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"I am sitting by the Window in th is Atrocious Nursery."THE YELLO\N \\TALL-PAPER.By Cltarlotte Perkins Stetson.T is very seldomthat mere ordi nary P""ople likeJohn and myselfsecure ancestralhall s for thesummer.A colonial man sion, a hereditaryestate, I wouldsay a hauntedhouse, and reach the height of romanticfelicity- but that would be asking toomuch of fate!Still I will proudly declare that there issomething queer about it.Else, why should it be let so cheaply?And why have stood so long untenanted?John laughs at me, of course, but oneexpects that in marriage.John is practical in the extreme. Hehas no patience with faith, an intensehorror of superstition, and he scoffsopenly at any talk of things not to be feltand seen and put down in figures.John is a physician, and perltaps - (Iwould not say it to a living soul, ofcourse, but this is dead paper and agreat relief to my mind - ) per/zaps thatis one reason I do not get well faster.You see he does not believe I am sick! .And what can one do?
THE YELLOW WALL-PARER.If a physician of high standing, andone's own husband, assures friends andrelatives that there is really nothing thematter with one but temporary nervousdepression - a slight hysterical tendency- what is one to do?My brother is also a physician, andalso of high standing, and he says thesame thing. So I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is, and tonics, and journeys,and air, and exercise, and am absolutelyforbidden to "work" until I am well again.Personally, I disagree with their ideas.Personally, I believe that congenialwork, with excitement and change, woulddo me good.But what is one to do?I did write for a while 111 spite ofthem; but it does exhaust me a gooddeal-having to be so sly about it, orelse meet with heavy opposition.I sometimes fancy that in my condi tion if I had less opposition and more. society and stimulus - but John says thevery worst thing I can do is to thinkabout my condition, and I confess italways makes me feel bad.So I will let it alone and talk aboutthe house.The most beautiful place! It is quitealone, standing well back from the road,quite three miles from the village. Itmakes me think of English places thatyou read about, for there are hedges andwalls and gates that lock, and lots ofseparate little houses for the gardenersand people.There is a delicious garden! I neversaw such a garden -large and shady,full of box-bordered paths, and lined withlong grape-covered arbors with seats underthem.There were greenhouses, too, but theyare all broken now.There was some legal trouble, I be lieve, something about the heirs and co heirs; anyhow, the place has been emptyfor years.That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid,but I don't care - there is somethingstrange about the house - I can feel it.I even said so to John one moonlightevening, but he said what I felt was adrauglzt, and shut the window.I get unreasonably angry with Johnsometimes. I'm sure I never used to beso sensitive. I think it is due to thisnervous condition.But John says if I feel so, I shall neglectproper self-control; so I take pains tocontrol myself-before him, at least, andthat makes me very tired.I don't like our room a bit. I wantedone downstairs that opened on the piazzaand had roses all over the window, andsuch pretty old-fashioned chintz hang ings! but John would not hear of it.He said there was only one windowand not room for two beds, and no nearroom for him if he took another.He is very careful and loving, andhardly lets me stir without special direc tion.I have a schedule prescription for eachhour in the day; he takes all care fromme, and so I feel basely ungrateful not tovalue it ·more.He said we came here solely on myaccount, that I was to have perfect restand all the air I could get. "Your ex erc ise depends on your strength, mydear," said he," and your food somewhaton your appetite; but air you can ab sorb all the time." So we took the nur sery at the top of the house.It is a big, airy room, the whole floornearly, with windows that look all ways,and air and sunshine galore.It wasnursery first and then playroom andgymnasium, I should judge; for the win dows are barred for little children, andthere are rings and things in the walls.The paint and paper look as if a boys'school had used it. It is stripped off the paper - in great patches all aroundthe head of my bed, about as far as I canreach, and in a great place on the otherside of the room low down. I never sawa worse paper in my life.One of those sprawling flamboyantpatterns committing every artistic sin.It is dull enough to confuse the eye infollowing, pronounced enough to con stantly irritate and provoke study, andwhen you follow the lame uncertaincurves for a little distance they suddenlycommit suicide - plunge off at outrage ous angles, destroy themselves in un heard of contradictions.
THE YELLOWThe color is repellant, almost revolt ing ; a smouldering unclean yellow,strangely faded by the slow-turning sun light.It is a dull yet lurid orange in someplaces, a sickly sulphur tint in others.No wonder the children hated it! Ishould hate it myself if I had to live inthis room long.There comes John, and I must put thisaway, - he hates to have me write aword. * We have been here two·weeks, and Ihaven't felt like writing before, since thatfirst day.I am sitting by the window now, up inthis atrocious nursery, and there is noth ing to hinder my writing as much as Iplease, save lack of strength.John is away all day, and even somenights when his cases are serious.I am glad my case is not serious!But these nervous troubles are dread fully depressing.John does not know how much I reallysuffer. He knows there is no reason tosuffer, and that satisfies him.Of course it is only nervousness. It doesweigh o"n me so not to do my duty inany way!I meant to be such a help to John,such a real rest and comfort, and here Iam a comparative burden already!Nobody would believe what an effort itis to do what little I am able, - to dressand entertain, and order things.It is fortunate Mary is so good withthe baby. Such a dear baby!And yet I cannot be with him, it makesme so nervous.I suppose John never was nervous inhis life. He laughs at me so about thiswall-paper!At first he meant to repaper the room,but afterwards he said that I was lettingit get the better of me, and that nothingwas worse for a nervous patient than togive way to such fancies.He said that after the wall-paper waschanged it would be the heavy bedstead,and then the barred windows, and thenthat gate at the head of the stairs, and soon."You know the place is doing you·WAL PAPER.649good," he said, "and really, dear, I don'tcare to renovate the house just for athree months' rental.""Then do let us go downstairs," Isaid, "there are such pretty rooms there."Then he took me in his arms andcalled me a blessed little goose, and saidhe would go down cellar, if I wished, andhave it whitewashed into the bargain.But he is right enough about the bedsand windows and things.It is an airy and comfortable room asanyone need wish, and, of course, I wouldnot be so silly as to make him uncomfort able just for a whim.I'm really getting quite fond of thebig room, all but that horrid paper.Out of one window I can see thegarden, those mysterious deep-shadedarbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers,and bushes and gnarly trees.Out of another I get a lovely view ofthe bay and a little private wharf be longing to the estate. There is a beauti ful shaded lane that runs down therefrom the house. I always fancy I seepeople walking in these numerous pathsand arbors, but John has cautioned menot to give way to fancy in the least. Hesays that with my imaginative power andhabit of story-making, a nervous weak ness like mine is sure to lead to all man ner of excited fancies, and that I oughtto use my will and good sense to checkthe tendency. So I try.I think sometimes that if I were onlywell enough to write a little it would re lieve the press of ideas and rest me.But I find I get pretty tired when I try.It is so discouraging not to have anyadvice and companionship about mywork. When I get really well, John sayswe will ask Cousin Henry and Julia downfor a long visit; but he says he would assoon put fireworks in my pillow-case as tolet me have those stimulating peopleabout now.I wish I could get well faster.But I must not think about that. Thispaper looks to me as if it knew what avicious influence it had!There is a recurrent spot where the.pattern lolls like a broken neck and twobulbous eyes stare at you upside down.I get positively angry with the imperti j
650THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER.nence of it and the everlastingness. Upand down and sideways they crawl, andthose absurd, unblinking eyes are every where. There is one place where twobreaths didn't match, and the eyes go allup and down the line, one a little higherthan the other.I never saw so much expression in aninanimate thing before, and we all knowhow much expression they have! Iused to lie awake as a child and get moreentertainment and terror out of blankwalls and plain furniture than most chil dren could find in a toy-store.I remember what a kindly wink theknobs of our big, old bureau used tohave, and there was one chair that alwaysseemed like a strong friend.I used to feel that if any of the otherthings looked too fierce I could alwayshop into that chair and be safe.The furniture in this room is no worsethan inharmonious, however, for we hadto bring it all from downstairs. I sup pose when this was used as a playroomthey had to take the nursery things out,and no wonder! I never saw suchraV .lges as the children have made here.The wall-paper, as I said before, is tornoff in spots, and it sticketh closer than abrother - they must have had persever ance as well as hatred.Then the floor is scratched and gou edand splintered, the plaster itself is dugout here and there, and this great heavybed which is all we found in the room,looks as if it had been through the wars.H But I don't mind it a bit only thepaper.There comes John's sister. Such adear girl as she is, and so careful of me !I must not let her find me writing.She is a perfect and enthusiastic house keeper, and hopes for no better profes sion. I verily believe she thinks it is thewriting which made me sick!But I can write when she is out, andsee her a long way off from these windows.There is one that commands the road,a lovely shaded winding road, and onethat just looks off over the country. Alovely country, too, full of great elms andvelvet meadows.This wallpaper has a kind of su b pattern in a different shade, a particularlyirritating one, for you can only see It Incertain lights, and not clearly then.But in the places where it isn't fadedand where the sun is just so - I can see astrange, provoking, formless sort of figure,that seems to skulk about behind that sillyand conspicuous front design.There's sister on the stairs!******Well, the Fourth of July is over! Thepeople are all gone and I am tired out.John thought it might do me good to seea little company, so we just had motherand Nellie and the children down for aweek.Of course I didn't do a thing. Jenniesees to everything now.But it tired me all the same.John says if I don't pick up faster heshall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.But I don't want to go there at all. Ihad a friend who was in his hands once,and she says he is just like John and mybrother, only more so !Besides, it is such an undertaking togo so far.I don't feel as if it was worth while toturn my hand over for anything, and I'mgetting dreadfully fretful and querulous.I cry at nothing, and cry most of thetime.Of course I don't when John is here,or anybody else, but when I am alone.And I am alone a good deal just now.John is kept in town very often by seriouscases, and Jennie is good and lets mealone when I want her to.So I walk a little in the garden ordown that lovely lane, sit on the porchunder the roses, and lie down up here agood deal.I'm getting really fond of the room inspite of the wallpaper. Perhaps becauseof the wallpaper.It dwells in my mind so !I lie here on this great immovable bed- it is nailed down, I believe - and fol low that pattern about by the hour. It itas good as gymnastics, I assure you. Istart, we'll say, at the bottom, down inthe corner over there where it has nosbeen touched, and I determine for thethousandth time that I will follow thatpointless pattern to some sort of a con clusion.
THE YELLOW WALL-PAPER.651I know a little of the principle of absurd. But I must say what I feeldesign, and I know this thing was not and think in some way - it is such aarranged on any laws of radiation, or relief !alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, orBut the effort is getting to be greateranything else that I ever heard of.than the relief.It is repeated, of course, by theHalf the time now I am awfully lazy,.breadths, but not otherwise.and lie down ever so much.John says I mustn't lose my strength,.Looked at in one way each breadthstands alone, the bloated curves and and has me take cod liver oil and lots offlourishes - a kindof " debased Romanesque" with delirium tremens - gowaddling up anddown in isolatedcolumns of fatuity.But, on the otherhand, they connectdiagonally, and thesprawlingoutlinesrun off in greatslanting waves ofoptic horror, like alot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.The whole thinggoeshorizontally,too, at least it seemsso, and I exhaustmyself in trying todistinguish the orderof its going in that"direction.They have used ahorizontal breadthfor a frieze, and thatadds wonderfully tothe confusion.There is one endof the room whereSh e didn't know I was in the Room.it is almost intact,and there, when thecrosslights fade and the low sun shines tonics and things, to say nothing of aledirectly upon it, I can almost fancy radia- and wine and rare meat.Dear John! He loves me very dearlYrtion after all, - the interminable grotesque seem to form around a common and hates to have me sick. I tried to
THE YELLOW WALL-PARER. If a physician of high standing, and one's own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression - a slight hysterical tendency - what is one to do? My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is, and .
