Ethan Frome

a last turn about the house. The earth lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that no

pocket and stretched his feet to the glow. His hard day's work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and he had a confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth and harmony and time co

momentary shock. It was almost as if the other face, the face of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder. After a moment Mattie seemed to be affected by the same sense of constraint. She changed her position, lean

might get a view of her profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands. The cat, who had been a puzzled observer of t

in the stove, and the faint sharp scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which b

sociable, of the loves and quarrels of Starkfield. The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan an illusion of long-established intimacy which no out

at length, with the rich sense, as he spoke, that they could go o

at him. "I gue

dark as Egypt outdoors. We might

back, the lamplight sparkling on her lips

urn of their talk, like a wheat-field under a summer breeze. It was intoxicating

wn the Corbury road with me o

der. "I ain't any mor

n't keep his eyes open he'd go plumb into it." He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority wh

n the way he loved. "Yes, we're

touched the farther end of the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. "Say, Matt," he began with a smile, "wh

ng, but now that he had spoken them they struc

hrough her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away from him. "I suppose it was Ruth

e supposed it was his natural awkwardness that made him feel so. He knew that most young men made nothing at all of giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered that the night before, when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not

aid: "I suppose they'll be

ied as if her voice caressed it. It seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang shot thr

ncertainly. "Why do yo

"I guess I do it to g

ds went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were building. A

-armed at the suggestion. "Why,

ropping on the table between them. "I don't k

know what,"

e repetition of the name seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room and send it back to them in long repercus

head. "No,

ith a laugh. "I guess I'm just nervous, then

let's think ab

and it seemed to him that a warm current flowed toward him along the strip of stuff that still lay unrolled between them. Cautiously he slid his hand palm-downward along the table till his finger-tips touched the en

ad jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot, and as a r

have together." The return to reality was as painful as the return to consciousness after taking an anaesthetic. His body and brain

k and grasped it as if it were a part of herself. He saw a scarcely perceptible tremor cross her face, and without knowing what he did he stooped his head and kissed the bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested on it he felt it glide slowly from beneath them

ely about the room. The clock

right?" she ask

x lined with carpet in which the cat made its bed. Then she recrossed the floor and lifted two of the geranium pots in her arms, moving them away from the co

assage, light the candle and blow out the lamp. Ethan put the candlestick in Mattie's hand and she went out of the k

d as she put her foot on t

a moment. "Good night, Etha

osed on her he remembered that h