The Yellow Wall-Paper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  The risen sun was gilding all the housetops, and its level rays, striking the high panes on the building opposite, shone back in a calm glory on the great chair by the window, the sweet face, down-dropped eyes, and swaying golden head.

  Old Water

  The lake lay glassy in level golden light. Where the long shadows of the wooded bank spread across it was dark, fathomless. Where the little cliff rose on the eastern shore its bright reflection went down endlessly.

  Slowly across the open gold came a still canoe, sent swiftly and smoothly on by well-accustomed arms.

  ‘How strong! How splendid! Ah! she is like a Valkyr!’ said the poet; and Mrs Osgood looked up at the dark bulk with appreciative eyes.

  ‘You don’t know how it delights me to have you speak like that!’ she said softly. ‘I feel those things myself, but have not the gift of words. And Ellen is so practical.’

  ‘She could not be your daughter and not have a poetic soul,’ he answered, smiling gravely.

  ‘I’m sure I hope so. But I have never felt sure! When she was little I read to her from the poets, always; but she did not care for them – unless it was what she called “story poetry.” And as soon as she had any choice of her own she took to science.’

  ‘The poetry is there,’ he said, his eyes on the smooth brown arms, now more near. ‘That poise! That motion! It is the very soul of poetry – and the body! Her body is a poem!’

  Mrs Osgood watched the accurate landing, the strong pull that brought the canoe over the roller and up into the little boathouse. ‘Ellen is so practical!’ she murmured. ‘She will not even admit her own beauty.’

  ‘She is unawakened,’ breathed the poet – ‘Unawakened!’ And his big eyes glimmered as with a stir of hope.

  ‘It’s very brave of her, too,’ the mother went on. ‘She does not really love the water, and just makes herself go out on it. I think in her heart she’s afraid – but will not admit it. O Ellen! Come here dear. This is Mr Pendexter – the Poet.’

  Ellen gave her cool brown hand; a little wet even, as she had casually washed them at the water’s edge; but he pressed it warmly, and uttered his admiration of her skill with the canoe.

  ‘O that’s nothing,’ said the girl. ‘Canoeing’s dead easy.’

  ‘Will you teach it to me?’ he asked. ‘I will be a most docile pupil.’

  She looked up and down his large frame with a somewhat questioning eye. It was big enough surely, and those great limbs must mean strength; but he lacked something of the balance and assured quickness which speaks of training.

  ‘Can’t you paddle?’ she said.

  ‘Forgive my ignorance – but I have never been in one of those graceful slim crafts. I shall be so glad to try.’

  ‘Mr Pendexter has been more in Europe than America,’ her mother put in hastily, ‘and you must not imagine, my dear, that all men care for these things. I’m sure that if you are interested, my daughter will be very glad to teach you, Mr Pendexter.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Ellen. ‘I’ll teach him in two tries. Want to start tomorrow morning? I’m usually out pretty early.’

  ‘I shall be delighted,’ he said. ‘We will greet Aurora together.’

  ‘The Dawn, dear,’ suggested her mother with an apologetic smile.

  ‘O yes,’ the girl agreed. ‘I recognize Aurora, mama. Is dinner ready?’

  ‘It will be when you are dressed,’ said her mother. ‘Put on your blue frock, dear – the light one.’

  ‘All right,’ said Ellen, and ran lightly up the path.

  ‘Beautiful! Beautiful!’ he murmured, his eyes following her flying figure. ‘Ah, madam! What it must be to you to have such a daughter! To see your own youth – but a moment passed – repeated before your eyes!’ And he bent an admiring glance on the outlines of his hostess.

  Mrs Osgood appeared at dinner in a somewhat classic gown, her fine hair banded with barbaric gold; and looked with satisfaction at her daughter, who shone like a juvenile Juno in her misty blue. Ellen had her mother’s beauty and her father’s strength. Her frame was large, her muscles had power under their flowing grace of line. She carried herself like a queen, but wore the cheerful unconscious air of a healthy schoolgirl, which she was.

  Her appetite was so hearty that her mother almost feared it would pain the poet, but she soon observed that he too showed full appreciation of her chef’s creations. Ellen too observed him, noting with frank disapproval that he ate freely of sweets and creams, and seemed to enjoy the coffee and liqueurs exceedingly.

  ‘Ellen never takes coffee,’ Mrs Osgood explained, as they sat in the luxurious drawing room, ‘she has some notion about training I believe.’

  ‘Mother! I am training!’ the girl protested. ‘Not officially – there’s no race on; but I like to keep in good condition. I’m stroke at college, Mr Pindexter.’

  ‘Pendexter, dear,’ her mother whispered.

  The big man took his second demitasse, and sat near the girl.

  ‘I can’t tell you how much I admire it,’ he said, leaning forward. ‘You are like Nausicaa – like Atalanta – like the women of my dreams!’

  She was not displeased with his open admiration – even athletic girls are not above enjoying praise – but she took it awkwardly.

  ‘I don’t believe in dreams,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘No – one must not. And yet – have you never had a dream that haunts you – a dream that comes again?’

  ‘I’ve had bad dreams,’ she admitted, ‘horrid ones; but not the same dream twice.’

  ‘What do you dream of when your dreams are terrible?’

  ‘Beasts,’ she answered promptly. ‘Big beasts that jump at me! And I run and run – ugh!’

  Mrs Osgood sipped her coffee and watched them. There was no young poet more promising than this. He represented all that her own girlhood had longed for – all that the highly prosperous mill-owner she married had utterly failed to give. If her daughter could have what she had missed!

  ‘They say those dreams come from our remote past,’ she suggested. ‘Do you believe that, Mr Pendexter?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘from our racial infancy. From those long buried years of fear and pain.’

  ‘And when we have that queer feeling of having been there before – isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘We do not know,’ said he. ‘Some say it is from a moment’s delay in action of one-half of the brain. I cannot tell. To me it is more mysterious, more interesting, to think that when one has that wonderful sudden sense of previous acquaintance it means vague memories of a former life.’ And he looked at Ellen as if she had figured largely in his previous existence. ‘Have you ever had that feeling, Miss Osgood?’

  The girl laughed rather shamefacedly. ‘I’ve had it about one thing,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m afraid of water.’

  ‘Afraid of water! You! A water goddess!’

  ‘O, I don’t encourage it, of course. But it’s the only thing I ever was nervous about. I’ve had it from childhood – that horrid feeling!’

  She shivered a little, and asked if he wouldn’t like some music.

  ‘Ah! You make music too?’

  She laughed gaily. ‘Only with the pianola – or the other machine. Shall I start it?’

  ‘A moment,’ he said. ‘In a moment. But tell me, will you not, of this dream of something terrible? I am so deeply interested.’

  ‘Why, it isn’t much,’ she said. ‘I don’t dream it, really – it comes when I’m awake. Only two or three times – once when I was about ten or eleven, and twice since. It’s water – black, still, smooth water – way down below me. And I can’t get away from it. I want to – and then something grabs me – ugh!’

  She got up decidedly and went to the music stand. ‘If that’s a relic of my past I must have been prematurely cut off by an enraged ape! Anyhow, I don’t like water – unless it’s wild ocean. What shall I play?’

  He meant to rise next morning with the
daylight, but failed to awaken; and when he did look out he saw the canoe shooting lightly home in time for breakfast.

  She laughed at him for his laziness, but promised a lesson later, and was pleased to find that he could play tennis. He looked well in his white flannels, in fact his appearance was more admirable than his playing, and the girl beat him till he grew almost angry.

  Mrs Osgood watched delightedly on occasions where watching was agreeable, and on other occasions she took herself off with various excuses, and left them much together.

  He expressed to her privately a question as to whether he was not too heavy for the canoe, but she reassured him.

  ‘O, no, indeed, Mr Pendexter; it’s a specially wide canoe, and has air chambers in it – it can’t sink.’ Her father had made it for her. ‘He’s a heavy man himself, and loves canoeing.’

  So the stalwart poet was directed to step softly into the middle, and given the bow paddle.

  It grieved him much that he could not see his fair instructress, and he proposed that they change places.

  ‘No, indeed!’ she said. ‘Trust you with the other paddle? – Not yet!’

  Could he not at least face her, he suggested. At which she laughed wickedly, and told him he’d better learn to paddle forward before he tried to do it backward.

  ‘If you want to look at me you might get another canoe and try to follow,’ she added, smiling; whereat he declared her would obey orders absolutely.

  He sat all across the little rattan bow seat, and rolled up his sleeves as she did. She gave him the paddle, showed him how to hold it, and grinned silently as his mighty strokes swung them to right or left, for all her vigorous steering.

  ‘Not so hard!’ she said. ‘You are stronger than I, and your stroke is so far out you swing me around.’

  With a little patience he mastered the art sufficiently to wield a fairly serviceable bow paddle, but she would not trust him with the stern; and not all the beauties of the quiet lake consoled him for losing sight of her. Still, he reflected, she could see him. Perhaps that was why she kept him there in front! – and he sat straighter at the thought.

  She did rather enjoy the well proportioned bulk of him, but she had small respect for his lack of dexterity, and felt a real dislike for the heavy fell of black hair on his arms and hands.

  He tired of canoeing. One cannot direct speaking glances over one’s shoulder, nor tender words; not with good effect, that is. At tennis he found her so steadily victor that he tired of that too. Golf she did not care for; horses he was unfamiliar with; and when she ran the car her hands and eyes and whole attention were on the machine. So he begged for walking.

  ‘You must having charming walks in these woods,’ he said. ‘I own inferiority in many ways – but I can walk!’

  ‘All right,’ she cheerily agreed, and tramped about the country with him, brisk and tireless.

  Her mother watched breathlessly. She wholly admired this ox-eyed man with the velvet voice, the mouth so red under his soft mustache. She thought his poetry noble and musical beyond measure. Ellen thought it was ‘no mortal use.’

  ‘What on earth does he want to make over those old legends for, anyway!’ she said, when her mother tried to win her to some appreciation. ‘Isn’t there enough to write about today without going back to people who never existed anyhow – nothing but characters out of other people’s stories?’

  ‘They are parts of the world’s poetic material, my dear; folk-lore, race-myths. They are among our universal images.’

  ‘Well, I don’t like poetry about universal images, that’s all. It’s like mummies – sort of warmed over and dressed up!’

  ‘I am so sorry!’ said her mother, with some irritation. ‘Here we are honored with a visit from one of our very greatest poets – perhaps the greatest; and my own child hasn’t sense enough to appreciate his beautiful work. You are so like your father!’

  ‘Well, I can’t help it,’ said Ellen. ‘I don’t like those foolish old stories about people who never did anything useful, and hadn’t an idea in their heads except being in love and killing somebody! They had no sense, and no courage, and no decency!’

  Her mother tried to win her to some admission of merit in his other work.

  ‘It’s no use, mama! You may have your poet, and get all the esthetic satisfaction you can out of it. And I’ll be polite to him, of course. But I don’t like his stuff.’

  ‘Not his “Lyrics of the Day,” dear? And “The Woods”?’

  ‘No, mumsy, not even those. I don’t believe he ever saw a sunrise – unless he got up on purpose and set himself before it like a camera! And woods! Why he don’t know one tree from another!’

  Her mother almost despaired of her; but the poet was not discouraged.

  ‘Ah! Mrs Osgood! Since you honor me with your confidence I can but thank you and try my fate. It is so beautiful, this budding soul – not opened yet! So close – so almost hard! But when its rosy petals do unfold –’

  He did not, however, give his confidence to Mrs Osgood beyond this gentle poetic outside view of a sort of floricultural intent. He told her nothing of the storm of passion which was growing within him; a passion of such seething intensity as would have alarmed that gentle soul exceedingly and make her doubt, perhaps, the wisdom of her selection.

  She remained in a state of eager but restrained emotion; saying little to Ellen lest she alarm her, but hoping that the girl would find happiness with this great soul.

  The great soul, meanwhile, pursued his way, using every art he knew – and his experience was not narrow – to reach the heart of the brown and ruddy nymph beside him.

  She was ignorant and young. Too whole-souled in her indifference to really appreciate the stress he labored under; much less to sympathize. On the contrary she took a mischievous delight in teasing him, doing harm without knowing it, like a playful child. She teased him about his tennis playing, about his paddling, about his driving; allowed that perhaps he might play golf well, but she didn’t care for golf herself – it was too slow; mocked even his walking expeditions.

  ‘He don’t want to walk!’ she said gaily to her mother one night at dinner. ‘He just wants to go somewhere and arrange himself gracefully under a tree and read to me about Eloise, or Araminta or somebody; all slim and white and wavy and golden-haired; and how they killed themselves for love!’

  She laughed frankly at him, and he laughed with her; but his heart was hot and dark within him. The longer he pursued and failed the fiercer was his desire for her. Already he had loved longer than was usual to him. Never before had his overwhelming advances been so lightly parried and set aside.

  ‘Will you take a walk with me this evening after dinner?’ he proposed. ‘There is a most heavenly moon – and I cannot see to read to you. It must be strangely lovely – the moonlight – on your lake, is it not, Mrs Osgood?’

  ‘It is indeed,’ she warmly agreed, looking disapprovingly on the girl, who was still giggling softly at the memory of golden-haired Araminta. ‘Take him on the cliff walk, Ellen, and do try to be more appreciative of beauty!’

  ‘Yes, mama,’ said Ellen, ‘I’ll be good.’

  She was so good upon the moonlit walk; so gentle and sympathetic, and so honestly tried to find some point of agreement, that his feelings were too much for his judgment, and he seized her hand and kissed it. She pushed him away, too astonished for words.

  ‘Why, Mr Pendexter! What are you thinking of!’

  Then he poured out his heart to her. He told her how he loved her – madly, passionately, irresistably. He begged her to listen to him.

  ‘Ah! You young Diana! You do not know how I suffer! You are so young, so cold! So heavenly beautiful! Do not be cruel! Listen to me! Say you will be my wife! Give me one kiss! Just one!’

  She was young, and cold, and ignorantly cruel. She laughed at him, laughed mercilessly, and turned away.

  He followed her, the blood pounding in his veins, his voice shaken with the intensity
of his emotions. He caught her hand and drew her toward him again. She broke from him with a little cry, and ran. He followed, hotly, madly; rushed upon her, caught her, held her fast.

  ‘You shall love me! You shall!’ he cried. His hands were hot and trembling, but he held her close and turned her face to his.

  ‘I will not!’ she cried, struggling. ‘Let me go! I hate you, I tell you. I hate you! You are – disgusting!’ She pushed as far from him as he could.

  They had reached the top of the little cliff opposite the house. Huge dark pines hung over them, their wide boughs swaying softly.

  The water lay below in the shadow, smooth and oil-black.

  The girl looked down at it, and a sudden shudder shook her tense frame. She gave a low moan and hid her face in her hands.

  ‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘It is your fate! Our fate! We have lived through this before! We will die together if we cannot live together!’

  He caught her to him, kissed her madly, passionately, and together they went down into the black water.

  ‘It’s pretty lucky I could swim,’ said Ellen, as she hurried home. ‘And he couldn’t. The poor man! O, the poor man! He must have been crazy!’

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