The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings Read Free Page A

and sprouting in endless
convolutions—why, that is something like it.
    That is, sometimes!
    There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody
seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the
light changes.
    When the sun shoots in through the east window—I always watch
for that first long, straight ray—it changes so quickly that I
never can quite believe it.
    That is why I watch it always.
    By moonlight—the moon shines in all night when there is a moon—I
wouldn't know it was the same paper.
    At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candle light,
lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The
outside pattern I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can
be.
    I didn't realize for a long time what the thing was that showed
behind, that dim sub-pattern, but now I am quite sure it is a
woman.
    By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern
that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by
the hour.
    I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to
sleep all I can.
    Indeed he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour
after each meal.
    It is a very bad habit I am convinced, for you see I don't
sleep.
    And that cultivates deceit, for I don't tell them I'm awake—O
no!
    The fact is I am getting a little afraid of John.
    He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an
inexplicable look.
    It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific
hypothesis,—that perhaps it is the paper!
    I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come
into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I've
caught him several times LOOKING AT THE PAPER! And Jennie too. I
caught Jennie with her hand on it once.
    She didn't know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a
quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner
possible, what she was doing with the paper—she turned around as if
she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry—asked me why I
should frighten her so!
    Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that
she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she
wished we would be more careful!
    Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that
pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but
myself!
    Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see
I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I
really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.
    John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the
other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my
wall-paper.
    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