Ethan Frome

e was washing up the dishes, humming one of the dance tunes of the night before. H

he geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie. He would have liked to linger

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

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 marrow by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though he had t

re 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 winter evenings, when in desperation her son

t 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 household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled in him. When the end came it was she who had to tell him to hi

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 d

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 complete loss of identity. And within a year of their marri

he had reasons for observing her more closely, her silence had begun to trouble him. He recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and wondered if Zeena were also turning "queer." 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 farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and of others w

. 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 clearl

s yard the builder was just

he said. "Thi

for though he did a fairly good business it was known that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently kept him what Starkfield called "behind." He was an old friend of Ethan's family, and his house o

grays and patted t

, "you keep them two

the shed which the builder used as his office. Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back prop

and thaw out," h

ty dollars. The blood rushed to his thin skin under the sting of Hale's astonishment. It was the builder's cu

taken time to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or any one else in Starkfield, to think he was going under again. Besides, he hated lying; if he wanted the money he wanted it, a

the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or a

Hale good day and opened the door of the office. As he passed out the build

e retorted before his rea

begin with, and then I'm fixing up a little house for Ned and Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to do it for 'em, but it costs." His look appealed t

llage. As he walked away the builder's last phrase lingered in his ears, and he re

one 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. E

kely than that Denis Eady had heard of Zeena's departure for Bettsbridge, and was profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour with Matt

eard 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 w

morrow. 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

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";

d to glance at one of the older headstones, which had i

AND ENDURANCE HIS WIFE, WHO DWELLE

seemed to him that they might pass in a flash. Then, with a sudden dart of irony, he w

ing 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 tuneful throat-but h

it was natural she should barricade herself at nightfall. He stood in the darkness expecting to hear her step. I

n it the night before. So strange was the precision with which the incidents of the previous evening were repeating themselves that

level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's. Then, striking upwar

uller, more womanly in shape and motion. She stood aside, smiling 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 care

hang up his coat and pull off his wet boots. When he came back Mattie had set the

er you," she cried, the laughte

f jealousy. Could it be his coming

w off, stooping down carelessly to

, one," and he felt a black

raising himself up to slant a g

ell. He came in after he got back, and asked

, I hope you made out to let him have it." And after a pause he felt

in plent

oment looking sideways at each other before Mattie said

unbidden, jumped between them into Zeena's empty cha

on of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet pickles. At

nterfere with Zeena's getting back?" She flushed red as the que

his time of year, it drifts so bad on the Flats." The name had benumbed h

're too greedy

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 wa

ung from her chair and was dow

t's all to pieces!

y it to the cat, any way!" he rejoined with a laugh, kneel

here was company; and I had to get up on the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the chi

at it called forth all of

I'll get another just like it to-morrow. Where did it c

? It came all the way from Philadelphia, from Zeena's aunt that married the minister.

her tears were pouring over him like burning lead

hile she spread out the pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It s

e," he said in a voic

y obeying his tone. "Oh, Eth

acy 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

Come back and finish su

as he saw how his tone subdued her. She did not even ask what he had done. Except when he was ste