Zeena’s shut face, he felt the chill of such forebodings. At other times her silence seemed deliberately assumed to con- ceal far-reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn from suspicions and resentments impossible to guess. That supposition was even more disturbing than the other; and it was the one which had come to him the night before, when he had seen her standing in the kitchen door.

Now her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind, and all his thoughts were on the prospect of his evening with Mattie. Only one thing weighed on him, and that was his having told Zeena that he was to receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly the consequences of this imprudence that with considerable reluctance he decided to ask Andrew Hale for a small advance on his load.

When Ethan drove into Hale’s yard the builder was just getting out of his sleigh.

“Hello, Ethe!” he said. “This comes handy.’’ Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache

and a stubbly double chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt was always fastened by a small dia- mond stud. This display of opulence was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family fre- quently kept him what Starkfield called “behind.” He was an old friend of Ethan’s family, and his house one of the few to which Zeena occasionally went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs. Hale, in her youth, had done more “doctoring” than any other woman in Starkfield, and was still a recognized authority on symptoms and treatment.

Hale went up to the grays and patted their sweating flanks. “Well, sir,” he said, “you keep them two as if they was pets.” Ethan set about unloading the logs and when he had fin-

ished his job he pushed open the glazed door of the shed which the builder used as his office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against a battered desk

42 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse strick • en (strik´ən) adj., affected by disease pine (p�̄n) vi., waste away through griefim • pru • dence (im pro�o— ´dəns) n., care-lessness un • con • strained (un kun strānd´) adj.,not confinedscru • pu • lous • ly (skro�o— p´yə ləs lē) adv.,showing extreme careop • u • lence (äp´yo�o— ləns) n., wealth

® Who is one of the few people that Zeena visits? Why does visit this per- son?

strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm, genial and untidy.

“Sit right down and thaw out,” he greeted Ethan. The latter did not know how to begin, but at length he

managed to bring out his request for an advance of fifty dol- lars. The blood rushed to his thin skin under the sting of Hale’s astonishment. It was the builder’s custom to pay at the end of three months, and there was no precedent between the two men for a cash settlement.

Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have made shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinc- tive prudence, kept him from resorting to this argument. After his father’s death it had taken time to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or anyone else in Starkfield, to think he was going under again. Besides, he hated lying; if he wanted the money he wanted it, and it was nobody’s business to ask why. He therefore made his demand with the awkwardness of a proud man who will not admit to himself that he is stooping; and he was not much surprised at Hale’s refusal.

The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a “cupolo”3 to his house; offering, in the lat- ter case, to give his services free of cost.

Ethan’s arts were soon exhausted, and after an embar- rassed pause he wished Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed out the builder suddenly called after him, “See here—you ain’t in a tight place, are you?”

“Not a bit,” Ethan’s pride retorted before his reason had time to intervene.

“Well, that’s good! Because I am, a shade. Fact is, I was going to ask you to give me a little extra time on that pay- ment. Business is pretty slack, to begin with, and then I’m fixing up a little house for Ned and Ruth when they’re mar- ried. I’m glad to do it for ’em, but it costs.” His look appealed to Ethan for sympathy. “The young people like things nice. You know how it is yourself: it’s not so long ago since you fixed up your own place for Zeena.”

CHAPTER 4 43

3. ““ccuuppoolloo..”” Cupola; small domelike structure on the roof

WWords For EverydayUse gen • i • al • ly (jēn´yəl ē) adv., in a kind and friendly manner

√ Why is Ethan reluctant to press the matter of the cash advance with Hale?

√ What comment does Hale make about the length of time Ethan has been married to Zeena? In what way does Ethan’s perception of his situation differ?

Ethan left the grays in Hale’s stable and went about some other business in the village. As he walked away the builder’s last phrase lingered in his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years with Zeena seemed to Starkfield “not so long.”

The afternoon was drawing to an end, and here and there a lighted pane spangled the cold gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The bitter weather had driven everyone indoors and Ethan had the long rural street to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk play of sleigh bells and a cutter passed him, drawn by a free-going horse. Ethan recognized Michael Eady’s roan colt, and young Denis Eady, in a hand- some new fur cap, leaned forward and waved a greeting. “Hello, Ethe!” he shouted and spun on.

The cutter was going in the direction of the Frome farm, and Ethan’s heart contracted as he listened to the dwin- dling bells. What more likely than that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena’s departure for Bettsbridge, and was profit- ing by the opportunity to spend an hour with Mattie? Ethan was ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his breast. It seemed unworthy of the girl that his thoughts of her should be so violent.

He walked on to the church corner and entered the shade of the Varnum spruces, where he had stood with her the night before. As he passed into their gloom he saw an indistinct outline just ahead of him. At his approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half laughing “Oh!’’ provoked by the discovery of his presence. Again the outline hastily disunited and the Varnum gate slammed on one half while the other hurried on ahead of him. Ethan smiled at the discomfiture he had caused. What did it matter to Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum if they were caught kissing each other? Everybody in Starkfield knew they were engaged. It pleased Ethan to have sur- prised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had stood with such a thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness.

He fetched the grays from Hale’s stable and started on his long climb back to the farm. The cold was less sharp than earlier in the day and a thick fleecy sky threatened snow for

44 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse span • gle (spã´�əl) vt., decorate with smallbright objectscon • tract (kən trakt́ ) vi., grow smalldwind • ling (dwind´li˜) adj., becoming less dis • com • fi • ture (dis kum´fi chər) n.,confusionflee • cy (flē´sē) adj., light and woolly

® For what reason does Ethan think Denis is going to the Frome farm? How does Ethan feel when he sees where Denis is going?

® What does Ethan see in the Varnum spruces? In what way does this occurrence differ from his experi- ence with Mattie in the same spot the night before?

the morrow.4 Here and there a star pricked through, showing behind it a deep well of blue. In an hour or two the moon would push over the ridge behind the farm, burn a gold-edged rent in the clouds, and then be swallowed by them. A mournful peace hung on the fields, as though they felt the relaxing grasp of the cold and stretched themselves in their long winter sleep.

Ethan’s ears were alert for the jingle of sleighbells, but not a sound broke the silence of the lonely road. As he drew near the farm he saw, through the thin screen of larches at the gate, a light twinkling in the house above him. “She’s up in her room,” he said to himself, “fixing herself up for supper”; and he remembered Zeena’s sarcastic stare when Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.

He passed by the graves on the knoll and turned his head to glance at one of the older headstones, which had inter- ested him deeply as a boy because it bore his name.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ETHAN FROME AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE,

WHO DWELLED TOGETHER IN PEACE FOR FIFTY YEARS.

He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live together, but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash. Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he won- dered if when their turn came, the same epitaph5 would be written over him and Zeena.

He opened the barn door and craned his head into the obscurity, half-fearing to discover Denis Eady’s roan colt in the stall beside the sorrel. But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers. His was not a tune- ful throat, but harsh melodies burst from it as he locked the barn and sprang up the hill to the house. He reached the kitchen porch and turned the door handle; but the door did not yield to his touch.

CHAPTER 4 45

4. mmoorrrrooww.. Next day 5. eeppiittaapphh.. Inscription on a tomb or gravestone

WWords For EverydayUse rent (rent) n., tear

√ What are the names of Ethan’s ancestors? What does their headstone say about their mar- riage? In what way does this description compare to the mar- riage of Ethan and Zeena?

√ What happens when Ethan tries to enter the house? Whom does he expect to see when the door finally opens?

Startled at finding it locked he rattled the handle vio- lently; then he reflected that Mattie was alone and that it was natural she should barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness expecting to hear her step. It did not come, and after vainly straining his ears he called out in a voice that shook with joy, “Hello, Matt!”

Silence answered; but in a minute or two he caught a sound on the stairs and saw a line of light about the door frame, as he had seen it the night before. So strange was the precision with which the incidents of the previous evening were repeating themselves that he half expected, when he heard the key turn, to see his wife before him on the thresh- old; but the door opened, and Mattie faced him.

She stood just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same dis- tinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no big- ger than a child’s. Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.

She wore her usual dress of darkish stuff,6 and there was no bow at her neck; but through her hair she had run a streak of crimson ribbon. This tribute to the unusual trans- formed and glorified her. She seemed to Ethan taller, fuller, more womanly in shape and motion. She stood aside, smil- ing silently, while he entered, and then moved away from him with something soft and flowing in her gait. She set the lamp on the table, and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries and his favorite pickles in a dish of gay red glass. A bright fire glowed in the stove and the cat lay stretched before it, watching the table with a drowsy eye.

Ethan was suffocated with the sense of well-being. He went out into the passage to hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he came back Mattie had set the teapot on the table and the cat was rubbing itself persuasively against her ankles.

“Why, Puss! I nearly tripped over you,” she cried, the laughter sparkling through her lashes.

46 ETHAN FROME

6. ssttuuffff.. Cloth

WWords For EverydayUse bar • ri • cade (bar´ i kād´́) vt., shut oneself in with a barrierpre • ci • sion (prē sizh´ən) n., exactnessglo • ri • fy (�lôr´ə f� )̄ vt., make finer

® What does Ethan in see as he enters the house? In what way does this scene differ from his usual experience?

Again Ethan felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his coming that gave her such a kindled face?

“Well, Matt, any visitors?” he threw off, stooping down carelessly to examine the fastening of the stove.

She nodded and laughed “Yes, one,” and he felt a black- ness settling on his brows.

“Who was that?” he questioned, raising himself up to slant a glance at her beneath his scowl.

Her eyes danced with malice. “Why, Jotham Powell. He came in after he got back, and asked for a drop of coffee before he went down home.”

The blackness lifted and light flooded Ethan’s brain. “That all? Well, I hope you made out to let him have it.” And after a pause he felt it right to add, “I suppose he got Zeena over to the Flats all right?”

“Oh, yes; in plenty of time.” The name threw a chill between them, and they stood a

moment looking sideways at each other before Mattie said with a shy laugh, “I guess it’s about time for supper.”

They drew their seats up to the table, and the cat, unbid- den, jumped between them into Zeena’s empty chair. “Oh, Puss!’’ said Mattie, and they laughed again.

Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt himself on the brink of eloquence; but the mention of Zeena had paralyzed him. Mattie seemed to feel the contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for doughnuts and sweet pickles. At last, after casting about for an effective opening, he took a long gulp of tea, cleared his throat, and said, “Looks as if there’d be more snow.”

She feigned great interest. “Is that so? Do you suppose it’ll interfere with Zeena’s getting back?” She flushed red as the question escaped her, and hastily set down the cup she was lifting.

Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles. “You never can tell, this time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats.” The name had benumbed him again, and once more he felt as if Zeena were in the room between them.

“Oh, Puss, you’re too greedy!” Mattie cried. The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from

Zeena’s seat to the table, and was stealthily elongating its

CHAPTER 4 47

WWords For EverydayUse kin • dled (kin´dəld) adj., lit upmal • ice (mal´is) n., desire to do mischiefcon • ta • gion (kun tā´jun) n., infection feign (fān) vt., pretendin • sa • tia • ble (in sā´shə bəl) adj., unsatis-fiable

√ Why does Ethan ask Mattie this question?

√ What effect does Zeena’s name have on Ethan and Mattie?

√ What does Ethan say to begin a con- versation? What is Mattie’s response?

body in the direction of the milk jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie. The two leaned forward at the same moment and their hands met on the handle of the jug. Mattie’s hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his clasped on it a moment longer than was necessary. The cat, profiting by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat, and in doing so backed into the pickle dish, which fell to the floor with a crash.

Mattie, in an instant, had sprung from her chair and was down on her knees by the fragments.

“Oh, Ethan, Ethan—it’s all to pieces! What will Zeena say?”

But this time his courage was up. “Well, she’ll have to say it to the cat, anyway!” he rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at Mattie’s side to scrape up the swimming pickles.

She lifted stricken eyes to him. “Yes, but, you see, she never meant it should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on the stepladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china closet, where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she’ll want to know why I did it——”

The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan’s latent resolution.

“She needn’t know anything about it if you keep quiet. I’ll get another just like it tomorrow. Where did it come from? I’ll go to Shadd’s Falls for it if I have to!”

“Oh, you’ll never get another even there! It was a wedding present—don’t you remember? It came all the way from Philadelphia, from Zeena’s aunt that married the minister. That’s why she wouldn’t ever use it. Oh, Ethan, Ethan, what in the world shall I do?”

She began to cry, and he felt as if every one of her tears were pouring over him like burning lead. “Don’t, Matt, don’t—oh, don’t!’’ he implored her.

She struggled to her feet, and he rose and followed her helplessly while she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It seemed to him as if the shattered frag- ments of their evening lay there.

“Here, give them to me,” he said in a voice of sudden authority.

48 ETHAN FROME

WWords For EverydayUse re • join (ri join´) vi., answer

® Why is Mattie so upset about breaking the pickle dish? Why does she fear Zeena’s reaction?

® To what is the shattered pickle dish compared?

She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. “Oh, Ethan, what are you going to do?”

Without replying he gathered the pieces of glass into his broad palm and walked out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit a candle end, opened the china closet, and, reaching his long arm up to the highest shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of touch that a close inspection convinced him of the impossibility of detecting from below that the dish was broken. If he glued it together the next morning months might elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and meanwhile he might after all be able to match the dish at Shadd’s Falls or Bettsbridge. Having satis- fied himself that there was no risk of immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the floor.

“It’s all right, Matt. Come back and finish supper,” he commanded her.

Completely reassured, she shone on him through tear-hung lashes, and his soul swelled with pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She did not even ask what he had done. Except when he was steering a big log down the mountain to his mill he had never known such a thrilling sense of mastery.

CHAPTER 4 49

WWords For EverydayUse e • lapse (ə laps´) vi., passsub • due (sub do�o— ´) vt., bring under authoritymas • ter • y (mas´tər ē) n., control

√ What is Ethan’s solution to the problem?

CHAPTER 5

They finished supper, and while Mattie cleared the table Ethan went to look at the cows and then took a last turn about the house. The earth lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now and then he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far off on the edge of the wood lot.

When he returned to the kitchen Mattie had pushed up his chair to the stove and seated herself near the lamp with a bit of sewing. The scene was just as he had dreamed of it that morn- ing. He sat down, drew his pipe from his pocket and stretched his feet to the glow. His hard day’s work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and he had a confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth and har- mony and time could bring no change. The only drawback to his complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said: “Come over here and sit by the stove.”

Zeena’s empty rocking-chair stood facing him. Mattie rose obediently, and seated herself in it. As her young brown head detached itself against the patchwork cushion that habitu- ally framed his wife’s gaunt countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock. It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder. After a moment Mattie seemed to be affected by the same sense of constraint. She changed her position, leaning forward to bend her head above her work, so that he saw only the foreshortened1 tip of her nose and the streak of red in her hair; then she slipped to her feet, saying “I can’t see to sew,” and went back to her chair by the lamp.

Ethan made a pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when he returned to his seat he pushed it sideways that he might get a view of her profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands. The cat, who had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped up into Zeena’s chair, rolled itself into a ball, and lay watching them with narrowed eyes.

Deep quiet sank on the room. The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp scent of the geraniums mingled

50 ETHAN FROME

1. ffoorreesshhoorrtteenneedd.. Made by an accident of perspective to seem closer or shorter

WWords For EverydayUse gaunt (�ônt) adj., thin and bonycoun • te • nance (koun´tə nəns) n., faceob • lit • er • ate (ə blit´ə rāt) vt., blot out, do away withre • plen • ish (ri plen´ish) vt., supply again

® What seems to happen as Mattie sits in Zeena’s chair? How does she deal with the discomfort of the situation?

with the odor of Ethan’s smoke, which began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its grayish cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.

All constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to talk easily and simply. They spoke of everyday things, of the prospect of snow, of the next church sociable, of the loves and quarrels of Starkfield. The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that they had always spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing so. . . .

“This is the night we were to have gone coasting, Matt,” he said at length, with the rich sense, as he spoke, that they could go on any other night they chose, since they had all time before them.

She smiled back at him. “I guess you forgot!” “No, I didn’t forget; but it’s as dark as Egypt outdoors. We

might go tomorrow if there’s a moon.” She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back, the

lamplight sparkling on her lips and teeth. “That would be lovely, Ethan!”

He kept his eyes fixed on her, marveling at the way her face changed with each turn of their talk, like a wheat field under a summer breeze. It was intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy words, and he longed to try new ways of using it.

“Would you be scared to go down the Corbury road with me on a night like this?” he asked.

Her cheeks burned redder. “I ain’t any more scared than you are!”

“Well, I’d be scared, then; I wouldn’t do it. That’s an ugly corner down by the big elm. If a fellow didn’t keep his eyes open he’d go plumb into it.” He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority which his words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the feeling he added, “I guess we’re well enough here.”

She let her lids sink slowly, in the way he loved. “Yes, we’re well enough here,” she sighed.

Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther end of the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. “Say, Matt,” he began with a smile,

CHAPTER 5 51

WWords For EverydayUse in • ti • ma • cy (in´́ tə mə́ sē) n., cozy familiaritya • drift (ə drift´) adv., floating without being steeredin • tox • i • ca • ting (in täks´́ə kā´ti˜) adj., having the ability to excite

√ What effect does the commonplace nature of the evening have on Ethan?

√ What does Ethan remember that he and Mattie were to have done that night? Why isn’t he bothered that they have changed their plan?

√ Why does Ethan say he would be scared to go down the Corbury road on such a night?

“what do you think I saw under the Varnum spruces, coming along home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting kissed.”

The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he had spoken them they struck him as inexpress- ibly vulgar and out of place.

Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away from him. “I suppose it was Ruth and Ned,” she said in a low voice, as though he had suddenly touched on something grave.

Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only a mere touch on her hand. But now he felt as if her blush had set a flaming guard about her. He supposed it was his natural awkwardness that made him feel so. He knew that most young men made nothing at all of giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered that the night before, when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had been out-of-doors, under the open irre- sponsible night. Now, in the warm lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.

To ease his constraint he said, “I suppose they’ll be setting a date before long.”

“Yes. I shouldn’t wonder if they got married some time along in the summer.” She pronounced the word married as if her voice caressed it. It seemed a rustling covert2 leading to enchanted glades.3 A pang shot through Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her in his chair, “It’ll be your turn next, I wouldn’t wonder.”

She laughed a little uncertainly. “Why do you keep on saying that?”

He echoed her laugh. “I guess I do it to get used to the idea.” He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were building. At length, without turning her head or lifting her

52 ETHAN FROME

2. ccoovveerrtt.. Hiding place in the woods 3. ggllaaddeess.. Open space in the woods

WWords For EverydayUse vul • gar (vul´�ər) adj., crude, boorishim • pli • ca • tion (im´pli kā´́shən) n., indi-rect indication; suggestioncon • form • i • ty (kən fôrm´ə tē) n., behavior in accordance with customs andrulesin • fi • nite • ly (in´ fə nit lē) adv., greatly;immensely

® What does Ethan tell Mattie he has seen? What reaction does each of them have to his words?

® Why does Mattie seem less approach- able inside than she was outside, the night before?

lids, she said in a low tone, “It’s not because you think Zeena’s got anything against me, is it?”

His former dread started up full-armed at the suggestion. ‘’Why, what do you mean?” he stammered.

She raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the table between them. “I don’t know. I thought last night she seemed to have.”

“I’d like to know what,” he growled. “Nobody can tell with Zeena.” It was the first time they

had ever spoken so openly of her attitude toward Mattie, and the repetition of the name seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room and send it back to them in long reper- cussions of sound. Mattie waited, as if to give the echo time to drop, and then went on, “She hasn’t said anything to you?”

He shook his head. “No, not a word.” She tossed the hair bac