The Yellow Wallpaper

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 will proudly declare that there is something 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 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 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 tonics, and

journeys, and air, and exercise, and 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.

But what is one to do?

I did write 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 to

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-bordered 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 heirs and

coheirs; anyhow, 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 moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was

a DRAUGHT, 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 and 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 basely ungrateful not to value it more.