Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was BECAUSE of the wall-paper — he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.

  I don’t want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough.

  I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.

  In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

  There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

  It is the strangest yellow, that wall-paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw — not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

  But there is something else about that paper — the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not, the smell is here.

  It creeps all over the house.

  I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

  It gets into my hair.

  Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it — there is that smell!

  Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

  It is not bad — at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

  In this damp weather it is awful, I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.

  It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house — to reach the smell.

  But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the COLOR of the paper! A yellow smell.

  There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even SMOOCH, as if it had been rubbed over and over.

  I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round — round and round and round — it makes me dizzy!

  I really have discovered something at last.

  Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.

  The front pattern DOES move — and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!

  Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.

  Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.

  And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern — it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

  They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down, and makes their eyes white!

  If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.

  I think that woman gets out in the daytime!

  And I’ll tell you why — privately — I’ve seen her!

  I can see her out of every one of my windows!

  It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.

  I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

  I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!

  I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.

  And John is so queer now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.

  I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.

  But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time.

  And though I always see her, she MAY be able to creep faster than I can turn!

  I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.

  If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.

  I have found out another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

  There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don’t like the look in his eyes.

  And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give.

  She said I slept a good deal in the daytime.

  John knows I don’t sleep very well at night, for all I’m so quiet!

  He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind.

  As if I couldn’t see through him!

  Still, I don’t wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months.

  It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it.

  Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to stay in town over night, and won’t be out until this evening.

  Jennie wanted to sleep with me — the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone.

  That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.

  I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

  A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.

  And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish it to-day!

  We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before.

  Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

  She laughed and said she wouldn’t mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired.

  How she betrayed herself that time!

  But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me — not ALIVE!

  She tried to get me out of the room — it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner — I would call when I woke.

  So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

  We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow.

  I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.

  How those children did tear about here!

  This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

  But I must get to work.

  I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.

  I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anybody come in, till John comes.

  I want to astonish him.

  I’ve got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

  But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!

  This bed will NOT move!

  I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner — but it hurt my teeth.

  Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!

  I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.

  Besides I
wouldn’t do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

  I don’t like to LOOK out of the windows even — there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

  I wonder if they all come out of that wall-paper as I did?

  But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope — you don’t get ME out in the road there!

  I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

  It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

  I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.

  For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.

  But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

  Why there’s John at the door!

  It is no use, young man, you can’t open it!

  How he does call and pound!

  Now he’s crying for an axe.

  It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!

  “John dear!” said I in the gentlest voice, “the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!”

  That silenced him for a few moments.

  Then he said — very quietly indeed, “Open the door, my darling!”

  “I can’t,” said I. “The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!”

  And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.

  “What is the matter?” he cried. “For God’s sake, what are you doing!”

  I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.

  “I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jane. And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”

  Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

  MISCELLANEOUS STORIES

  CONTENTS

  ACCORDING TO SOLOMON

  THREE THANKSGIVINGS

  THE COTTAGETTE

  WHEN I WAS A WITCH

  THAT RARE JEWEL

  THE UNEXPECTED

  CICUMSTANCES ALTER CASES

  THE GIANT WISTERIA

  AN EXTINCT ANGEL

  THE ROCKING-CHAIR

  DESERTED

  AN ELOPEMENT

  THROUGH THIS

  THE MISLEADING OF PENDLETON OAKS

  A DAY’S BERYYIN’

  FIVE GIRLS

  ONE WAY OUT

  AN UNPATENTED PROCESS

  AN UNNATURAL MOTHER

  THE WIDOW’S MIGHT

  THE JUMPING-OFF PLACE

  IN TWO HOUSES

  TURNED

  MAKING A CHANGE

  MRS ELDER’S IDEA

  THEIR HOUSE

  HER BEAUTY

  MRS HINES’S MONEY

  BEE WISE

  A COUNCIL OF WAR

  FULFILMENT

  A PARTNERSHIP

  IF I WERE A MAN

  MR PEEBLES’S HEART

  MRS MERRILL’S DUTIES

  GIRLS AND LAND

  DR CLAIR’S PLACE

  A SURPLUS WOMAN

  JOAN’S DEFENDER

  ACCORDING TO SOLOMON

  “‘He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with his tongue,’” said Mr. Solomon Bankside to his wife Mary.

  “Its the other way with a woman, I think;” she answered him, “you might put that in.”

  “Tut, tut, Molly,” said he; “‘Add not unto his words,’ — do not speak lightly of the wisdom of the great king.”

  “I don’t mean to, dear, but — when you hear it all the time” —

  “‘He that turneth away his ear from the law, even his prayer shall be an abomination,’” answered Mr. Bankside.

  “I believe you know every one of those old Proverbs by heart,” said his wife with some heat. “Now that’s not disrespectful! — they are old! — and I do wish you’d forget some of them!”

  He smiled at her quizzically, tossing back his heavy silver-gray hair with the gesture she had always loved. His eyes were deep blue and bright under their bushy brows; and the mouth was kind — in its iron way. “I can think of at least three to squelch you with, Molly,” said he, “but I won’t.”

  “O I know the one you want! ‘A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentions woman are alike!’ I’m not contentious, Solomon!”

  “No, you are not,” he frankly admitted. “What I really had in mind was this— ‘A prudent wife is from the Lord,’ and ‘He that findeth a wife findeth a good thing; and obtaineth favor of the Lord.’”

  She ran around the table in the impulsive way years did not alter, and kissed him warmly.

  “I’m not scolding you, my dear,” he continued: “but if you had all the money you’d like to give away — there wouldn’t be much left!”

  “But look at what you spend on me!” she urged.

  “That’s a wise investment — as well as a deserved reward,” her husband answered calmly. “‘There is that scattereth and yet increaseth,’ you know, my dear; ‘And there is that withholdeth more than is meet — and it tendeth to poverty!’ Take all you get my dear — its none too good for you.”

  He gave her his goodby kiss with special fondness, put on his heavy satin-lined overcoat and went to the office.

  Mr. Solomon Bankside was not a Jew; though his last name suggested and his first seemed to prove it; also his proficiency in the Old Testament gave color to the idea. No, he came from Vermont; of generations of unbroken New England and old English Puritan ancestry, where the Solomons and Isaacs and Zedekiahs were only mitigated by the Standfasts and Praise-the-Lords. Pious, persistent pigheaded folk were they, down all the line.

  His wife had no such simple pedigree. A streak of Huguenot blood she had (some of the best in France, though neither of them knew that), a grandmother from Albany with a Van to her name; a great grandmother with a Mac; and another with an O’; even a German cross came in somewhere. Mr. Bankside was devoted to genealogy, and had been at some pains to dig up these facts — the more he found the worse he felt, and the lower ran his opinion of Mrs. Bankside’s ancestry.

  She had been a fascinating girl; pretty, with the dash and piquancy of an oriole in a May apple-tree; clever and efficient in everything her swift hands touched; quite a spectacular housekeeper; and the sober, long-faced young downeasterner had married her with a sudden decision that he often wondered about in later years. So did she.

  What he had not sufficiently weighed at the time, was her spirit of incorrigible independence, and a light-mindedness which, on maturer judgment, he could almost term irreligious. His conduct was based on principle, all of it; built firmly into habit and buttressed by scriptural quotations. Hers seemed to him as inconsequent as the flight of a moth. Studying it, in his solemn conscientious way, in the light of his genealogical researches, he felt that all her uncertainties were accounted for, and that the error was his — in having married too many kinds of people at once.

  They had been, and were, very happy together none the less: though sometimes their happiness was a little tottery. This was one of the times. It was the day after Christmas, and Mrs. Bankside entered the big drawing room, redolent of popcorn and evergreen, and walked slowly to the corner where the fruits of yesterday were lovingly arranged; so few that she had been able to give — so many that she had received.

  There were the numerous pretty interchangeable things given her by her many friends; “presents,” suitable to any lady. There were the few perfectly selected ones given by the few who knew her best. There was the rather perplexing gift of Mrs. MacAvelly. There was her brother’s stiff white envelope enclosing a check. There were the loving gifts
of children and grand-children.

  Finally there was Solomon’s.

  It was his custom to bestow upon her one solemn and expensive object, a boon as it were, carefully selected, after much thought and balancing of merits; but the consideration was spent on the nature of the gift — not on the desires of the recipient. There was the piano she could not play, the statue she did not admire, the set of Dante she never read, the heavy gold bracelet, the stiff diamond brooch — and all the others. This time it was a set of sables, costing even more than she imagined.

  Christmas after Christmas had these things come to her; and she stood there now, thinking of that procession of unvalued valuables, with an expression so mixed and changeful it resembled a kaleidoscope. Love for Solomon, pride in Solomon, respect for Solomon’s judgment and power to pay, gratitude for his unfailing kindness and generosity, impatience with his always giving her this one big valuable permanent thing, when he knew so well that she much preferred small renewable cheap ones; her personal dislike of furs, the painful conviction that brown was not becoming to her — all these and more filled the little woman with what used to be called “conflicting emotions.”

  She smoothed out her brother’s check, wishing as she always did that it had come before Christmas, so that she might buy more presents for her beloved people. Solomon liked to spend money on her — in his own way; but he did not like to have her spend money on him — or on anyone for that matter. She had asked her brother once, if he would mind sending her his Christmas present beforehand.

  “Not on your life, Polly!” he said. “You’d never see a cent of it! You can’t buy ’em many things right on top of Christmas, and it’ll be gone long before the next one.”

  She put the check away and turned to examine her queerest gift. Upon which scrutiny presently entered the donor.

  “I’m ever so much obliged, Benigna,” said Mrs. Bankside. “You know how I love to do things. It’s a loom, isn’t it? Can you show me how it works?”

  “Of course I can, my dear; that’s just what I ran in for — I was afraid you wouldn’t know. But you are so clever with your hands that I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I do.”

  Whereat Mrs. MacAvelly taught Mrs. Bankside the time-honored art of weaving. And Mrs. Bankside enjoyed it more than any previous handicraft she had essayed.