 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to find out how you could volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy. Read for LibriVox by Beth Peat at Reading, UK. Chapter 1 A Lorne Milkmaid It was an 80-cow dairy, and the troop of milkers, regular and supernumerary, were all at work. For though the time of year was as yet but early April, the feed lay entirely in water meadows, and the cows were in full pale. The hour was about six in the evening, and three-fourths of the large red rectangular animals having been finished off. There was opportunity for a little conversation. He'd bring home his bride tomorrow I hear, they've come as far as Anglebury today. The voice seemed to perceive from the belly of a cow called Cherry, but the speaker was a milking woman, whose face was buried in the flank of that motionless beast. Have anybody seen her? said another. There was a negative response from the first. Though she says she's a rosy cheek, titsy totsy little body enough, she added, and as the milkmaid spoke, she turned her face so that she could glance past her cow's tail to the other side of the barton, where a thin, fading woman of thirty knocked someone apart from the rest. Years under then he, they say, continued the second, with also a glance of reflectiveness in the same direction. How old do you call him then? Thirty or so? More like forty, broken and old milkman near, in a long white pinaforete or wrapper, with the brim of his hat tied down, so that he looked like a woman. I was born before a great weir was builded, and I hadn't a man's wages when I daved water there. The discussion waxed so warm that the purr of the milk streams became jerky, till the voice from another cow's belly cried with authority. Now then, what the turk do it matter to us about Farmer Lodge's age or Farmer Lodge's new missus? I shall have to pay him nine pound a year for the rent of every one of these milchers, whatever his age or hers. Get on with your work, which will be dark before we have done. The evening is pinking in already. This speaker was the dairyman himself, by whom the milkmaids and men were employed. Nothing more was said publicly about Farmer Lodge's wedding, but the first woman murmured under her cow to her next neighbor, Tis hard for she, signifying the thin, worn milkmaid aforesaid. Oh no, said the second, Ian spoken to Rhoda Brook for years. When the milking was done, they washed their pails and hung them on a many forked stand, made of the peeled limb of an oak tree, set upright in the earth, and resembling a colossal antlered horn. The majority then dispersed in various directions homeward. The thin woman, who had not spoken, was joined by a boy of twelve or thereabout, and the twain went away up the field also. They're coarsely apart from that of the others, to a lonely spot high above the water-meats, and not far from the border of egged and heath, whose dark countenance was visible in the distance as they drew now into their home. They've just been saying down in the bottom that your father brings his young wife home from Anglebury tomorrow, the woman observed, but she'll want to send you for a few things to market, and they'll be pretty sure to meet him. Yes, mother, said the boy, his father married then. Yes, you can give her luck in telling what she's like if you do see her. Yes, mother, if she's dark or fair and if she's tall, as tall as I, and if she seems like a woman who has ever worked for a living, or one that has always been well off and has never done anything, and shows marks of the lady on her, as I expect she do. Yes. They crept up the hill in the twilight and entered the cottage. It was built of mud walls, the surface of which had been washed by many rains into channels and depressions that left none of the original flat face visible, while here and there in the thatch above, a rafter showed like a bone protruding through skin. She was kneeling down in the chimney corner before two pieces of turf laid together with the heathered inwards, blowing at the red hot ashes with her breath until the turf's flamed. The radiance lit her pale cheek and made her dark eyes that had once been handsome seem handsome anew. Yes, she resumed, see if she is dark or fair, and if you can, notice if her hands be white. If not, see if they look as though she had ever done housework or a milker's hands like mine. The boy promised, inattentively this time, his mother not observing that he was cutting a knot with his pocketknife in the beach-backed chair. Chapter 2 The Young Wife The road from Anglebury to Holmstoke is in general level, but there is one place where a sharp ascent breaks its monotony. Farmers' homeward bound from the former market town, who trot all the rest of the way, walk their horses of the short incline. The next evening, while the sun was yet bright, a handsome new gig with a lemon-coloured body and red wheels was spinning westward along the level highway at the heels of a powerful mare. The driver was a yeoman in the prime of life, cleanly shaven like an actor, his face being toned to that bluish-firmillion hue which so often graces the thriving farmers' features when returning home after successful dealings in the town. Beside him sat a woman, many years his junior, almost, indeed, a girl. Her face, too, was fresh in colour, but it was of a totally different quality, soft and evanescent, like the light under heap of rose petals. Few people travelled this way, for it was not a main road, and the long white ribbon of gravel that stretched before them was empty, save of one small, scarce-moving speck which presently resolved itself into the figure of a boy who was creeping along at a snail's pace and continually looking behind him. The heavy bundle he carried being some excuse for, if not the reason, of his dilatorianess. When the Bouncy Geek Party slowed at the bottom of the incline above mentioned, the pedestrian was only a few yards in front. Supporting the large bundle by putting one hand on his hip, he turned and looked straight at the farmer's wife as though he would read her through and through, pacing along the breast of the horse. The low sun was full in her face, rendering every feature, shade and contour distinct from the curve of her little nostril to the colour of her eyes. The farmer, though he seemed annoyed at the boy's persistent presence, did not order him to get out of the way, and thus the lad proceeded them, his hard gaze never leaving her until they reached the top of the ascent when the farmer trotted on with relief in his lineaments, having taken no outward notice of the boy whatever. How that poor lad stared at me, said the young wife. Yes, dear, I saw that he did. He's one of the village, I suppose, one of the neighbourhood. I think he lives with his mother a mile or two off. He knows who we are, no doubt. Oh, yes, you must expect to be stared at, at first, my pretty Gertrude. I do, though I think the poor boy might have looked at us in help that we might relieve him of his heavy load rather than from curiosity. Oh, no, said her husband offhandedly. These country lads will carry a hundred weight once they get it on their backs, besides his packet more size than weight in it. Now then, another mile and I shall be able to show you our house in the distance. It is not too dark before we get there. The wheels spun round and particles flew from the periphery as before till a white house of ample dimensions revealed itself with farm buildings and ricks at the back. Meanwhile the boy had quickened his pace and turning up a by lane some mile and a half short of the white farmstead ascended towards the leaner pastures and so on to the cottage of his mother. She had reached home after her days milking at the outlying dairy and was washing cabbage in the doorway in the declining light. Hold up the net moment, she said, without preface as the boy came up. He flown down his bundle, held the edge of the cabbage net and as she filled its meshes with the dripping leaves she went on. Well, did you see her? Yes, quite plain. Is she ladylike? Yes, and more. A lady complete. Is she young? Well, she's grown up and her way's been quite a woman's. Of course. What colour is her hair and face? Her hair is lightish and her face is coming as a lot of dolls. Her eyes then are not dark like mine? No, of a bluish turn and her mouth is very nice and red and when she smiles her teeth show white. Is she tall? said the woman sharply. I couldn't see. She was sitting down. Then do you go to Homestowe Church tomorrow morning? She's sure to be there. Go early and notice her walking in and come home and tell me if she's taller than I. Very well, mother, but why didn't you go and see for yourself? I go to see her. I wouldn't look up at her if she were to pass my window this instant. She was with Mr. Lodge, of course. What did he say her do? Just the same as usual. Took no notice of you? None. Next day the mother put a clean shirt on the boy and started him off for Homestowe Church. He reached the ancient little pal when the door was just being opened and he was the first to enter. Taking his seat by the font, he watched all the parishioners fall in. The well-to-do farmer Lodge came nearly last and his young wife who accompanied him walked up the aisle with a shyness natural to a modest woman who had thus appeared for the first time. As all other eyes were fixed upon her the youth's stare was not noticed now. When he reached home his mother said, well, before he had entered the room. She's not tall. She's rather short, he replied. Ah, said his mother, with satisfaction. But she's very pretty, very. In fact, she's lovely. The youthful freshness of the young man's wife had evidently made an impression even on the somewhat hard nature of the boy. That's all I want to hear, his mother said quickly. Now spread the tablecloth. The hair you caught is very tender but mine that nobody catches you knew you never told me what sort of hands she had. I never seen him. She never took off her gloves. What did she wear this morning? A white bonnet and silver-coloured gown. It food and whistled so loud when it rubbed against the pews that the lady coloured up even more than ever for very shame at the noise and pulled it in to keep it from touching. But when she pushed into her seat it food more than ever. Mr Lodge, he seemed pleased and seals hung like lords but she seemed to wish her noisy gown anywhere but on her. Not she. However, that will do now. These descriptions of the newly married couple were continued from time to time by the boy and his mother's request after any chance encounter he had with them. But Rhoda Brook, though she might easily have seen young Mrs Lodge for herself by walking a couple of miles would never attempt an excursion towards the quarter when the farmhouse lay. Neither did she, at the daily milking in the dairyman's yard on the lodge's outlying second farm, ever speak to the subject of the recent marriage. The dairyman, who rented the cows of the lodge and knew perfectly the tall milkmaid's history with manly kindness always kept the gossip in the cow-barten from annoying Rhoda. But the atmosphere thereabout was full of the subject during the first days of Mrs Lodge's arrival. And from her boy's description and the casual words of the other milkers Rhoda Brook had raised the mental image of Mrs Lodge that was realistic as a photograph. Chapter 3 A Vision One night, two or three weeks after the bridal return when the boys gone to bed Rhoda sat a long time over the turf ashes that she had raked out in front of her to extinguish them. She contemplated so intently the new wife as presented to her in the mind's eye over the embers that she forgot the lapse of time. At last, wearied with her day's work, she too retired. But the figure which had occupied her so much during this in the previous days was not to be banished at night. For the first time, Gertrude Lodge visited the supplanted woman in her dreams. Rhoda Brook dreamed since her assertion that she really saw before falling asleep was not to be believed that the young wife in the pale silk dress and white bonnet but with features shockingly distorted and wrinkled as by age was sitting upon her chest as she lay. The pressure of Mrs. Lodge's person grew heavier, the blue eyes peered cruelly into her face and then the figure thrust forward its left hand mockingly so as to make the wedding ring at war glitter in Rhoda's eyes. Maddened mentally and nearly suffocated by pressure, the sleepers struggled the incubus still regarding her was drew to the foot of the bed only, however, to come forward by degrees, resume her seat and flash her left hand as before. Gasping for breath Rhoda, in a last desperate effort swung out her right hand seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm and whirled it backward to the floor starting up herself as she did so with a low cry. Oh, merciful heaven! she cried, sitting on the edge of the bed in a cold sweat. That was not a dream. She was here. She could feel her antagonist's arm within her grasp even now the very flesh and bone of it as it seemed. She looked on the floor with or she had whirled the spectre but there was nothing to be seen. Rhoda Brooke slapped no more that night and when she went milking at the next dawn they noticed how pale and haggard she looked. The milk that she drew quivered into the pale her hand did not calm even yet and still retained the feel of the arm. She came home to breakfast as wearily as if it had been supper time. What was that noise? What was that noise? A new chimmer mother last night said her son you fell off the bed surely did you hear anything fall at one time just when the clock struck too. She could not explain and when the meal was done she went silently about her housework the boy assisting her for he hated going afield in the farms and she indulged his reluctance between eleven and twelve the garden gate clicked and she lifted her eyes to the window at the bottom of the garden within the gate stood the woman of her vision Rhoda seemed transfixed ah she said she would come exclaimed the boy also observing her said so when how did she know us I had seen and spoken to her I talked to her yesterday I told you said the mother flushing indignantly never to speak to anybody in that house or go knew the place I did not speak to her till she spoke to me I did not go near the place I met her in the road what did you tell her nothing she said are you the poor boy who had to bring the heavy load for market and she looked at my boots and said they would not keep my feet dry if it came on wet because they were so cracked I told her I lived with my mother and we had enough to do to keep ourselves and that's how it was and she said then I'll come and bring you some better boots and see your mother she gives away things to other folks Mrs. Lodge was by this time close to the door not in her silk as Rhoda had seen her in the bed chamber but in a morning hat and a gown of common light material which became her better than silk on her arms she carried a basket the impression remaining from the night's experience was still strong Brooke had almost expected to see the wrinkles the scorn and the cruelty on her visitors face she would have escaped an interview had escaped if possible there was no back door to the cottage and in an instant the boy had lifted the latch to Mrs. Lodge's gentle lock I see I've come to the right house said she glancing at the lad and smiling but I was not sure until you opened the door the figure in action were those of the phantom but her voice was so indescribably sweet her glance so winning her smile so tender so unlike that of Rhoda's midnight visitant that the latter could hardly believe the evidence of her senses she was truly glad that she had not hid it away in sheer aversion as she had been inclined to do in her basket Mrs. Lodge brought the pair of boots that she had promised to the boy and other useful articles at these proofs of a kindly feeling towards her and hers Rhoda's heart reproached her bitterly this innocent young thing should have her blessing and not her curves when she left them the light seemed to have gone from the dwelling two days later she came again to know if the boots were fitted and less than a fortnight after that Rhoda paid Rhoda another call on this occasion the boy was absent I walk a good deal said Mrs. Lodge and your house is the nearest outside her own parish I hope you're all well you don't look quite well Rhoda said she was well enough and indeed though the paler of the two there is more of the strength that endures in her well-defined features and large frame than in the soft cheek young woman before her the conversation became quite confidential has regarded their powers and weaknesses and when Mrs. Lodge was leaving Rhoda said I hope you will find this air agree with you madam and not suffer from the damp of the water needs the younger one replied that there was not much doubt of it her general health being usually good though now you remind me she added I have one little ailment that which puzzles me it's nothing serious but I cannot make it out she uncovered her left-handed arm and their outline confronted Rhoda's gaze the exact original of the limb she had beheld and seized in her dream upon the pink round surface of the arm were faint marks of an unhealthy colour as if produced by a rough grasp Rhoda's eyes became riveted on the discolorations she fancied that she discerned in them the shape of her own four fingers how did it happen she said mechanically I cannot tell replied Mrs. Lodge shaking her head one night when I was sound asleep when I was away in some strange place a pain suddenly shot into my arm there and was so keen as to awaken me I must have struck it in the daytime I suppose though I don't remember doing so she added laughing I tell my dear husband that it looks just as if he had fallen into a rage and struck me there oh I daresay it will soon disappear ha ha ha yes on what night did it come Mrs. Lodge considered and said it would be a fortnight ago on the morrow when I awoke I could not remember where I was she added till the clock striking to reminded me she had named the night and the hour of Rhoda's spectral encounter and Brooke felt like a guilty thing the artless disclosure startled her and she did not reason on the freaks of coincidence and all the scenery of that ghastly night returned with double vividness to her mind oh can it be she said to herself when her visitor had departed to exercise a malignant power over people against my will she knew that she had been slyly called a witch since her fall but never having understood why that particular stigma had been attached to her it had passed disregarded could this be the explanation and has such things as this ever happened before chapter 4 a suggestion the summer drew on and Rhoda Brooke almost dreaded to meet Mrs. Lodge again notwithstanding that her feeling for the young wife amounted well nigh to affection something in her own individuality seemed to convict Rhoda of crime in a fatality sometimes would direct the steps of the latter to the outskirts of Homestoke whenever she left her house for any other purpose than her daily work and hence it happened that their next encounter was out of doors Rhoda could not avoid the subject which had so mystified her and after the first few words she stammered I hope your arm is well again ma'am she had perceived with consternation that Gertrude Lodge carried her left arm stiffly no it is not quite well indeed it is no better at all it is rather worse it pays me dreadfully sometimes perhaps you had better go to a doctor ma'am she replied that she had already seen a doctor her husband had insisted upon her going to one but the surgeon had not seemed to understand the afflicted limb at all he told her to bathe it in hot water and she bathed it but the treatment had done no good will you let me see it said the milkwoman Mrs Lodge pushed up her sleeve and disclosed the place which was a few inches above the wrist as soon as Rhoda Brooks saw it she could hardly preserve her composure there was nothing of the nature of a wound but the arm at that point had a shriveled look and the outline of the four fingers appeared more distinct than at the former time moreover she found that they were imprinted precisely the relative position of her clutch upon the arm in the trance the first finger towards Gertry's wrist and the fourth towards her elbow what the impress resembled seemed to have struck Gertry to herself since the last meeting it almost looks like finger marks that she said adding with a faint laugh my husband says it is as if some witch or the devil himself has taken hold of me there and blasted the flesh Rhoda shivered that's fancy she said hurriedly I wouldn't mind it if I were you I shouldn't so much mind it so the younger with hesitation if I hadn't a notion that it makes my husband dislike me no love me less learn things so much of personal appearance some do he for one yes and he was very proud of mine at first keep your arm covered it from his sight he knows a disfigurement is there she tried to hide the tears it filled her eyes well ma'am I earnestly hope it will go away soon and so the milk woman's mind was changed anew to the subject by a horrid sort of spell as she returned home the sense of having been guilty of an act of malignity increased a fact as she might to ridicule her superstition in her secret heart Rhoda didn't altogether object to a slight diminution of her success's beauty by whatever means it had come about but she did not wish to inflict upon her physical pain for though this pretty young woman had rendered impossible any reparation which Lodge might have made Rhoda for his past conduct everything like resentment at the unconscious usurpation had quite passed away from the elder's mind if this sweet and kindly Gertrude Lodge only knew of the scene at the bed chamber what would she think not to inform her of it seen treachery in the presence of her friendliness but tell she could not have her own accord whether could she devise a remedy she mused upon the matter the greater part of the night on the next day after the morning milking set out to obtain another glimpse of Gertrude Lodge if she could being held to her by a gruesome fascination by watching the house from a distance the milkmaid was presently able to discern the farmer's wife in a ride she was taking alone probably to join her husband in some distant field Mrs. Lodge perceived her and countered in her direction good morning Rhoda Gertrude said when she had come up I was going to call Rhoda noticed that Mrs. Lodge held the reins with some difficulty I hope the bad arm said Rhoda they tell me there is possibly one way by which I might be able to find out the cause and so perhaps the cure of it replied the other anxiously it is by going to some clever man over an egg in heath they did not know if he was still alive and I can't remember his name at this moment but they said that you knew more of his movements than anybody else here about and could tell me if he were still to be consulted dear me what was his name but you know not Conjurer Trindle said her thing companion turning pale Trindle yes is he still alive I believe so said Rhoda with reluctance why do you call him Conjurer well they say he had powers other folk have not oh how could my people be so superstitious as to recommend a man of that sort I thought they meant some medical man but she'll think no more of him Rhoda looked relieved Mrs. Lodge wrote on the milk woman had inwardly seen from the moment she heard of her having been mentioned as reference for this man there must exist this sarcastic feeling among the work folk that a sorceress would know the whereabouts of the exorcist she expected her then a short time ago this would have given no concern to a woman of her common sense but she had a haunting reason to be superstitious now and she had been seized with a sudden dread that this Conjurer Trindle might name her as a malignant influence which was blasting the fair person of Gertrude and so lead her friend to hate her forever and to treat her as some fiend in human shape but all was not over two days after a shadow intruded into the window pattern thrown and Rhoda Brooks floored by the afternoon sun the woman opened the door at once almost breathlessly are you alone? said Gertrude she seemed no less harassed and anxious than Brooke herself yes said Rhoda the place of my arm seems worse and troubles me the young farmer's wife went on it's so mysterious I do hope it will not be an incurable wound I have again been thinking of what they said about Conjurer Trindle I don't really believe in such men and I should not mind just visiting him from curiosity though on no account must my husband know is it far to where he lives? yes five miles said Rhoda backwardly in the heart of Eggton well I should have to walk could you not go with me to show me the way say tomorrow afternoon oh not I that is the milk woman murmured with a startle to smay again the dread seized her that something to do with her fierce act her dream might be revealed and her character in the eyes of the most useful friend she had ever had be ruined irretrievably Mrs. Lodge urged and Rhoda finally assented though with much misgiving sad as the journey would be to her she could not consciously stand in the way of a possible remedy for her patron's strange affliction it was agreed that to escape suspicion of their mystic intent they should meet at the edge of the heath at the corner of a plantation visible from the spot where they now stood Chapter 5 Conjurer Trendle by the next afternoon Rhoda would have done anything to escape this inquiry but she had promised to go moreover there was a horrid fascination at times becoming instrumental in throwing such possible light in her own character as would reveal to be something greater in the occult world than she had ever herself suspected she started just before the time of day mentioned between them and half hours brisk walking brought her to the south-eastern extension of the Edgden tract of country where the fur plantation was a slight figure cloaked and veiled was already there Rhoda recognized almost with a shudder that Mrs. Lodge wore her left arm in a sling they hardly spoke to each other and immediately set out on their climb into the interior of the solemn country which stood high by the rich alluvial soil they had left half an hour before it was a long walk thick clouds made the atmosphere dark though it was only as yet early afternoon and the wind howled dismaly over the hills of the heath not improbably the same heath which had witnessed the agony of the Wessex king's Ena presented to the after ages this leer Gerdred Lodge talked most Rhoda replying with monosyllabic preoccupation she had a strange dislike of walking on the side of her companion where her only flipped arm moving round to the other when inadvertently near it much heather had been brushed by their feet when they descended upon a cart track beside which stood the house of the man they sought he did not profess his remedial practices openly or care anything about their continuance his direct interests being those of a deer and furs, turf sharp sand and other local products indeed he effected not to believe largely in his own powers and when warts that had been shown to him for cure miraculously disappeared which it must be owned they infallibly did he would say lightly oh I only drink a glass of grog upon him perhaps it's all chance and immediately termed the subject he was at home when they arrived having in fact seen them descending into his valley he was a grey bearded man with a reddish face and he looked singularly at Rhoda the first woman to be held her Mrs. Lodge told him her errand and then with words of self disparagement he examined her arm medicine can't cure it he said promptly just the work of an enemy Rhoda shrank into herself and drew back an enemy? what enemy? asked Mrs. Lodge he shook his head that's best known to yourself he said if you like I can show the person to you though I shall not myself know who it is I can do no more and don't wish to do that she pressed him on which he told Rhoda to wait outside where she stood and took Mrs. Lodge into the room it opened immediately from the door and as the latter remained jar Rhoda Brooke could see the proceedings without taking part in them he brought a tumbler from the dresser and nearly filled it with water and fetching an egg prepared it in some private way after which he broke it on the edge of the glass so that the white went in and the yoke remained as it was getting gloomy he took the glass and its contents to the window and told Gertrude to watch them closely they leant over the table together and the milk woman could see the opaline hue of the egg fluid changing form as it sank in the water but she was not near enough to define the shape that it assumed did you catch the likeness of any face or figure as you look to marry the conjurer of the young woman she murmured a reply in tones so low as to be inaudible to Rhoda and continued to gaze intently into the glass Rhoda turned a few steps away when Mrs. Lodge came out and her face was met by the light it appeared exceedingly pale as pale as Rhoda's against the sad, done shades of the upland's garniture Trendle shut the door behind her and at once they started homework together but Rhoda perceived that her companion had quite changed did he charge much she asked tentatively oh no, nothing you would not take a farthing and what did you see inquired Rhoda nothing I care to speak of the constraint in her manner was remarkable her face was so rigid as to wear an oldened aspect faintly suggestive of the face from Rhoda's bed chamber was it you who first proposed coming here Mrs. Lodge suddenly inquired after a long pause how very odd if you did no but I'm not sorry we have come I'm sorry for the first time a sense of triumph possessed her but she did not altogether deplore that the young thing at her side had learned that their lives had been antagonized by other influences in their own the subject was no more alluded to during the long and dreary walk home but in some way or other a story was whispered about the many dairy lola in that winter that Mrs. Lodge's gradual loss of the use of her left arm was owing to her being overlooked the latter kept her own counsel about the incubus but her face grew sadder and thinner and in the spring she and her boy disappeared from the neighborhood of Homestoke Chapter 6 A Second Attempt half a dozen years passed away and Mr. Mrs. Lodge's married experience sang into prosiness and worse the farmer was usually gloomy and silent the woman whom he had wooed for her grace and beauty was contorted and disfigured by his left limb moreover she had brought him no child which rendered it likely that he would be the last of a family who would occupy that valley for some two hundred years he thought of Rhoda Brogan her son and feared that this might be a judgment from heaven upon him the once blithe-hearted and enlightened Gershard was changing into an irritable superstitious woman whose whole time was given to experimenting upon her ailment with every quack remedy she came across she was honestly attached to her husband and was ever secretly hoping against hope to win back his heart again by regaining some least of her personal beauty hence it arose that her closet was lined with bottles, packets and ointment pots of every description nay, bunches of mystic herbs charms and books of necromancy which in her schoolgirl time she would have ridiculed this folly damned if you won't poison yourself with these apothecary messes some time or other, said her husband when his eye chanced to fall upon the multitude in its array she did not reply but turned her sad soft gaze upon him in such heart-swollen reproach that he looked sorry for his words and added, I only meant it for your good you know Gershard I'll clear up the whole lot and destroy them she said huskily and try such remedies no more you want somebody to cheer you, he observed I want son of adopting a boy he's too old now and he's gone away, I don't know where she guessed to whom he alluded for Rhoda's brook story had in the course of years become known to her that not a word had ever passed between her husband and herself on the subject neither had she ever spoken to him of her visit to conjure a trendle and of what was revealed to her or she thought was revealed to her by that solitary heath man she was now five and twenty but she seemed older six years of marriage and only a few months of love she sometimes whispered to herself and then she thought of the apparent cause and said with a tragic glance at who withering them if only I could again be as I was when he first saw me she obediently destroyed her nostrils and charms but there remained a hankering wish to try something else some other sort of cure altogether she had never visited trendles and she had been conducted to the house of the solitary by Rhoda against her will but now it suddenly occurred to Gertrude that she would in a last desperate effort at deliverance from the seeming curse again seek out the man if he yet lived he was entitled to a certain credence for the instinct form he had raised in a glass that undoubtedly resembled the only woman in the world who as she now knew though not then could have a reason for bearing her ill will the visit should be paid this time she went alone though she nearly got lost on the heath and rode a considerable distance out of her way trendles house was reached at last however he was not indoors and instead of waiting at the cottage she went to where his bent figure was pointed out to her at work a long way off trendle remembered her and laying down the handful of furs roots which he was gathering and throwing into a heap he offered to accompany her in her home or direction as the distance was considerable and the days were short so they walked together his head bowed nearly to the earth and his form of a colour with it you can send away warts and other excretances I know she said why can't you send away this and the arm was uncovered you think too much of my powers said trendle I'm old a week now too no no it is too much for me to attempt to my own person what have you tried some of the hundred medicaments and counterspells which she had adopted from time to time he shook his head some were good enough he said approvingly but not many of them for such as this this is of the nature of a blight not of the nature of a wound and if you could ever do throw it off it will be all at once if only I could there's only one chance of doing it known to me it has never failed in kindred afflictions that I can declare and especially for a woman tell me said she you must touch with the limb the neck of a man who's been hanged she started a little at the image he had raised before he's cold just after he's cut down continue the conjure impassively how could that do good it will turn the blood and change the constitution but as I say to do it is hard you must get into the jail and wait for him when he's brought off the gallows lots have done it and perhaps not such pretty women as you I used to send dozens for skin complaints but that was in former times the last I sent was in 13 near 20 years ago he had no more to tell her and when he had put her into a straight track he turned and left her refusing all money as at first chapter 7 a ride the communication sank deep into Gertrude's mind the nature was rather a timid man and probably of all remedies that the white wizard could have suggested there was not one which had filled her with so much aversion as this not to speak of the immense obstacles in the way of its adoption Casterbridge, the county town was a dozen or 15 miles off and in those days when men were executed for horse stealing, arsoning, burglary and a sigh seldom passed without a hanging it was not likely that she could get access to the criminal unaided and the fear of her husband's anger made her reluctant to breathe a word of trendle's suggestion to him or to anybody about him she did nothing for months and patiently bore her disfigurement as before but her woman's nature, craving for renewed love through the medium of renewed beauty she was but 25 was ever stimulating her to try what at any rate could hardly do her any harm what came by a spell will go by a spell surely she would say whenever her imagination pictured the act she shrank in terror from the possibility of it then the words of the conjurer it will turn your blood were seen to be capable of a scientific no less than a ghastly interpretation the mastering desire returned and urged on her again there was at this time but one county paper and that her husband only occasionally borrowed but old fashioned days and old fashioned means and news was extensively conveyed by word of mouth from market to market or from fair to fair so that whenever such an event such as an execution was about to take place few within a radius of 20 miles were ignorant of the coming sight and so far as Homestoke was concerned some enthusiasts had been known to walk all the way to Casterbridge and back in one day solely to witness the spectacle the exercises were in March and when Gertrude lodged her that they had been held she inquired stealthily at the inn as to the result as soon as she could find the opportunity she was however too late the time at which the sentences were to be carried out had arrived and to make the journey and obtain a mission at such short notice required at least her husband's assistance she dared not tell him for she had found by delicate experiment that these smouldering village beliefs made him furious if mentioned partly because he half entertained them himself it was therefore necessary to wait for another opportunity her determination received a fillet from learning that two epileptic children had attended from this very village of Homestoke many years before with beneficial results though the experiment had been strongly condemned by the neighbouring clergy April May June passed and it was said that by the end of the last name month Gertrude well-nigh longed for the death of a fellow creature instead of her formal prayers each night her unconscious prayer was oh Lord, hang some guilty or innocent person soon this time she made earlier inquiries and was altogether more systematic in her proceedings moreover the season was summer between the hay-making and the harvest and in the leisure thus afforded him her husband had been holiday-taking home the assizes were in July and she went to the inn as before there was to be one execution only one for arson her greatest problem was not how to get to Casterbridge but by what means she should adopt for obtaining admission to the jail though access for such purposes had formally never been denied the custom had fallen into disutude and in contemplating her possible difficulties again almost driven to fall back upon her husband but unsounding him about the assizes he was so uncommunicative so more than usually cold that she did not proceed and decided that whatever she did she would do alone fortune, obdurate hitherto showed her unexpected favour on the Thursday before the Saturday fixed for the execution Lodge remarked to her that he was going away from home for another day or two on business at fair and that he was sorry he could not take her with him she exhibited on this occasion so much readiness to stay at home that he looked at her in surprise time had been when she would have shown deep disappointment at the loss of such a jant however he lapsed into his usual task eternity and on the day named left homestoke it was now her turn she had first thought of driving but on reflection how that driving would not do since it would necessitate her keeping to the turnpike road and so increased by tenfold the risk of her gasly errand being found out she decided to ride and avoid the beaten track notwithstanding that in her husband's stables there was no animal just at present by which any stretch of imagination could be considered a lady's mount in spite of his promise before marriage to always keep a mare for her he had however many cart horses fine ones of their kind and among the rest was a serviceable creature an equine amazon with a back as broad as a sofa on which Gertrude had occasionally taken an airing when unwell this horse she chose on friday afternoon one of the men brought it round she was dressed and before going down looked at her shriveled arm ah she said to it if it had not been for you this terrible ordeal would have been saved me when strapping up the bundle in which she carried a few articles of clothing it took occasion to say to the servant I take this in case she should not get back tonight from the person I'm going to visit don't be alarmed if I'm not in by ten and close up the house as usual I shall be at home tomorrow for a certain she meant then to privately tell her husband the deed accomplished was not like the deed predicted he would almost certainly forgive her and then the pretty palpitating Gertrude Lodge went from her husband's homestead but though her goal was castabridge she did not take the direct route directly through Stickelford her cunning course was first in precisely the opposite direction as soon as she was out of sight however she turned to the left by Rowan which led to Ecton and on hindering the heath wheeled around and set out on the true course due westerly a more private way than the county could not be imagined and as to direction she had merely to keep her horse's head to a point little to the right of the sun she knew that she would light upon a furscut or a cottager of some sort from time to time from whom she might correct her bearing though the date was comparatively recent Ecton was much less fragmentary and character than now the attempts successful and otherwise at cultivation on the lower slopes which intrude and break up to the original heath into small detached heaths had not been carried far enclosure axe had not taken effect on the banks and fences which now exclude the cattle of those villagers who formerly enjoyed rites of commonage thereon and the carts of those who had turbary privileges which kept them in firing all the year round were not erected Gertrude therefore rode along with no other obstacles than the prickly furs bushes the mats of heather, the white water courses and the natural steeps and declivities of the ground her horse was sure if heavy footed and slow and though a draft animal was easy paced she was not a woman who could have ventured to ride over such a bit of country with a half dead arm it was therefore nearly eight o'clock when she drew rain to breathe the mare on the last outlying high point of Heathland towards Casta Bridge previous to leaving Ecton for the cultivated valleys she halted before a pool called rushy pond flanked by the ends of two hedges her railing ran through the centre of the pond dividing it in half over the railing she saw the low green country over the green trees the roofs of the town over the roofs a white flat façade denoting the entrance to the county jail on the roof of this front specs were moving about they seemed to be workmen erecting something her flesh crept she descended slowly and was soon made cornfields and pastures in another half hour when it was almost dusk Gertrude reached the white heart the first inn of the town on that side little surprise was excited by her arrival Farmer's wives rode on horseback more than they do now though for that matter Mrs. Lodge was not imagined to be a wife at all the innkeeper supposed her to be some harem scare on young woman who had come to attend the hang fair next day neither her husband or herself had ever dealt in Casta Bridge Market so that she was unknown while dismounting she beheld a crowd of boys standing at the door of harm's makers shop above the inn looking inside it with deep interest what's going on there she asked of the Osler making the rope for tomorrow she throbbed responsibly and contracted her arm to sold by the inch afterwards the man continued I could get you a bit miss for nothing if you'd like she hastily repudiated any such wish all the more from a curious creeping feeling that the condemned wretched destiny was becoming interwoven with her own engaged to room for the night sat down to think up to this time she had formed but the fakest notions about her means of attaining access to the prison the words of the cunning man returned to her mind he had implied that she should use her beauty impaired though it was as a past key in her inexperience she knew little about jail functionaries she had heard of a high sheriff and an under sheriff but dimly only she knew however there must be a hangman and to the hangman she determined to apply Chapter 8 A Waterside Hermit at this date and for several years afterward there was a hangman to almost every jail Gertrude found on enquiry that the Castor Bridge official dwelt in a lonely cottage by a deep slow river flowing under the cliff on which the prison buildings were situated the stream being the self-same one though she did not know it which watered the stickled furred and homestuck meads lower down in its course having changed her dress before she had eaten or drunk or she could not take her ease until she had ascertained some particulars Gertrude pursued her way by a path along the waterside to the cottage indicated passing thus the outskirts of the jail she discerned on the level roof over the gateway three rectangular lines against the sky where the specks had been moving in her distant view she recognized what the erection was and quickly passed on another hundred yards brought her to the executioner's house where a boy pointed out it stood close to the same stream and was hard by a weir the waters of which emitted a steady roar while she stood hesitating the door opened and an old man came forth shading a candle with one hand locking the door on the outside he turned to a flight of wooden steps fixed against the end of the cottage and began to ascend them this being evidently the staircase to his bedroom Gertrude hastened forward but by the time she reached the foot of the ladder he was at the top she called to him loudly enough to be heard above the roar of the weir he looked down and said what do you want here to speak to you a minute the candle such as it was fell on her imploring pale upturned face and Davies as the hangman was called back down the ladder I was just going to bed he said early to bed and early to rise but I don't mind stopping a minute for such a one as you come into the house he reopened the door and proceeded her to the room within the implements of his daily work which was that of a job in gardener stood in a corner and seeing probably that she looked rural he said if you want me to undertake counter work I can't come for I never leave cast a bridge for the gentle nor simple not I my real calling is officer of justice he added formally yes yes that's it tomorrow I thought so what's the matter about that just no use to come here but the not folks to come continually but I tell him one not is as merciful as another if you keep you under the ear is the unfortunate man a relation or should I say perhaps looking at a dress a person who's been in your employ no what time is the execution the same as usual 12 o'clock or soon after as the London mail coach gets in we always wait for that in case of a reprieve oh have reprieve I hope not she said involuntarily well he as matter of business so do I but still if every young man served to be let off this one does only just turned 18 and only present by chance when the request fired house a member that's not so much risk of it as they are obliged to make an example of him there having been so much destruction of property that way lately I mean she explained that I want to touch him for a charm a cure of an affliction by the advice of a man who has proved the virtue of a remedy oh yes miss now I understand I had such people come in past years but didn't strike me that you looked as sort of to require blood turning what's the complaint the wrong kind for this I'll be bound my arm she reluctantly showed the withered arm to saw the scrams of the hangman examining it yes said she well he continued with interest that is a class of subject I'm bound to admit I like the look of the place is truly as suitable for the cure as I ever saw it was a knowing man that sent he whoever he was you can contrive for me all that's necessary she asked breathlessly you really should have gone to the governor of the jail in Dr. Withie given your name and address that's how it used to be done if I recollect still perhaps maybe I can manage it for a trifling fee oh thank you I would rather do it this way as I should like it kept private lover not no way no husband aha very well I'll get the attach to the corpse where is it now she asked shuttering it he you mean he's living yet just inside that small window up there in the glum he signified the jail in the cliff above she thought of her husband and her friends yes of course she said and how am I to proceed he took her to the door now do you be waiting at the little wicked in the wall that you find up there in the lane not later than one o'clock I will open it to them from the inside as I shan't come home to dinner until he's cut down good night be punctual if you don't want anybody to know you wear a veil once I had a daughter such as you she went away and climbed the path above to assure herself that she'll be able to find the wicked next day it's outline was soon visible to her a narrow opening in the outer wall of the prison precincts the steep was so great that having reached the wicked she stopped a moment to breathe and looking back on the water cut saw the hangman again ascending his outdoor staircase he entered the lofted chamber to which it led and in a few minutes extinguished his light the town clock struck ten and she returned to the white heart as she had come chapter nine her encounter it was one o'clock on Saturday Gertrude Lodge having been admitted to the jail as above described was sitting in a waiting room within the second gate which stood under a classic archway of Ashler then comparatively modern and bearing the inscription county jail 1793 this had been the façade she saw from the heath the day before nearer town was a passage to the roof on which the gallows stood the town was thronged and the market suspended but Gertrude had seen scarcely a soul having kept her room to the hour of the apartment she had proceeded to the spot by a way which avoided the open space below the cliff where the spectators had gathered but she could even now hear the multitude in this babble of their voices out of which rose at intervals the horse croak of a single voice uttering the words last dying speech and confession there had been no reprieve and the execution was over but the crowd still waited to see the body taken down soon the persistent girl heard a trampling of her head then a hand beckoned to her and following directions she went out and crossed the inner paved court beyond the gate house her knee is trembling so she could scarcely walk one of her arms was out of its sleeve and only covered by her shawl on the spot at which he had now arrived were two trestles and before she could think of their purpose she heard heavy feet descending stairs somewhere at her back when she turned her head she would not or could not and rigid in this position she was conscious of a rough coffin passing her shoulder borne by four men it was open and innately the body of a young man wearing the smock frock of a rustic and fustian breeches the corpse had been thrown into the coffin so hastily that the skirt of the smock frock was hanging over the burden was temporarily deposited on the trestles the young woman's state was such that a grey mist seemed to float before her eyes on account of which in the veil she wore she could scarcely discern anything it was as though she had nearly died but was held up by a sort of galvanism now said a voice close at hand and she was just conscious that the word had been addressed to her by last strenuous effort she advanced at the same time hearing persons approaching behind her she bared her poor cursed arm and davies and covering the face of the corpse took Gertrude's hand and held it so that her arm lay across the dead man's neck upon a line the colour of an unright black grey which surrounded it Gertrude shrieked the turn of the blood predicted by the conjurer had taken place but at that moment a second shriek rent the air of the enclosure it was not Gertrude's and its effect upon her was to make her start round immediately behind her stood Rhoda Brooke her face drawn and her eyes red with weeping behind Rhoda stood Gertrude's own husband his countenance lined his eyes dim but without a tear you what are you doing here he said hoarsely Hasi to come between us and our child now cried Rhoda this is the meaning of what satan showed me in the vision you were like her at last and clutching the bare arm of the younger woman she pulled her unresistingly back against the wall immediately Brooke had loosened her hold the fragile young Gertrude slid down against the feet of her husband when he lifted her up she was unconscious the mere sight of the twain had been enough to suggest to her that the dead young man was Rhoda's son at that time the relatives of an executed convict had the privilege of claiming the body for burial if they chose to do so and it was for this purpose that Lodge was awaiting the inquest with Rhoda he had been summoned by her as soon as a young man was taken into the crime and at different times since and he had attended in court during the trial this was the holiday he had been indulging in of late the two wretched parents had wished to avoid exposure and hence accumbed themselves for the body a wagon and sheet for its conveyance covering being and waiting outside Gertrude's case was so serious that it was deemed advisable to call to her the surgeon who was at hand she was taken out of the jail into the town but she never reached home alive her delicate vitality sapped perhaps by the paralyzed arm collapsed under the double shock that followed the severe strain physical and mental to which she had subjected herself during the previous 24 hours her blood had been turned indeed too far her death took place in the town three days after her husband was never seen in Casterbridge again once only in the old marketplace at Engelbury which he had so much frequented and very seldom in public anywhere burdened at first with moodyness and remorse he eventually changed for the better and appeared as a chastened and thoughtful man soon after attending the funeral of his poor young wife he took steps towards giving up the farms and homestoke on the adjoining parish and having sold every head of his stock he went away to Port Brady at the other end of the county living there in solitary lodgings until his death two years later of a painless decline it was then found that he had bequeathed the whole of his not inconsiderable property to a reformatory for boys subject to the payment of a small annuity to Rhoda Brooke who would be found to claim it for some time she could not be found but eventually she reappeared in her old parish absolutely refusing however to have anything to do with the provision made for her her monotonous milking at the dairy was resumed and followed for many long years until her form became bent on her once abundant dark hair white and worn away at the forehead perhaps by long pressure against the cows sometimes those who knew her experiences withstand and observe her and wonder what somber thoughts were beating inside that impassive wrinkled brow to the rhythm of alternating milk streams end of The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit www.librivox.org recording by Alan Noble www.myspace slash immature underscore indefinitely The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman it is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer a colonial mansion a hereditary estate I would say a haunted house and reach the height of romantic felicity but that would be asking too much of fate still I would proudly declare that there is something queer about it else why else should it be let so cheaply and why have stood so long untended John laughs at me of course but one expects that in marriage John is practical in the extreme he has no patience with faith an intense horror of superstition and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures John is a physician and perhaps I would not say it to a living soul of course but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster you see he does not believe I am sick and what can one do if a physician of high standing and one's own husband assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing to 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 he says the same thing so I take phosphates or phosphites whichever it is and tonics and journeys and air and exercise and I am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again personally I disagree with their ideas personally I believe that congenial work with excitement and change would do me good with what is one to do I did ride for a while in spite of them but it does exhaust me a good deal having to be so sly about it or else meet with heavy opposition I sometimes fancy that my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus but John says the very worst thing I can do is think about my condition and I confess it always makes me feel bad so I will let it alone and talk about the house the most beautiful place it is quite alone standing well back from the road quite three miles from the village it makes me think of English places that you read about for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people there is a delicious garden I never saw such a garden large and shady full of box-boarded paths and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them there were greenhouses too but they are all broken now there was some legal trouble I believe something about the hairs and co-hairs anyway the place has been empty for years that spoils my ghostliness I am afraid but I don't care there is something strange about the house I can feel it I even said so to John one moonlit evening but he said what I felt was a drought and shut the window I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes I'm sure I never used to be so sensitive I think it is due to this nervous condition but John says if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control so I take pains to control myself before him at least and that makes me very tired I don't like our room a bit I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window and such pretty old-fashioned chintz hangings but John would not hear of it he said there was only one window and not room for two beds and no near room for him if he took another he is very careful in loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day he takes all care from me and so I feel ungrateful not to value it more he said we came here solely on my account that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get your exercise depends your strength my dear said he and your food somewhat on your appetites but air you can absorb all the time so we took the nursery at the top of the house it is a big airy room the whole floor nearly with windows that look all ways and air and sunshine galore it was nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium for the windows are bod for little children and there are rings and things in the walls the paint and paper look as if a boy's school had used it it is stripped off the paper in great patches all around the head of my bed about as far as I can reach and in a great place on the other side of the room low down I never saw a worst paper in my life one of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin it is dull enough to confuse the eye and following pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide plunge off at outrageous angles destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions the color is repellent almost revolting a smoldering unclean yellow strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight it is a dull yet lurid orange in some places a sickly sulfur tent in others no wonder the children hated it I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long I must put this away he hates to have me write a word we've been here two weeks and I haven't felt like writing before since that first day I am sitting by the window now up in this atrocious nursery and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please save lack of strength John is away all day and even some nights when his cases are serious I'm glad my case is not serious but these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing John does not know how much I really suffer he knows there is no reason to suffer and that satisfies him of course it is only nervousness it does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way I meant to be such a help to John such a real rest and comfort and here I am a comparative burden already no one would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able to dress and entertain and other things it is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby such a dear baby and yet I cannot be with him makes me so nervous I suppose John was never nervous in his life he laughs at me so about this wallpaper at first he meant to repaper the room but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies he said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead and then the barred windows and then the gate at the head of the stairs and so on you know the place is doing you good he said and really dear I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months rental then do let us go downstairs I said there are such pretty rooms there then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose and said he would go down to the cellar if I wished and have it whitewashed into the bargain he is right enough about the beds and windows and things it is an airy and comfortable room as any one need wish and of course I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim I'm really getting quite fond of the big room all but that horrid paper out of one window I can see the garden those mysterious deep shaded arbors old fashioned flowers and bushes and gnarly trees out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate there is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least he says that with my imaginative power and habit of story making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manners of excited fancies and that I ought to use my will in good sense to check the tendency so I try I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me but I find I get pretty tired when I try it is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work when I get really well John says we will ask cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit but he says he would as soon as put fireworks in my pillowcase as to let me have those stimulating people about me now I wish I could get well faster but I must not think about that this paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had there is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness up and down and sideways they crawl and those absurd unblinking eyes are everywhere there is one little place where two breaths didn't match and the eyes go all up and down the line one a little higher than the other I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before and we all know how much expression they have I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store I remember what I kindly winked the knobs of our big old bureau used to have and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe the furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious however for we had to bring it all up from downstairs I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out and no wonder I never saw such ravages as the children have made here the wall of paper as I said before is torn off in spots and it sticketh closer than a brother they must have had perseverance as well as hatred then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered and John's sister itself is dug out here and there and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room looks as if it had been through the wars but I don't mind it a bit only the paper there comes John's sister such a dear girl she is and so careful of me I must not let her find me writing she is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper and hopes for no better profession she believes she thinks it is the writing which made me sick but I can write when she is out and see her a long way off from the windows there is one that commands the road a lovely shaded winding road and one that just looks off over the country a lovely country too full of great elms and velvet meadows this wall paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade a particularly irritating one where you can only see it in certain lights and not clearly then but in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so I can see a strange provoking formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design there is sister on the stairs well the 4th of July is over the people are gone and I am tired out John thought it might do me good to see a little company so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week of course I didn't do a thing Ginny sees to everything now but it tired me all the same John says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to wear Mitchell in the fall but I don't want to go there at all I had a friend who was in his hands once and she says he is just like John and my brother only more so besides it is such an undertaking to go so far I don't feel as if it was worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything and I am getting dreadfully fretful and quarellous I cry at nothing and cry most of the time 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 serious cases and Ginny is good and lets me alone when I want her to so I walk a little in the garden down that lovely lane sit on the porch under the roses and lie down up here a good deal I am really getting fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper perhaps because of the wallpaper it dwells in my mind so I lie here on this great immovable bed it is nailed down I believe and follow that pattern about by the hour it is as good as gymnastics I assure you I start we'll say at the bottom down in the corner over there where it has not been touched and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion I know a little of the principle of design and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation or alternation or repetition or symmetry or anything else that I ever heard of it is repeated of course by the Bretts but not otherwise looked at in one way each Bretts stands alone the bloated curves and flourishes a kind of debased Romanesque with delirium trimmons go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity but on the other hand they connect diagonally and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase the whole thing goes horizontally too at least it seems so and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction they have used a horizontal breath for a freeze and that adds wonderfully to the confusion there is one end of the room where it is almost intact and there when the crosslights in the low sun shines directly upon it I can almost fancy radiation after all the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common center and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction it makes me tired to follow it I will take a nap I guess I don't know why I should write this I don't want to I don't feel able and I know John would think it absurd but I must say what I feel and think in some way it is such a relief but the effort is getting to be greater than the relief half the time now I am awfully lazy and lie down ever so much John says I mustn't lose my strength and he has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat dear John he loves me dearly and hates to have me sick I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to cousin Henry and Julia but he said I wasn't able to go nor able to stand it after I got there and I did not make out a very good case for myself for I was crying before I had finished it is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight just this nervous weakness I suppose and dear John gathered me up in his arms and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed and sat by me and read to me until it tired my head he said I was his darling and his comfort in all he had and that I must take care of myself for his sake and keep well he says no one but myself can help me out of it that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me there's one comfort the baby is well and happy and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wallpaper if we had not used it the blessed child would have what a fortune in escape why I wouldn't have a child of mine a precious little thing living 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 anymore 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's 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 wake him so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper till I felt creepy the faint figure behind it 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 thought it was a good time to talk so I told him that I really was not gaining here so he took 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 a better deer 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 felt really much easier about you I don't weigh a bit more said I 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 great 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 Jenny 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 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 into your mind there is nothing so dangerous so fascinating to a temperament like yours it is a false and foolish fancy do 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 that 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 soon as you get well under way and following it turns a back somersault and there you are it slaps you in the face knocks you down 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 and sprouting and endless convolutions why? that is something like it that is sometimes there is one market peculiarity about this paper I think 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, candlelight lamp light and worst of all by moonlight it becomes bars the outside pattern I mean and the woman behind it as 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 oh no the fact is I'm getting a little afraid of John he seems very queer sometimes and even Ginny 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 Ginny too I caught Ginny 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 so 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 instead I seem to be flourishing despite of my wallpaper I turned it off with a laugh I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wallpaper he would make fun at 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 would be enough I am 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 wallpaper it makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw not beautiful ones like butter cups but old foul bad yellow things but there is something else about that paper the smell I noticed at 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 still 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 hours in trying to analyze it to find what it smelled like it is not bad at first and very gentle but quite the subtlest most enduring odor I have ever met in this damp weather it is awful I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me it used to disturb me at first I thought seriously of burning the house to reach the smell but now I am used to it the only thing I can think of is that it is like the color of the paper a yellow smell there is a very funny mark on this wall low down near the mop board a streak that runs around the room it goes behind every piece of furniture except the bed a long straight even smooch as if it had been rubbed over and over I wonder how it was done and who did it and what they did it for round and round round and round it makes me dizzy I really have discovered something at last through watching so much at night when it changes so I have finally found it out the front pattern does move and no wonder the woman behind shakes it sometimes I think there are great many women behind and sometimes only one and she crawls around fast and her crawling shakes it all over then in the very bright spots she keeps still and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard and she is all the time trying to climb through but nobody could climb through that pattern it strangles so their heads they get through and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down and makes their eyes white those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad I think that woman gets out in the daytime and I'll tell you why privately I've seen her I can see her out of every one of the windows it is the same woman I know creeping and most women do not creep by daylight I see her on that long road under the trees creeping along and when a carriage comes she hides under the Blightberry vines I don't blame her a bit it must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight I always lock the door when I creep by daylight I can do it at night for I know John would suspect something at once and John is so queer now that I don't want to irritate him I wish he would take another room besides I don't want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once but turn as fast as I can I can only see out of one at a time and though I always see her she may be able to creep faster than I can and turn I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind if only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one I mean to try it little by little I have found out another funny thing but I shunt tell it at this time it does not do to trust people too much there are only two more days to get this paper off and I believe John is beginning to notice I don't like the look in his eyes and I heard him ask Ginny a lot of professional questions about me she had a very good report to give she said I slept a good deal in the daytime John knows I don't sleep very well at night for all I'm so quiet he asked me all sorts of questions too and pretended to be very loving and kind as if I couldn't see through him still I don't wonder he acts so sleeping under this paper for three months it only interests me but I feel sure John and Ginny are secretly affected by it hurrah this is the last day but it is enough John is to stay in town overnight and won't be out until this evening Ginny wanted to sleep with me but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone that was clever for I really wasn't alone a bit as soon as it was moonlight and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern I got up and ran to help her I pulled and she shook I shook and she pulled and before morning we had peeled off yards of the paper a strip about as high as my head and then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me I declared I would finish it today we go away tomorrow and they are all moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before Ginny looked at the wall in amazement but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing she laughed and said she wouldn't mind doing it herself but I must not get tired of how she betrayed herself that time but I am here and no person touches this paper but me not alive she tried to get me out of the room it was too patent but I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could and not to wake me even for dinner I would call when I woke so now she is gone the servants are gone and the things are gone and there is nothing left but that great bedstead nailed down with the canvas mattress we found on it we shall sleep downstairs tonight and take the boat home tomorrow I quite enjoy the room now it is bare again how those children did tear about here this bedstead is fairly gnawed but I must get to work I have locked the door I have thrown the key down to the front path I don't want to go out and I don't want to have anybody come in till John comes I want to astonish him I've got a rope up here that even Ginny did not find if that woman does get out and tries to get away I can tie her but I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on this bed will not move I tried to lift and push it until I was lame and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner but it hurt my teeth then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor it sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it all those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision I'm getting angry enough to do something desperate to jump out of the window would be admirable exercise bars are too strong even to try besides I wouldn't do it of course not I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued I don't like to even look out of the windows there are so many of those creeping women and they creep so fast I wonder if they all came out of that wallpaper as I did but I am securely fastened now by my well hidden rope you don't get me out in the road there I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night and that is hard it is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please I don't want to go outside I won't even if Ginny asked me to for outside you have to creep on the ground and everything is green instead of yellow but here I can creep smoothly on the floor and my shoulder just fits into that long smooch around the wall so I cannot lose my way why there's John at the door it's no use young man you can't open it how he does call and pound now he's crying for an axe it would be a shame to break down that beautiful door John dear said I in the gentlest voice the key is down by the front steps under a plantain leaf that silence told him for a few moments then he said very quietly indeed open the door my darling I can't said I the key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf and then I said it again several times very gently and slowly and said it so often that he had to go and see and he got it of course and he came in he stopped short by the door what is the matter he cried for God's sake what are you doing I kept on creeping just the same but I looked at him over my shoulder I've got out at last said I in spite of you and Jenny and I've pulled off most of the paper so you can't put me back now why should the man have fainted but he did by the wall so that I had to creep over him every time end of the yellow wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman recorded by Alan Noble Thomasville, Alabama October 20th 2006