The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings Read Free

wall-paper.
    If we had not used it, that blessed child would have! What a
fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn't have a child of mine, an
impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds.
    I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me
here after all, I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you
see.
    Of course I never mention it to them any more—I am too wise,—but
I keep watch of it all the same.
    There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever
will.
    Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every
day.
    It is always the same shape, only very numerous.
    And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind
that pattern. I don't like it a bit. I wonder—I begin to think—I
wish John would take me away from here!
    It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so
wise, and because he loves me so.
    But I tried it last night.
    It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around just as the sun
does.
    I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always
comes in by one window or another.
    John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and
watched the moonlight on that undulating wall-paper till I felt
creepy.
    The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if
she wanted to get out.
    I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper DID move,
and when I came back John was awake.
    "What is it, little girl?" he said. "Don't go walking about like
that—you'll get cold."
    I though it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really
was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away.
    "Why darling!" said he, "our lease will be up in three weeks,
and I can't see how to leave before.
    "The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave
town just now. Of course if you were in any danger, I could and
would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or
not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and
color, your appetite is better, I feel really much easier about
you."
    "I don't weigh a bit more," said I, "nor as much; and my
appetite may be better in the evening when you are here, but it is
worse in the morning when you are away!"
    "Bless her little heart!" said he with a big hug, "she shall be
as sick as she pleases! But now let's improve the shining hours by
going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning!"
    "And you won't go away?" I asked gloomily.
    "Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we
will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting
the house ready. Really dear you are better!"
    "Better in body perhaps—" I began, and stopped short, for he sat
up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look
that I could not say another word.
    "My darling," said he, "I beg of you, for my sake and for our
child's sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one
instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so
dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a
false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I
tell you so?"
    So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep
before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay
there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the
back pattern really did move together or separately.
    On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of
sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a
normal mind.
    The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and
infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.
    You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well
underway in following, it turns a back-somersault and there you
are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon
you. It is like a bad dream.
    The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a
fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable
string of toadstools, budding