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Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton · Edith Wharton Classics Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, introduction. I had the story
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: bit by bit from various people, and as generally happens
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in such cases, each time it was a different story.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post office.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: If you know the post office, you must have seen
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: his hollow backed bay, and drag himself across the brick
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: pavement to the white colonnade, And you must have asked
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: who he was. It was there that, several years ago
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I saw him for the first time, and the sight
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: pulled me up sharp. Even then, he was the most
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: of a man. It was not so much his great
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: height that marked him, for the natives were easily singled
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: out by their lank longitude from the stock ear foreign breed.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: It was the careless, powerful look he had, in spite
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of a lameness, checking each step like the jerk of
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: him for an old man, and was surprised to hear
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that he was not more than fifty two. I had
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre trolley days and knew the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: chronicle of all the families on his line. He's looked
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that way ever since he had his smash up, and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that's twenty four years ago. Come next February, Harmon threw
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: out between reminiscent pauses the smash up. It was, I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: gathered from the same informant, which, besides drawing the red
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and warped
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: his right side that it cost him a visible effort
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: to take the few steps from his buggy to the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: post office window. He used to drive in from his
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: farm every day at about noon, and as that was
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: my own hour for fetching my mail, I often passed
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: him in the porch or stood beside him while we
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I noticed that though he came so punctually, he seldom
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: he put without a glance into his sagging pocket At
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: intervals however, the postmaster would hand him an envelope addressed
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: to Missus Zenobia or Missus Zena Frome, and usually bearing
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: conspicuously in the upper left hand corner the address of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: some manufacture of patent medicine and the name of his
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: specific These documents my neighbor would also pocket without a glance,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: as if too much use to them to wonder at
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: their number and variety, and would then turn away with
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: a silent nod to the postmaster. Every one in Starkfield
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to his
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: own grave mien, but his taciturnity was respected, and it
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: was only on rare occasions that one of the older
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: men of the place detained him for a word. When
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: this happened, he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that his words never reached me. Then he would climb
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in his
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: left hand, and drive slowly away in the direction of
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: his farm. It was a pretty bad smash up, I
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: questioned Harmon, looking after Frome's retreating figure and thinking how
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: gallantly his lean brown head with its shock of light hair,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: bent out of shape. Worst kind. My informant assented, morn
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: enough to kill most men, but the fromes are tough.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Ethan'll likely touch a hundred. Good God, I exclaimed at
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: the moment. Ethan Frome, after climbing to his seat, had
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: leaned over to assure himself of the security of a
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: wooden box, also with the druggist's label on it, which
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: he had placed in the back of the buggy. And
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I saw his face as it probably looked when he
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: thought himself alone. That man touch a hundred. He looks
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: as if he was dead and in hell now. Harmon
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: drew a slab of tobacco from his pocket, cut off
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: a wedge, and press it into the leather pouch of
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: his cheek. Guess he's been in Stockfield too many winters.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Most of the smart ones get away. Why didn't he?
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Somebody had to stay and care for the folks there?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Want ever anybody but Ethan? First his father, then his mother,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: then his wife, and then the smash up. Harmon chuckled sardonically.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: That's so he had to stay. Then I see and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: since then they've had to care for him. Harmon thoughtfully
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: passed his tobacco to the other cheek. Oh As to that,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I guess it's always Ethan done the caring. Though Harmon
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: gou developed the tale as far as his mental and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: moral reach permitted, there were perceptible gaps between his facts,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and I had the sense that the deeper meaning of
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the story was in the gaps. But one phrase stuck
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: in my memory and served as the nucleus about which
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I grouped my subsequent inferences. Guess he's in Starkfield too
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: many winters before my own time there was up. I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: had learned to know what that meant. Yet I had
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural delivery,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: when communication was easy between the scattered mountain villages and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the bigger towns in the valleys such as Bettsbridge and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theaters, and y m c A.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Halls to which the youth of the hills could descend
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: for recreation. But when winter shut down on Starkfield and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the village lay under a sheet of snow perpetually renewed
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: from the pale skies, I began to see what life there,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: or rather its negation, must have been in Ethan Frome's
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: young manhood. I had been sent up by my employers
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: on a job connected with the big powerhouse at Corbury Junction,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: and a long drawn carpenter's strike had so delayed the
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield, the nearest
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: habitable spot for the best part of the winter. I
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: chafed at first, and then, under the hypnotizing effect of routine,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: During the early part of my stay, I had been
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: struck by the contrast between the vitality of the climate
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: and the deadness of the community. Day by day, after
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: down torrents of light and air on the white landscape,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: which gave them back in an intenser glitter. One would
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: as well as the blood, but it seemed to produce
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: pulse of Starkfield. When I had been there a little
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: longer and had seen this phase of crystal clearness, followed
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: by long stretches of sunless cold. When the storms of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and the wild cavalry of March Winds had charged down
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: to their support, I began to understand why Starkfield emerged
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: from its six month siege like a starved garrison, capitulating
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: without quarter. Twenty years earlier, the means of resistance must
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: have been far fewer, and the enemy and command of
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: And considering these things, I felt the sinister force of
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Harmon's phrase, most of the smart ones get away. But
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: if that were the case, how could any combination of
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: obstacles have hindered the flight of a man like Ethan Frome.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: During my stay at Starkfield, I lodged with a middle
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: aged widow colloquially known as Missus ned Hale. Missus Hale's
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: father had been the village lawyer of the previous generation,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and Lawya Varnum's house, where my landladies still lived with
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: her mother, was the most considerable mansion in the village.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: It stood at one end of the main street. Its
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: classical portico and small paned windows. Looking down a flagged
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: path between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the Congregational Church, it was clear that the Varnum fortunes
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: were at the EBB, But the two women did what
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they could to preserve a decent dignity, and missus Hale
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in particular had a certain wan refinement, not out of
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: keeping with her pale, old fashioned house in the best parlor,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: with its black horse hair and mahogany, weakly illuminated by
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: a gurgling caarsle lamp. I listened every evening to another
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield Chronicle. It
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: was not that Missus ned Hale felt or affected any
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: social superiority to the people about her. It was only
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: more education had put just enough distance between herself and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: her neighbors to enable her to judge them with detachment.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: had great hopes of getting from her the missing facts
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of Ethan Frome's story, or rather such a key to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: his character as should co ordinate the facts I knew
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: her mind was a storehouse of innocuous anecdote, and any
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: But on the subject of Ethan Frome, I found her
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: unexpectedly reticent. There was no hint of disapproval in her ress.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to speak
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of him or his affairs. A low yes, I knew
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: them both. It was awful, seeming to be the utmost
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: concession that her distress could make to my curiosity. So
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: marked was the change in her manner, such depths of
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: sad initiation. Did it imply that, with some doubts as
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to my delicacy, I put the case anew to my
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: village oracle, harmon Gow, but got for my pains only
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: an uncomprehending grunt humph. Ruth Varnum was always as nervous
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: as a rat, and come to think of it, she
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: was the first one to see him after they was
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: picked up. It happened right below lay of Varnum's, down
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: at the bend of the Corbury Road, just round about
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the time that Ruth got engaged to ned Hale. The
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: young folks was all friends, and I guess she just
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: can't bear to talk about it. She's had troubles enough
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of her own. All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: more notable communities, had had troubles enough of their own
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to make them comparatively indifferent to those of their neighbors.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And though all conceded that Ethan Fromes had been beyond
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the look in his face, which, as I persisted in thinking,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: neither poverty nor physical suffering could have put there. Nevertheless,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I might have contented myself with the story pieced together
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: from these hints, had it not been for the provocation
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: of missus Hale's silence, and a little later for the
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: accident of personal contact with the man. On my arrival
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: at Starkfield, Dennis Edy, the rich Irish grocer who was
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: had entered into an agreement to send me over daily
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: to Corbury Flats, where I had to pick up my
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: train for the junction. But about the middle of the winter,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Edie's horses fell ill of a local epidemic the illness
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: spread to the other Starkfield stables, and for a day
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: or two I was put to it to find a
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: means of transport. Then Harmon gow suggested that Ethan Frome's
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: bay was still on his legs, and that his owner
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: might be glad to drive me over. I stared at
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: the suggestion Ethan Frome, but I've never even spoken to him.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Why on earth should he put himself out for me.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Harmon's answer surprised me still more. I don't know as
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: he would, but I know he wouldn't be sorry to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: earn a dollar. I had been told that Frome was poor,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and that the saw mill and the arid acres of
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the winter. But I had not supposed him to be
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: in such want as Harmon's words implied, and I expressed
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: my wonder Well, Maadows ain't gone any too well with him,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Harmon said, when a man's been setting around like a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: hulk for twenty years or more, seeing things that want doing,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: it eats into him and he loses his grit. That
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: frome farm was always about as bare as a milk pan.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: When the cat's been round, and you know what one
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of them old water mills is worth nowadays. When Ethan
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: could sweat over em both from sun up to he
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: kind of choked a livin out of em. But his
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: folks ate up most everything even then, and I don't
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: see how he makes out now fust His father got
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: a kick out Hayin and went soft in the brain
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and gave away money like Bible texts before he died.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: as weak as a baby. And his wife, Zina, she's
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: always been the greatest hand at doctoring in the county.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Sickness and trouble, that's what Ethan's had his plate full
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: up with ever since the very first helping. The next morning,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: when I looked out, I saw the hollow backed bay
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: between the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: worn bear skin, made room for me in the sleigh
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: at his side. After that, for a week he drove
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: me over every morning to Corberry Flats, and on my
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: return in the afternoon met me again and carried me
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: back through the icy night to Starkfield. The distance each
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: way was barely three miles, but the old Bay's pace
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: we were nearly an hour on the way. Ethan Frome
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: drove in silence, the reins loosely held in his left hand,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: his brown seamed profile under the helmet like peak of
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: the cap, relieved against the banks of snow, like the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: bronze image of a hero. He never turned his face
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to mine or answered, except in monosyllables, the questions I put,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: or such slight pleasantries as I ventured. He seemed a
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: part of the mute, melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: him fast bound below the surface. But there was nothing
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: unfriendly in his silence. I simply felt that he lived
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: in a depth of moral isolation, too remote for casual access.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And I had the sense that his loneliness was not
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: merely the result of his personal plight tragic as I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Gau had hinted, the profound, accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Only once or twice was the dis between us bridged
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: for a moment, and the glimpses thus gained confirmed my
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: desire to know more. Once I happened to speak of
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: an engineering job I had been on the previous year
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: about us and that in which I had found myself
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the year before, And to my surprise Frome said suddenly, yes,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I was down there once, and for a good while
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: But now it's all snowed under. He said, no more,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: and I had to guess the rest from the inflection
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of his voice and his sharp relapse into silence. Another day,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: a volume of Popular Science. I think it was on
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: some recent discoveries in biochemistry, which I had carried with
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: me to read on the way. I thought no more
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: about it till I got into the sleigh again that
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: evening and saw the book in Frome's hand. I found
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: it after you were gone, he said. I put the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: usual silence. But as we began to crawl up the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: long hill from Corbury Flats to the Starkfield Ridge, I
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: face to mine. There are things in that book that
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't know the first word about, he said. I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: wondered less at his words than at the queer note
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of resentment in his voice. He was evidently surprised and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: slightly aggrieved at his own ignorance. Does that sort of
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: thing interest you, I asked, It used to. There are
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: one or two rather new things in the book. There
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: have been some big strides lately in that particular line
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: of research. I waited a moment for an answer that
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: did not come. Then I said, if you'd like to
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: look through the book, I'd be glad to leave it
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: with you. He hesitated, and I had the impression that
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: he felt himself about to yield to a stealing tide
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: of inertia. Then thank you, I'll take it, he answered shortly.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I hoped that this incident might set up some more
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: direct communication between Frome was so simple and straightforward that
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I was sure his curiosity about the book was based
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: on a genuine interest in its subject. Such tastes and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: and I hoped that the chance of giving expression to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the latter might at least unseal his lips. But something
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in his past history or in his present way of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: living had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: any casual impulse to draw him back to his kind.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: At our next meeting, he made no allusion to the book,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as negative and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: one sided, as if there had been no break in
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: his reserve. Frome had been driving me over to the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: flats for about a week when one morning I looked
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: out of my window into a thick snowfall. The height
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of the white waves massed against the garden fence and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: along the wall of the church showed that the storm
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: must have been going on all night, and that the
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: drifts were likely to be heavy in the open. I
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: thought it probable that my train would be delayed, but
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I had to be at the power house for an
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: hour or two that afternoon, and I decided, if Frome
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: turned up, to push through to the flats and wait
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: there till my train came in. I don't know why
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I put it in the conditional, however, for I never
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: doubted that Frome would appear. He was not the kind
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: of man to be turned from his business by any
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: commotion of the elements, And at the appointed hour his
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: sleigh glided up through the snow like a stage apparition
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: behind thickening veils of gauze. I was getting to know
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: him too well to express either wonder or gratitude at
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: his keeping his appointment. But I exclaimed in surprise as
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: I saw him turn his horse in a direction opposite
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: to that of the Corbury Road. The railroads blocked by
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a freight train that got stuck in a drift below
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the flats, he explained, as we jogged off into the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: stinging whiteness. But look here, where are you taking me?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Then straight to the junction by the shortest way, he answered,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: pointing up school House Hill with his whip. To the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: junction in this storm. Why it's a good ten miles.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: The bay'll do it if you give him time. You
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: said you had some business there this afternoon. I'll see
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you get there. He said it so quietly that I
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: could only answer, you're doing me the biggest kind of favor.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: That's all right. He rejoined abreast of the schoolhouse. The
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: road forked and we dipped down a lane to the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: left between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the weight of the snow. I had often walked that
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: way on Sundays and knew that the solitary roof showing
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: that of Frome's sawmill. It looked exanimate enough, with its
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: idle wheel looming above the black stream, dashed with yellow
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: white load. Frome did not even turn his head as
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: we drove by, and still in silence, we began to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: mount the next slope. About a mile farther, on a
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: road I had never traveled, we came to an orchard
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: of starved apple trees writhing over a hill side, among
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow, like
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: animals pushing out their noses to breathe. Beyond the orchard
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: and above the fields, huddled against the white immensities of
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: land and sky, one of those lonely New England farm
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: houses that make the landscape lonelier. That's my place, said Frome,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: with a sideways jerk of his lame elbow, and in
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: the distress and oppression of the scene, I did not
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: know what to answer. The snow had ceased, and a
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: flash of watery sunlight exposed the house on the slope
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: above us in all its plaintive ugliness. The black wraith
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: thin wooden walls under their worn coat of paint seemed
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to shiver in the wind that had risen with the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: ceasing of the snow. The house was bigger in my
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: father's time. I had to take down the ell a
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: while back from continued checking with a twitch of the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: left rein the bay's evident intention of turning in through
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the broken down gate. I saw then that the unusually
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: forlorn and stunted look the house was partly due to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the loss of what is known in New England as
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the el that long, deep roofed adjunct, usually built at
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: right angles to the main house and connecting it by
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: way of store rooms and tool house with the wood
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: shed and cowburn, Whether because of its symbolic sense the
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: image it presented of a life linked with the soil
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and enclosing in itself the chief sources of warmth and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: nourishment or weather, merely because of the consolatory thought that
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: it enables the dwellers in that harsh climate to get
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to their morning's work without facing the weather. It is
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: certain that the el, rather than the house itself, seems
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to be the center, the actual hearthstone of the New
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: England farm. Perhaps this connection of ideas, which had often
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: occurred to me in my rambles about Starkfield, caused me
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: shrunken body. We're kinder side tracked here now, he added,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: but there was considerable passing before the railroad was carried
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: through to the flats. He roused the lagging bay with
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: another twitch. Then, as if the mere sight of the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: house had let me too deeply into his confidence for
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: any farther pretense of reserve, he went on slowly. I've
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: always sit down. The worst of mother's troubles to that
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: when she got the rheumatism so bad she couldn't move around,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: she used to sit up there and watch the road
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: by the hour and one year when they was six
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: months mending the Betsbridge Pike after the floods, and Harmon
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Gow had to bring his stage round this way, she
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: picked up so that she used to get down to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the gate most days to see him. But after the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: trains begun running, nobody ever come by here to speak of,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and mother never could get it through her head what
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: had happened, and it preyed on her right along till
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: she died. As we turned into the Corbury Road, the
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: snow began to fall again, cutting off our last glimpse
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: of the house, and Frome's silence fell with it, letting
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: down between us the old veil of reticence. This time
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the wind did not cease with the return of the snow. Instead,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: it sprang up to a gale, which now and then
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: from a tattered sky flung pale sweeps of sunlight over
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: a landscape chaotically tossed. But the bay was as good
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: as Frome's word, and we pushed on to the junction
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: through the wild white scene. In the afternoon, the storm
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: held off, and the clearness in the west seemed to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: my inexperienced eye the pledge of a fair evening. I
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: finished my business as quickly as possible, and we set
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: out for Starkfield, with a good chance of getting there
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: for supper. But at sunset the clouds gathered again, bringing
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: in earlier night, and the snow began to fall straight
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: universal diffusion, more confusing than the gusts and eddies of
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: the morning. It seemed to be a part of the
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: thickening darkness, to be the winter night itself, descending on
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: us layer by layer. The small ray of fromes lantern
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: was soon lost in this smothering medium, in which even
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: his sense of direction and the bay's homing instinct finally
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: ceased to serve us. Two or three times, some ghostly
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: landmarks sprang up to warn us that we were astray,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and then we sucked back into the mist, And when
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: we finally regained our road, the old horse began to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: show signs of exhaustion. I felt myself to blame for
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: having accepted Frome's offer, and after a short discussion, I
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: persuaded him to let me get out of the sleigh
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and walk along through the snow at the bay's side.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: In this way we struggled on for another mile or two,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and at last reached a point where, from peering into
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: what seemed to me formless night, said, that's my gate
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: down yonder. The last stretch had been the hardest part
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of the way. The bitter cold and the heavy going
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: had nearly knocked the wind out of me, and I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: could feel the horse's side ticking like a clock under
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: my hand. Look here, from I began, there's no earthly
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: use in your going any farther, but he interrupted me,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: nor you neither. There's been about enough of this for anybody.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: at the farm, and without answering, I turned into the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: gate at his side and followed him to the barn,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: where I helped him to unharness and bed down the
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: tired horse. When this was done, he unhooked the lantern
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: from the sleigh, stepped out again into the night, and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: called to me over his shoulder. This way, far off
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: above us, a square of light trembled through the screen
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of snow, staggering along in Frome's wake. I floundered toward it, and,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: in the darkness almost fell into one of the deep
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: drifts against the front of the house. Frome scrambled up
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: the slippery steps of the porch, digging away through the
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: snow with his heavily booted foot. Then he lifted his lantern,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: found the latch, and led the way into the house.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I went after him into a low, unlit passage, at
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the back of which a ladderlike staircase rose into obscurity.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: On our right a line of light marked the door
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: of the room, which had sent its ray across the night,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And behind the door I heard a woman's voice, droning querulously.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Frome stamped on the worn oilcloth to shake the snow
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: from his boots, and set down his lantern on a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: kitchen chair, which was the only piece of furniture in
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the hall. Then he opened the door. Come in, he said,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: And as he spoke the the droning voice grew still.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It was that night that I found the clue to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Ethan Frome, and began to put together this vision of
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: his story. End of introduction, Chapter one. The village lay
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: In a sky of iron, the points of the dipper
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: hung like icicles, and Orion flashed his cold fires. The
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: moon had set, but the night was so transparent that
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the white house fronts between the elms looked gray against
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the snow. Clumps of bushes made black stains on it,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and the basement windows of the church sent shafts of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: yellow light far across the endless undulations. Young Ethan Frome
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the bank and Michael Edy's new brick store and lawyer
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Varnum's house with the two black Norway spruces. At the
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: gate opposite the Varnum Gate, where the road fell away
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: toward the Corberry Valley, the church shreared its slim white
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: steeple and narrow peristyle as the young man walked toward it.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: The upper windows drew a black arcade along the side
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: wall of the building, but from the lower openings, on
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the side where the ground sloped steeply down to the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Corbury Road, the light shot its long bars, illuminating many
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement door,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and showing under an adjoining shed a line of sleighs
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: with heavily blanketed horses. The night was perfectly still, and
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the air so dry and pure that it gave little
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: sensation of cold. The effect produced on Frome was rather
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: of a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: tenuous than ether intervened between the white earth under his
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: feet and the metallic dome overhead. Its like being in
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: an exhausted receiver. He thought. Four or five years earlier,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: he had taken a year's course at a technological college
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: at Worcester and dabbled in the laboratory with a friendly
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: professor of physics, and the images supplied by that experience
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: still cropped up at unexpected moments through the totally different
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: associations of thought in which he had since been living.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: His father's death and the misfortunes following it had put
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a premature end to Ethan's studies, but though they had
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: not gone far enough to be of much practical use,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things. As he
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: strode along through the snow, the sense of such meanings
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: glowed in his brain and mingled with the bodily flush
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: produced by his sharp tramp. At the end of the village,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: he paused before the darkened front of the church. He
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: stood there a moment, breathing quickly and looking up and
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: down the street, in which not another figure moved. The
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: pitch of the Corburry Road below Lawyer Varnum Spruces was
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the favorite coasting ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the church corner rang till late with the shouts of
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the coasters. But to night not a sledge darkened the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: whiteness of the long declivity. The hush of midnight lay
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: on the village, and all its waking life was gathered
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: behind the church windows, from which strains of dance music
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: flowed with the broad bands of yellow light. The young man,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: skirting the side of the building, went down the slope
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: toward the basement door. To keep out of range of
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the revealing rays from within, He made a circuit through
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the untrodden snow and gradually approached the farther angle of
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the basement wall. Thence still hugging the shadow, he edged
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: his way cautiously forward to the nearest window, holding back
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: his straight, spare body and craning his neck till he
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: got a glimpse of the room. Seen thus, from the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: pure and frosty darkness in which he stood, it seemed
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: to be seething in a mist of heat. The metal
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: reflectors of the gas jets sent crude waves of light
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: against the white washed walls, and the iron flanks of
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: the stove at the end of the hall looked as
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: though they were heaving with volcanic fires. The floor was
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: thronged with girls and young men. Down the side wall
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: facing the window stood a row of kitchen chairs from
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: which the older women had just risen, and the musicians,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a fiddler and the young lady who played the harmonium
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: on Sundays, were hastily refreshing themselves at one corner of
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the supper table, which aligned its devastated pie dishes and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: ice cream saucers on the platform at the end of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the hall. The guests were preparing to leave, and the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: tide had already set towards the passage where coats and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: wraps were hung. When a young man with a sprightly
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: foot and a shock of black hair shot into the
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: middle of the floor and clapped his hands, the signal
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: took instant effect. The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: some already half muffled for departure, fell into line down
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: each side of the room. The older spectators slipped back
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: to their chairs, and the lively young man, after a
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: a girl who had already wound a cherry colored fascinator
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: about her head, and leading her up to the end
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: of the floor, whirled her down its length to the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: bounding tune of a Virginia reel. From's heart was beating fast.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: He had been straining for a glimpse of the dark
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: head under the cherry colored scarf, and it vexed him
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: that another eye should have been quicker than his. The
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: leader of the reel, who looked as if he had
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Irish blood in his veins, danced well, and his partner
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: caught his fire as she passed down the line, her
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: light figure swinging from hand to hand in circles of
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: increasing swiftness. The scarf flew off her head and stood
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: out behind her shoulders, and from at each turn caught
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: sight of her laughing, panting lips, the cloud of dark
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hair about her forehead, and the dark eyes, which seemed
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the only fixed points in a maze of flying lines.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: to keep up with them, belabored their instruments like jockeys
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: lashing their mounts on the home stretch. Yet it seemed
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: to the young man at the window that the reel
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: would never end now and then he turned his eyes
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: from the girl's face to that of her partner, which,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: in the exhilaration of the dance, had taken on a
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: look of almost impudent ownership. Denis Edy was the son
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: of Michael Edy, the ambitious Irish grocer whose suppleness and
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of smart business methods,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and whose new brick store testified to the success of
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the attempt. His son seemed likely to follow in his steps,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and was meanwhile applying the same arts to the conquest
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: of the Starkfield maidenhood. Hitherto Ethan Frome had been content
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to think him a mean fellow, but now he positively
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: invited a horsewhipping. It was strange that the girl did
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: not seem aware of it, that she could lift her
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: wrapt face to her dancers and drop her hands into
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: his without appearing to feel the offense of his look
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: and touch. Frome was in the habit of walking into
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Starkfield to fetch home his wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the rare evenings when some chance of amusement drew her
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: to the village. It was his wife who had suggested,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: when the girl came to live with them, that such
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: opportunities should be put in her way. Mattie Silver came
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: from Stamford, and when she entered the Frome's household to
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: act as her cousin, Zena's aid it was thought best,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: as she came without pay, not to let her feel
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: too sharp a contrast between the life she had left
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and the isolation of a Starkfield farm. But for this,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: as Frome sardonically reflected, it would hardly have occurred to
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Zena to take any thought for the girl's amusement. When
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: occasional evening out, he had inwardly demurred at having to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: do the extra two miles to the village in back
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: after his hard day on the farm, But not long
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: might give all its nights to revelry. Mattie Silver had
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: lived under his roof for a year, and from early
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: morning till they met at supper, he had frequent chances
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: of seeing her, but no moments in her company were
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: comparable to those when her arm in his and her
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: light step flying to keep time with his long stride,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: they walked back through the night to the farm. He
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: had taken to the girl from the first day, when
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: he had driven over to the flats to meet her,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and she had smiled and waved to him from the train,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: crying out, you must be Ethan as she jumped down
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: with her bundles, while he reflected looking over her slight person.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: She don't look much on housework, but she ain't a
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: fretter anyhow. But it was not only that the coming
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to his house of a bit of hopeful young life
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: was like the lighting of a fire on a cold hearth.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: The girl was more than the bright, serviceable creature he
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: had thought her. She had an eye to see and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: an ear to hear. He could show her things, and
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: all he imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: wake at will. It was during their night walks back
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: to the farm that he felt most intensely the sweetness
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of this communion. He had always been more sensitive than
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: the people about him to the appeal of natural beauty.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility, and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: even in his unhappiest moments, field and sky spoke to
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: him with a deep and powerful persuasion. But hitherto the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: emotion had remained in him as a silent ache, veiling
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: with sadness the beauty that evoked it. He did not
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: even know whether any one else in the world felt
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: as he did, or whether he was the sole victim
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: of this mournful privilege. Then he learned that one other
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: at his side, living under his roof and ear eating
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: his bread, was a creature to whom he could say,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that's a rion down yonder the big fellow, to the
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: riot as Aldebaron, and the bunch of little ones like
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: bees swarming there, the Pleiades, or whom he could hold
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through the fern,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: while he unrolled the huge panorama of the ice age
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: and the long dim stretches of succeeding time the fact
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: that admiration for his learning mingled with Mattie's wonder at
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: what he taught was not the least part of his pleasure.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: And there were other sensations, less definable but more exquisite,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: which drew them together with a shock of silent joy.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: The cold red of sunset behind winter hills, the flight
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: of cloud flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow. When she
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: said to him once, it looks just as if it
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: was painted, it seemed to Ethan that the art of
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: definition could go no farther, and that words had at
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: last been found to us her his secret soul. As
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: he stood in the darkness outside the church, these memories
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: came back with the poignancy of vanished things. Watching Mattie
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: whirl down the floor from hand to hand, he wondered
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: how he could ever have thought that his dull talk
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: interested her. To him, who was never gay, but in
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: her presence her gaiety seemed plain proof of indifference. The
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: face she lifted to her dancers was the same which,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: when she saw him, always looked like a window that
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: has caught the sunset. He even noticed two or three
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: for him. A way of throwing her head back when
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: she was amused, as if to taste her laugh before
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: she let it out, and a trick of sinking her
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: lids slowly when anything charmed or moved her. The sight
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: made him unhappy, and his unhappiness roused his latent fears.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: of late she had grumbled increasingly over the housework and
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: found oblique ways of attracting attention to the girl's in efficiency.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Zena had always been what Starkfield called sickly, and Frome
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: had to admit that if she were as ailing as
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: than the one which lay so lightly in his during
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: the night walks to the farm. Mattie had no natural
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: turn for housekeeping, and her training had done nothing to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: remedy the defect. She was quick to learn, but forgetful
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and dreamy, and not disposed to take the matter seriously.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: Ethan had an idea that if she were to marry
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a man, she was fond of the dormant instinct would awake,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the county.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: But domesticity in the abstract did not interest her. At first,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: she was so awkward that he could not help laughing
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: at her, But she laughed with him, and that made
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: them better friends. He did his best to supplement her
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to light the
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: kitchen fire, carrying in the wood over night, and neglecting
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: the mill for the farm that he might help her
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: about the house during the day. He even crept down
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after the
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: women had gone to God. And Zena one day had
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: surprised him at the churn and had turned away silently
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: with one of her queer looks. Of late, there had
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: been other signs of her disfavor, as intangible but more disquieting.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: his candle flickering in the draft of the ill fitting window,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: he had heard her speak from the bed behind him.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: The doctor don't want I should be left without anybody
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: to do for me, she said, in her flat whine.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: He had supposed her to be asleep and the sound
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: of her voice had startled him, though she was given
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to abrupt explosions of speech after long intervals of secretive silence.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: He turned and looked at her, where she lay, indistinctly
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: outlined under the dark calico quilt, her high boned face,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: taking a grayish tinge from the whiteness of the pillow.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Nobody to do for you, he repeated, If you say
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you can't afford a hired girl when Mattie goes Frome
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: turned away again, and taking up his razor, stooped to
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: catch the reflection of his stretched cheek in the lotched
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: looking glass above the washstand. Why on earth should Mattie
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: go well when she gets married? I mean, his wife's
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: drawl came from behind him. Oh, she'd never leave us
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: as long as you needed her, he returned, scraping hard
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: at his chin. I wouldn't ever have it said that
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: I stood in the way of a poor girl like
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis edy Zena, answered
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: in a tone of plaintive self effacement. Ethan, glaring at
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: his face in the glass, threw his head back to
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: draw the razor from ear to chin. His hand was steady,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: but the attitude was an excuse for not making an
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: immediate reply. Then the doctor don't want I should be
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: left without anybody, Sina continued. He wanted I should speak
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to you about a girl he's heard about that might come.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Ethan laid down the razor and straightened himself with a laugh.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Denis Edy, if that's all, I guess there's no such
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: hurry to look round for a girl. Well, I'd like
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: to talk to you about it, said Zena, obstinately. He
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: was getting into his clothes in fumbling haste. All right,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: but I haven't got the time now. I'm late as
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it is. He returned, holding his old silver turnip watch
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: to the candle. Zena, apparently accepting this as final, lay
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: watching him in silence while he pulled his suspenders over
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: his shoulders and jerked his arms into his coat. But
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: as he went toward the door, she said suddenly and incisively,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I guess you're always late now. You shave every morning.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: That thrust had frightened him more than any vague insinuations
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: about Denis Edy. It was a fact that since Mattie
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: Silver's coming, he had taken to shaving every day, but
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: his wife always seemed to be asleep when he left
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: her side in the winter darkness, and he had stupidly
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: assumed that she would not notice any change in his appearance.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Once or twice in the past he had been faintly
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: disquieted by Zenobia's way of letting things happen without seeming
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to remark them, and then, weeks afterward, in a casual phrase,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: revealing that she had all along taken her notes and
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: drawn her inferences. Of late, however, there had been no
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: room in his thoughts for such vague apprehensions. Zena herself,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: from an oppressive reality, had faded into an unsubstantial shade.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: All his life was lived in the sight and sound
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: of Mattie Silver, and he could no longer conceive of
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: its being otherwise. But now, as he stood outside the
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: church and saw Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Edy,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a throng of disregarded hints and menaces wove their cloud
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: about his brain. End of chapter one, Chapter two. As
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: the dancers poured out of the hall frome, drawing back
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: behind the projecting storm door, watched the segregation of the
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: grotesquely muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: and then lit up a face flushed with food and dancing.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: The villagers, being afoot, were the first to climb the
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: slope to the main street, while the country neighbors packed
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the shed. Ain't
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you ridin, Mattie? A woman's voice called back from the
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: throng about the shed, and Ethan's heart gave a jump.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: From where he stood. He could not see the persons
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: coming out of the hall till they had advanced a
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm door,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: But through its cracks he heard a clear voice answer, Mercy, No,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: not on such a night. She was there then, close
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to him, only a thin board between. In another moment
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: she would step forth into the night, and his eyes,
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: accustomed to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: though she stood in daylight. A wave of shyness pulled
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: him back into the dark angle of the wall, and
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: he stood there in silence, instead of making his presence
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: known to her. It had been one of the wonders
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: of their intercourse that, from the first time she the quicker, finer,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: more expressive, Instead of crushing him by the contrast had
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: given him something of her own ease and freedom, But
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: student days when he had tried to jolly the Wooster
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: girls at a picnic. He hung back, and she came
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: out alone and paused within a few yards of him.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: She was almost the last to leave the hall, and
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: she stood looking uncertainly about her, as if wondering why
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: he did not show himself. Then a man's figure approached,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: coming so close to her that under their formless wrappings
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: they seemed merged in one dim outline. Gentlemen, friend, gone
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: back on, you say, mat, that's tough. No, I wouldn't
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: be mean enough to tell the other girls. I ain't
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: as low down as that. How Frome hated his cheap banter.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: But look a here, ain't it lucky? I got the
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: old man's cutter down there waiting for us. Frome heard
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: the girl's voice gaily and credulous, What on earth's your
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: father's cutter doin down there? Why waiting for me to
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: take a ride? I got the roan colt too. I
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: kinder knew I'd want to take a ride to night.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Edy in his triumph tried to put a sentimental note
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: into his bragging voice. The girl seemed to waver, and
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: Frome saw her twirl the end of her scarf irresolutely
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: about her fingers. Not for the world would he have
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: made a sign to her, though it seemed to him
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: that his life hung on her next gesture. Hold on
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: a minute, while I unhitched the colt, Dennis called to her,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: springing towards the shed, she stood perfectly still, looking after
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: him in an attitude of tranquil expectancy. Torturing to the
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: hidden watcher, Frome noticed that she no longer turned her
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: head from side to side, as though peering through the
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: night for another figure. She let Dennis edy lead out
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: the horse, climb into the cutter, and fling back the
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: bearskin to make room for her at his side. Then,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: with a swift motion of flight, she turned about and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: darted up the slope toward the front of the church.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Good Bye, Hope, you'll have a lovely ride, she called
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: back to him over her shoulder. Dennis laughed and gave
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: the horse a cut that brought him quickly abreast of
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: her retreating figure. Come along, get in quick, it's as
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: slippery as thunder on this turn, he cried, leaning over
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: to reach out a hand to her. She laughed back
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: at him, good night, I'm not getting in. By this
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: time they had passed beyond Frome's ear shot, and he
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: could only follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: they continued to move along the crest of the slope
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: above him. He saw Edy, after a moment, jump from
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the cutter and go toward the girl with the reins
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: over one arm the other. He tried to slip through hers,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: but she eluded him nimbly, and Frome's heart, which had
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: swung out over a black void, trembled back to safety.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: A moment later, he heard the jingle of departing sleigh
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: expanse of snow before the church in the black shade
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: of the varnum spruces. He caught up with her, and
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: she turned back with a quick Oh think I'd forgotten you, Matt,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: He asked with sheepish glee. She answered seriously, I thought
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: maybe you couldn't come back for me. Couldn't What on
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: earth could stop me? I knew Zena wasn't feeling any
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: too good to day. Oh, she's in bed long ago.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: He paused, a question struggling in him. Then you meant
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: to walk home all alone? Oh? I ain't afraid, she laughed.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: They stood together in the gloom of the spruces, an
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: empty world glimmering about them, wide and gray under the stars.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: He brought his question out, If you thought I hadn't come,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: why didn't you ride back with Denis Edy? Why where
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: were you? How did you know I never saw you?
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: Her wonder and his laughter ran together like spring rills
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: in a thaw. Ethan had the sense of having done
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: something arch and ingenius. To prolong the effect, he groped
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: for a dazzling phrase, and brought out, in a growl
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: of rapture, Come along. He slipped an arm through hers,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: as Edie had done, and fancied. It was faintly pressed
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: against her side, but neither of them moved. It was
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: so dark under the spruces that he could barely see
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the shape of her head beside his shoulder. He longed
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to stoop his cheek and rub it against her scar ar.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: He would have liked to stand there with her all
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: night in the blackness. She moved forward a step or two,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: and then paused again. Above the dip of the Corbury Road.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: Its icy slope, scored by innumerable runners, looked like a
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: mirror scratched by travelers at an inn. There was a
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: whole lot of them coasting before the moon set? She said,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: would you like to come in and coast with them
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: some night? He asked, Oh, would you, Ethan? It would
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: be lovely. We'll come tomorrow if there's a moon, she lingered,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: pressing closer to his side. Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: came just as near running to the big elm at
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the bottom. We were all sure they were killed. Her
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: shiver ran down his arm. Wouldn't it have been too awful?
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: They're so happy? Oh, Ned ain't much at steering. I
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: guess I can take you down, all right, he said disdainfully.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: He was aware that he was talking big like Deniside,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: but his reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: inflection with which she had said of the engaged couple
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: there so happy, made the words sound as if she
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: had been thinking of herself and him. The elm is dangerous,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: though it ought to be cut down, she insisted, Would
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you be afraid of it with me. I told you
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I ate the kind to be afraid. She tossed back,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: almost indifferently, and suddenly she began to walk on with
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a rapid step. These alterations of mood were the despair
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: and joy of Ethan Frome. The motions of her mind
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: were as incalculable as the flit of a bird in
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the branches. The fact that he had no right to
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: show his feelings and thus provoke the expression of hers,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: made him attach a fantastic importance to every change in
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: her look and tone. Now he thought she understood him,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: and feared. Now he was sure she did not, and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: despaired to night. The pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: scale drooping towards despair, and her indifference was the more
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: chilling after the flush of joy into which she had
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: plunged him by dismissing den as edy. He mounted Schoolhouse
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Hill at her side and walked on in silence till
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: they reached the lane leading to the saw mill. Then
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: the need of some definite assurance grew too strong for him.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: You'd have found me right off if he hadn't gone
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: back to have that last reel with Denis. He brought
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: out awkwardly, he could not pronounce the name without a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: stiffening of the muscles of his throat. Why Ethan, how
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: could I tell you were there? I suppose what folks
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: say is true, he jerked out at her. Instead of answering.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: She stopped short, and he felt, in the darkness that
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: her face was lifted quickly to his. Why what do
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: folks say it's natural enough you should be leaving us,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: He floundered on, following his thought. Is that what they say?
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: She mocked back at him. Then, with a sudden drop
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: of her sweet trouble, you mean that Zena ain't suited
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: with me any more? She faltered. Their arms had slipped apart,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and they stood motionless, each seeking to distinguish the other's face.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I know I ain't anything like as smart as I
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: ought to be, she went on, while he vainly struggled
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: for expression. There's lots of things a hired girl could
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: do that come awkward to me still, and I haven't
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: got much strength in my arms. But if she'd only
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: tell me, i'd try. You know, she hardly ever says anything,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I can see she ain't suited. And yet
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I don't know why she turned on him with a
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: sudden flash of indignation. You'd ought to tell me, Ethan Frome.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: You'd ought to unless you want me to go too,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Unless he wanted her to go too. The cry was
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: balm to his raw wound. The iron heavens seemed to
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: melt and rain down sweetness. Again he struggled for the
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: all expressive word, and again his arm in hers found
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: only a deep Come along. They walked on in silence
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: through the blackness of the hemlock shaded lawn, where Ethan's
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: sawmill gloomed through the night, and out again into the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: comparative clearness of the fields. On the farther side of
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the hemlock belt. The open country ro away before them,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: gray and lonely under the stars. Sometimes their way led
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: them under the shade of an overhanging bank, or through
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: the thin obscurity of a clump of leafless trees. Here
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: and there a farmhouse stood far back among the fields,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: mute and cold as a gravestone. The night was so
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: still that they heard the frozen snow crackle under their feet.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: The crash of a loaded branch falling far off in
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: the woods reverberated like a musket shot, and once a
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: fox barked, and Mattie shrank closer to Ethan and quickened
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: her steps. At length, they sighted the group of larches
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: at Ethan's gate, and as they drew nearer it, the
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: sense that the walk was over brought back his words,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Then you don't want to leave us, matt He had
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: to stoop his head to catch her stifled whisper, Where'd
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I go? If I did? The answer sent a pang
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: through him, but the tones suffused him with joy. He
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: forgot what else he had meant to say, and pressed
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: her against him so closely that he seemed to feel
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: her warmth in his bay. You ain't crying, are you,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: matt No, of course I'm not, she quavered. They turned
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll, where,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: enclosed in a low fence, the frome grave stones slanted
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: at crazy angles through the snow. Ethan looked at them curiously.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: desire for change and freedom. We never got away, how
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: should you? Seemed to be written on every headstone, And
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: whenever he went in or out of his gait, he
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: thought with a shiver. I shall just go on living
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: here till I join them. But now all desire for
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: change had vanished, and the sight of the little enclosure
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: gave him a warm sense of continuous and stability. I
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: guess we'll never let you go, Matt, he whispered, as
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: though even the dead lovers once must conspire with him
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: to keep her. And brushing by the graves, he thought,
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: we'll always go on living here together, and some day
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: she'll lie there beside me. He let the vision possess
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: him as they climbed the hill to the house. He
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: was never so happy with her as when he abandoned
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: himself to these streams. Half Way up the slope, Matty
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: stumbled against some unseen obstruction and clutched his sleeve to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: steady herself. The wave of warmth that went through him
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: was like the prolongation of his vision. For the first time,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: he stole his arm about her, and she did not resist.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: They walked on as if they were floating on a
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: summer stream. Zena always went to bed as soon as
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: she had had her supper, and the shutterless windows of
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: the house were dark. A dead cucumber vine dangled from
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: for a death, and the thought flashed through Ethan's brain
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: if it was there for Zena. Then he had a
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: her mouth slightly open, her false teeth, and a tumbler
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: by the bed. They walked around to the back of
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: the house between the rigid gooseberry bushes. It was Zena's
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: habit when they came back late from the village to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: leave the key of the kitchen door under the mat.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Ethan stood before the door, his head heavy with dreams,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: his arms still about Mattie matt He began, not knowing
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: what he meant to say. She slipped out of his
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: hold without speaking, and he stooped down and felt for
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: the key. It's not there, he said, straightening himself with
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: a start. They strained their eyes at each other through
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the icy darkness. Such a thing had never happened before.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe she's forgotten it, Mattie said, in a tremulous whisper.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: But both of them knew that it was not like
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Zena to forget it. Might have fallen off into the snow.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Mattie continued, after a pause during which they had stood
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: intently listening. It must have been pushed off. Then he
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: rejoined in the same tone. Another wild thought tore through him.
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: What if tramps had been there? What if? Again? He
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: listened fancying, he heard a distant sound in the house.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Then he felt in his pocket for a match, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: kneeling down past its light, slowly over the rough edges
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of snow about the door step. He was still kneeling
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: when his eyes, on a level with the lower panel
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: of the door, caught a faint ray beneath it. Who
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: could be stirring in that silent house? He heard a
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: step on the stairs, and again, for an instant the
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: thought of tramps tore through him. Then the door opened
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: and he saw his wife against the dark background of
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. She stood up, tall and angular, one hand
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast, while the
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: other held a lamp. The light on a level with
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: her chin, drew out of the darkness, her puckered throat,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: and the projecting wrist of the hand that clutched the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: quilt and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: high boned face under its ring of crimping pins to Ethan,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: still in the rosy haze of his hour with Mattie.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: The sight came with the intense precision of the last
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: dream before waking. He felt as if he had never
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: before known what his wife looked like. She drew aside
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: without speaking, and Mattie and Ethan passed into the kitchen,
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: which had the deadly chill of a vault after the
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: dry cold of the night. Guess you forgot about us, Sina,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: Ethan joked, stamping the snow from his boots. No, I
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: just felt so mean, I couldn't sleep. Mattie came forward,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: unwinding her wraps, the color of the cherry scarf, and
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: her fresh lips and cheeks. I'm so sorry, Zena. Isn't
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: there anything I can do? No, there's nothing. Zena turned
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: away from her. You might have shook off that snow outside,
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: she said to her husband. She walked out of the
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: kitchen ahead of them, and, pausing in the hall, raised
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the lamp at arm's length as if to light them
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: up the stairs. Ethan paused, also affecting to fumble for
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: the peg on which he hung his coat and cap.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other across
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: the narrow upper landing and to night. It was peculiarly
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: repugnant to him that Mattie should see him follow Zena.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: I guess I won't come up yet, awhile, he said,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: turning as if to go back to the kitchen. Zena
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: stopped short and looked at him. For the land's sake,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: what you got to do down here? I've got the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: mill accounts to go over. She continued to stare at him,
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: the flame of the unshaded lamp, bringing out, with microscopic cruelty,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: the fretful lines of her face. At this time of night,
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: you'll catch your death. The fire's out long ago. Without answering,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: he moved away toward the kitchen. As he did so,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: his glance crossed Mattie's, and he fancied that a fugitive
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: warning gleamed through her lashes. The next moment they sank
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to her flushed cheeks, and she began to mount the
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: stairs ahead of Zena. That's so, it is powerful cold
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: down here, Ethan assented, and with lowered head, he went
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: up in his wife's wake and followed her across the
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: threshold of their room. End of Chapter two, Chapter three
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: There was some hauling to be done at the lower
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: end of the woodlock, and Ethan was out early the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: next day. The winter morning was as clear as crystal.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: The sunrise burned red in a pure sky. The shadows
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: on the rim of the wood lot were darkly blue,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: and beyond the white and scintillating fields, patches of far
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: off forest hung like smoke. It was in the early
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging to their familiar task,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: and his lungs expanding with long drafts of mountain air,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that Ethan did his clearest thinking. He and Zena had
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: not exchanged a word after the door of their room
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: had closed on them. She had measured out some drops
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: from a medicine bottle on a chair by the bed, and,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: after swallowing them and wrapping her head in a piece
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: of yellow flannel, had lain down with her face turned away.
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Ethan undressed hurriedly and blew out the light so that
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: he should not see her when he took his place
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: at her side. As he lay there, he could hear
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Mattie moving about in her room, and her candle sending
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: its small ray across The landing drew a scarcely perceptible
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: line of light under his door. He kept his eyes
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: fixed on the light till it vanished. Then the room
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: grew perfectly black, and not a sound was audible but
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Zena's asthmatic breathing. Ethan felt confusedly that there were many
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: things he ought to think about, But through his tingling
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: veins and tired brain, only one sensation throbbed, the warmth
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: of Mattie's shoulder against his Why had he not kissed
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: her when he held her there a few hours earlier?
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: He would not have asked himself the question. Even a
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: few minutes earlier, when they had stood alone outside the house,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: he would not have dared to think of kissing her.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: But since he had seen her lips in the lamp light,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: he felt that they were his. Now, in the bright
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: morning air, her face was still before him. It was
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: part of the sun's red and of the pure glitter
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: on the snow. How the girl had changed since she
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: had come to Starkfield. He remembered what a colorless slip
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: of a thing she had looked the day he had
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: met her at the station, and all the first winter,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: how she had shivered with cold when the northerly gales
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: shook the thin clapboards, and the snow beat like hail
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: against the loose hung windows. He had been afraid that
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: she would hate the hard life, the cold, and loneliness,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: but not a sign of discontent escaped her. Zena took
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the view that Mattie was bound to make the best
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: of Starkfield, since she hadn't any other place to go to.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: But this did not strike even as conclusive. Zena, at
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: any rate, did not apply the principle in her own case.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: He felt all the more sorry for the girl because
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: misfortune had, in a sense indentured her to them. Mattie
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Silver was the daughter of a cousin of Zenobia Frome's,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: who had inflamed his clan with mingled sentiments of envy
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: and admiration by descending from the Hills to Connecticut, where
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to her
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: father's thriving drug business. Unhappily or in, Silver, a man
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: of far reaching aims, had died too soon to prove
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that the end justifies the means. His accounts revealed merely
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: what the means had been, and these were such that
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: it was fortunate for his wife and daughter that his
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: books were examined. Only after his impressive funeral, His wife
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: died of the disclosure, and Mattie, at twenty, was left
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: alone to make her way on the fifty dollars obtained
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: from the sale of her piano. For this purpose. Her equipment,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: though varied, was inadequate. She could trim a hat, make
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: molasses candy, recite curfew shall not Ring Tonight, and play
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: the Lost Chord and a pote perris from Carmen. When
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: she tried to extend the field of her activities in
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the direction of stenography and bookkeeping, her health broke down,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: and six months on her feet behind the counter of
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: a department store, did not tend to restore it. Her
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: nearest relations had been induced to place their savings in
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: her father's hands, and though after his death they ungrudgingly
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: acquitted themselves of the Christian duty of returning good for
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: evil by giving his daughter all the advice at their disposal,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: they could hardly be expected to supplement it by material aid.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: But when Zenobia's doctor recommended her life looking about for
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: some one to help her with the housework, the clan
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: instantly saw the chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie. Zenobia,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: though doubtful of the girl's efficiency, was tempted by the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: freedom to find fault without much risk of losing her,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and so Mattie came to Starkfield. Zenobia's fault finding was
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: of the silent kind, but not the less penetrating. For
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: that during the first months, Ethan alternately burned with the
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: desire to see Mattie defy her and trembled with fear
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: of the result. Then the situation grew less strained. The
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: pure air and the long summer hours in the open
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: gave back life and elasticity to Mattie, and Zena, with
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew less
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: watchful of the girl's omissions, so that Ethan, struggling on
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: under the burden of his barren farm and failing sawmill,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: could at least imagine that peace reigned in his house.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: There was really, even now no tangible evidence to the contrary,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: But since the previous night of vain, big dread had
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: hung on his skyline, it was formed of Zena's obstinate silence,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: of Mattie's sudden look of warning, of the memory of
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: just such fleeting and perceptible signs, as those which told
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: him on certain stainless mornings that before night there would
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: be rain. His dread was so strong that man like
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: he sought to postpone certainty. The hauling was not over
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: till midday, and as the lumber was to be delivered
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: to the farm on foot and drive the load down
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: to the village himself. He had scrambled up on the
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: logs and was sitting astride of them, close over his
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: shaggy grays. When coming between him and their streaming necks,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: he had a vision of the warning look that Mattie
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: had given him the night before. If there's going to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: be any trouble, I want to be there, was his
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: vague reflection, and he threw to Jotham the unexpected order
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: to unhitch the team and lead them back to the barn.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields,
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: and when the two men entered the kitchen, Mattie was
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: lifting the coffee from the stove, and Zena was already
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: at the table. Her husband stopped short at sight of her.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl, she
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: wore her best dress of brown merino, and above her
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: thin strands of hair, which still preserved the tight undulations
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of the crimping pins, rose a hard perpendicular bonnet, as
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he had to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: pay five dollars for it. At the Bettsbridge emporium. On
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: the floor beside her stood his old valise and a
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: bandbox wrapped in newspapers. Why where are you going, Zena,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: he exclaimed. I've got my shooting pain so bad that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: I'm going over to Bettsbridge to spend the night with
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: Aunt Martha Pears and see that new doctor. She answered,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: in a matter of fact tone, as if she had
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: said she was going into the store room to take
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: a look at the preserves, or up to the attic
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: to go over the blankets. In spite of her sedentary habits,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: such abrupt decisions were not without precedent in Zena's history.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: Twice or thrice before she had suddenly packed Ethan's valise
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: and started off to Bettsbridge or even Springfield to seek
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the advice of some new doctor. And her husband had
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost. Zena
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: always came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: visit to Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: dollars for an electric battery of which she had never
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: been able to learn the use. But for the moment,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: his sense of relief was so great as to preclude
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: all other feelings. He had now no doubt that Zena
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: had spoken the truth in saying the night before that
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: she had sat up because she felt too mean to sleep.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: she was wholly absorbed in her health. As if expecting
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: a protest, she continued plaintively, if you are too busy
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: with the hauling, I presume you can let Jotham Powell
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: drive me over with the soirel in time to catch
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: the train at the flats. Her husband hardly heard what
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: she was saying. During the winter months, there was no
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and the trains which stopped
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: at Corberry Flats were slow and infrequent. A rapid calculation
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: showed Ethan that Zena could not be back at the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: farm before the following evening. If I'd supposed you'd a
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: made any objection to Jotham Powell's driving me over, she
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: began again, as though his silence had implied refusal. On
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the brink of departure, she was always seized with a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: flocks of words. All I know is, she continued, I
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: can't go on the way I am much longer. The
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: i'd a walked into Stockfield on my own feet sooner
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: and put you out and asked Michael Edy to let
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: me ride over on his wagon to the flats when
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: he sends to meet the train that brings his groceries.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: I'd had two hours to wait in the station, but
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: I'd sooner a done it, even with this cold, than
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: to have you say, of course, Jotham will drive you over.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: Ethan roused himself to answer. He became suddenly conscious that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: he was looking at Mattie while Zina talked to him,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: and with an effort, he turned his eyes to his wife.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: She sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: from the banks of snow made her face look more
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: than usually drawn and bloodless. Sharpened the three parallel creases
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: between ear and cheek, and drew querulous lines from her
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: thin nose to the corners of her mouth. Though she
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: was but seven years her husband's senior and he was
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: only twenty eight, she was already an old woman. Ethan
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: only one thought in his mind, the fact that, for
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: the first time since Mattie had come to live with them,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: Zena was to be away for a night. He wondered
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: if the girl were thinking of it too. He knew
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: that Zena must be wondering why he did not offer
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: to drive her to the flats and let Jotham Powell
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: take the lumber to Starkfield, and at first he could
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: not think of a pretext for not doing so. Then
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: he said, I'd take you over myself, only I've got
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: to collect the cash for the lumber. As soon as
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: the words were spoken, he regretted them, not only because
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: they were untrue, there being no prospect of his receiving
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: cash payment from Hale, but also because he knew from
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: experience the imprudence of letting Zena think he was in funds.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: On the eve of one of her therapeutic excursions. At
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: the moment, however, his one desire was to avoid the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: long drive with her behind the ancient sorrel who never
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: went out of a walk. Zena made no reply. She
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: did not seem to hear what he had said. She
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: had already pushed her plate aside and was measuring out
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: a draft from a large bottle at her elbow. It
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: ain't done me a speck a good, but I guess
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I might as well use it up, she remarked, adding
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: as she pushed the empty bottle towards Mattie, if you
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: can get the taste out, it'll do for pickles. End
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: of chapter three, Chapter four. As soon as his wife
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: had driven off, Ethan took his coat and cap from
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: the peg. Mattie was washing up the dishes, humming one
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: of the dance tunes of the night before. He said,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: so long, matt and she answered gaily, so long, Ethan,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: And that was all. It was warm and bright in
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. The sun slanted through the south window, on
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: and on the geraniums brought in from the doorway where
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: Ethan had planted them in the summer to make a
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: garden for Mattie. He would have liked to linger on
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: but he wanted still more to get the hauling done
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and be back at the farm before night. All the
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: way down to the village, he continued to think of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: his return to Mattie. The kitchen was a poor place,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: not spruce and shining as his mother had kept it
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: in his boyhood, but it was surprising what a homelike
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: look the mere fact of Zena's absence gave it, and
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: he pictured what it would be like that evening when
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: he and Mattie were there after supper for the first time.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: They would be alone together indoors, and they would sit there,
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: one on each side of the stove, like a married couple,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: he and his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: was always as new to him as if he had
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: never heard her before. The sweetness of the picture and
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: the relief of knowing that his fears of trouble with
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Zena were unfounded sent up his spirits with a rush,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: and he who was usually so silent, whistled and sang
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: aloud as he drove through the snowy fields. There was
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: in him a slumbering spark of sociability which the long
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Starkfield winters had not yet extinguished. By nature. Grave and inarticulate,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: he admired recklessness and gaiety in others, and was warmed
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: to the marrow by friendly human intercourse. At Worcester, though
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: he had the name of keeping to himself and not
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: being much of a hand at a good time, he
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: had secretly gloried in being clapped on the back and
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: hailed as old beef or old stiff, and the cessation
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: to Starkfield. There the silence had deepened about him year
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: by year. Left alone after his father's accident to carry
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: the burden of farm and mill, he had had no
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: time for convivial loiterings in the village, and when his
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: mother fell ill, the loneliness of the house grew more
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: oppressive than that of the fields. His mother had been
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: a talker in her day, but after her trouble the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: sound of her voice was seldom heard, though she had
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: not lost the power of speech. Sometimes in the long
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: winter evenings, when in desperation her son asked her why
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: she didn't say something, she would lift a finger and answer,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: because I'm listening. And on stormy nights, when the loud
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: wind was about the house, she would complain if he
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: spoke to her there, talking so out there that I
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: can't hear you. It was only when she drew toward
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: her last illness and his cousins in obe A Pierce
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: came over from the next village to help him nurse her,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: that human speech was heard again in the house after
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: the mortal silence of his long imprisonment. Zena's volubility was
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: music in his ears. He felt that he might have
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: gone like his mother if the sound of a new
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: voice had not come to steady him. Zena seemed to
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: understand his case at a glance. She laughed at him
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: for not knowing the simplest sick bed duties, and told
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: him to go right along out and leave her to
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: see to things. The mere fact of obeying her orders,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: of feeling free to go about his business again and
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: talk with other men, restored his shaken balance and magnified
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: his sense of what he owed her. Her efficiency shamed
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and dazzled him. She seemed to possess by instinct all
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: the household wisdom that his long apprenticeship had not instilled
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: in him. When the end came, it was she who
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: had to tell him to hitch up and go for
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: the undertaker. And she thought it funny that he had
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: not settled beforehand who was to have his mother's clothes
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and the sewing machine after the funeral. When he saw
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: her preparing to go away, he was seized with an
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: unreasoning dread of being left alone on the farm, and
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: before he knew what he was doing, he had asked
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: her to stay there with him. He had often thought
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: since that it would not have happened if his mother
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: had died in spring instead of winter. When they married,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: it was agreed that as soon as he could straightened
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: out the difficulties resulting from Missus Frome's long illness, they
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: would sell the farm and saw mill and try their
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: luck in a large town. Ethan's love of nature did
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: not take the form of a taste for agriculture. He
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: had always wanted to be an engineer and to live
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: in towns where there were lectures and big libraries and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: fellows doing things a slight engineering job in Florida put
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: in his way during his period of study at Worcester
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: increased his faith in his ability, as well as his
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: eagerness to see the world, and he felt sure that
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: with a smart wife like Zena, it would not be
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: long before he had made himself a place in it.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Zena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: railway than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: from the first that life on an isolated farm was
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: not what she had expected when she married. But purchasers
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: were slow in coming, and while he waited for them,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: Ethan learned the impossibility of transplanting her. She chose to
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: look down on Starkfield, but she could not have lived
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: in a place which looked down on her. Even Bettsbridge
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: or Shadd's Falls would not have been sufficiently aware of her,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: and in the greater cities which attracted Ethan, she would
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: have suffered a complete loss of identity, and within a
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: year of their marriage she developed the sickliness which had
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: since made her notable even in a community rich in
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: pathological instances. When she came to take care of his mother,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: she had seemed to Ethan like the very genius of health.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: But he soon saw that her skill as a nurse
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: had been acquired by the absorbed observation of her own symptoms.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Then she too fell silent. Perhaps it was the inevitable
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: effect of life on the farm, or perhaps, as she
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: sometimes said, it was because Ethan never listened. The charge
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: was not wholly unfounded. When she spoke, it was only
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: to complain, and to complain of things not in his
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: power to remedy, and to check a tendency to impatient retort.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: He had first formed the habit of not answering her,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: and finally of thinking of other things while she talked.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: Of late, however, since he had reasons for observing her
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: more closely, her silence had begun to trouble him. He
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: recalled his mother's growing taciturnity, and wonder if Zena were
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: also turning queer women. Did he knew Zena, who had
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: at her finger's end the pathological chart of the whole region,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: had cited many cases of the kind while she was
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: nursing his mother, and he himself knew of certain lonely
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: farm houses in the neighborhood where stricken creatures pined, and
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: At times, looking at Zena's shut face, he felt the
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: chill of such forebodings. At other times, her silence seemed
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: deliberately assumed to conceal far reaching intentions, mysterious conclusions drawn
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: from suspicions and resentments impossible to guess. That supposition was
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: even more disturbing than the other, and it was the
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: one which had come to him the night before, when
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: he had seen her standing in the kitchen door. Now
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: her departure for Bettsbridge had once more eased his mind,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and all his thoughts were on the prospect of his
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: evening with Mattie. Only one thing weighed on him, and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: that was his having told Zena that he was to
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: receive cash for the lumber. He foresaw so clearly the
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: consequences of this imprudence that, with considerable reluctance, he decided
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: to ask Andrew Hale for a small advance on his load.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: When Ethan drove into Hale's yard, the builder was just
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: getting out of his sleigh. Hello, ethe, He said, this
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: comes handy. Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: big gray mustache and a stubbly double chin, unconstrained by
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: a collar, but his scrupulously clean shirt was always fastened
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: by a small diamond stud. This display of opulence was misleading,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: for though he did a fairly good business, it was
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: known that his easy going habits and the demands of
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: his large family frequently kept him what Starkfield called behind.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: He was an old friend of Ethan's family, and his
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: house one of the few to which Zena occasionally went
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: drawn there by the fact that missus Hale, in her youth,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: had done more doctoring than any other woman in Starkfield,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: and was still a recognized authority on symptoms and treatment.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Hale went up to the graze and patted their sweating flanks. Well, sir,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: he said, you keep them too, as if they was pets.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Ethan set about unloading the logs, and when he had
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: finished his job, he pushed open the glazed door of
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: the shed which the builder used as his office. Hale
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: sat with his feet up on the stove, his back
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: propped against a battered desk strewn with papers. The place,
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: like the man, was warm, genial and untidy. Sit right
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: down and thaw out. He greeted Ethan. The latter did
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: not know how to begin, but at length he managed
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to bring out his request for an advance of fifty dollars.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: The blood rushed to his thin skin under the sting
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: of Hale's astonishment. It was the builder's custom to pay
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: at the end of three months, and there was no
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: precedent between the two men for a cash settlement. Ethan
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need, Hale
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: might have made shift to pay him, but pride and
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: an instinctive prudence kept him from resorting to this argument.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: After his father's death, it had taken in time to
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: get his head above water, and he did not want
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Andrew Hale or any one else in Starkfield to think
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: he was going under again. Besides, he hated lying, and
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: if he wanted the money, he wanted it, and it
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: was nobody's business to ask why. He therefore made his
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: demand with the awkwardness of a proud man who will
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: not admit to himself that he is stooping, and he
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: was not much surprised at Hale's refusal. The builder refused genially.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: As he did everything else. He treated the matter as
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: something in the nature of a practical joke. And wanted
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: to know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: adding a cupelo to his house, offering, in the latter case,
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: to give his services free of cost. Ethan's arts were
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: soon exhausted, and after an embarrassed pause, he wished Hale
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: good day and opened the door of the office. As
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: he passed out, the builder suddenly called after him. See here,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: you ain't in a tight place, are you not a bit?
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: Ethan's pride retorted, before his reason had time to intervene. Well,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: that's good, because I am a shade. Fact is I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: was going to ask you to give me a little
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: extra time on that payment. Business is pretty slack to
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: begin with. And then I'm fixing up a little house
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: for Ned and Ruth when they're married. I'm glad to
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: do it for them, but it costs. His look appealed
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: to Ethan for sympathy. The young people like things nice.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: You know how it is yourself. It's not so long
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: ago since you fixed up your own place for Zena.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Ethan left the grays in Hale's stable and went about
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: some other business in the village. As he walked away,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: the builder's last phrase lingered in his ears, and he
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: reflected grimly that his seven years with Zena seemed to
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: starkfield not so long. The afternoon was drawing to an end,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: and here and there a lighted pain spangled the cold
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: gray dusk and made the snow look whiter. The bitter
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: weather had driven every one indoors, and Ethan had the
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: long rural street to himself. Suddenly he heard the brisk
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: play of sleigh bells, and a cutter past him, drawn
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: by a free going horse. Ethan recognized Michael Edy's roan colt,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: and young Denis Edy, in a handsome new fur cap,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: leaned forward and waved a greeting Hello Eithe. He shouted
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: and spun on. The cutter was going in the direction
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: of the Frome farm, and Ethan's heart contracted as he
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: listened to the dwindling bells. What more likely than that
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: Denis Edy had heard of Zena's departure for Bettsbridge and
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: was profiting by the opportunity to spend an hour with Mattie.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: Ethan was ashamed of the storm of jealousy in his breast.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: It seemed unworthy of the girl that his thoughts of
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: her should be so violent. He walked on to the
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: church corner and entered the shade of the Varnum spruces,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: where he had stood with her the night before. As
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: he passed into their gloom, he saw an indistinct outline
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: just ahead of him. At his approach, it melted for
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: an instant into two separate shapes, and then conjoined again,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: and he heard a kiss and a half laughing oh
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: provoked by the discovery of his presence. Again, the outline
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: hastily disunited, and the Varnum gate slammed on one half
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: while the other hurried on ahead of him. Ethan smiled
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: the discomfiture he had caused. What did it matter to
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum if they were caught kissing
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: each other? Everybody in Starkfield knew they were engaged. It
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: pleased Ethan to have surprised a pair of lovers on
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: the spot where he and Mattie had stood with such
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: a thirst for each other in their hearts, But he
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: felt a pang at the thought that these two need
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: not hide their happiness. He fetched the grays from Hale's
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: stable and started on his long climb back to the farm.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: The cold was less sharp than earlier, in the day,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: and a thick, fleecy sky threatened snow for the morrow.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: Here and there a star prickled through, showing behind it
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: a deep well of blue. In an hour or two,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: the moon would push over the ridge behind the farm,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: burn a gold edged rent in the clouds, and then
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: be swallowed by them. A mournful peace hung on the fields,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: as though they felt the relaxing grasp of the cold,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: and stretched themselves in their long winter sleep. Ethan's ears
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: were alert for the jingle of sleigh bells, but not
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: a sound broke the silence of the lonely road. As
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: he drew near the farm, he saw through the thin
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: screen of larches at the gate a light twinkling in
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the house above him. She's up in her room, he
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: said to himself, fixing herself up for supper. And he
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: remembered Zena's sarcastic stare when Mattie, on the evening of
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: her arrival, had come down to supper with smoothed hair
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: and a ribbon at her neck. He passed by the
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: graves on the knoll and turn his head to glance
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: at one of the older headstones, which had interested him
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: deeply as a boy. Because it bore his name sacred
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: to the memory of Ethan Frome and Endurance, his wife,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: who dwelled together in peace for fifty years. He used
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: to think that fifty years sounded like a long time
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: to live together, but now it seemed to him that
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: they might pass in a flash. Then, with a sudden
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: dart of irony, he wondered if when their turn came,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: the same epitaph would be written over him and Zena.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: He opened the barn door and craned his head into
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: the obscurity, half fearing to discover Denis Edy's roan colt
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: in the stall beside the sword or. But the old
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with toothless jaws,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the grays
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: and shook an extra measure of oaps into their mangers.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: His was not a tuneful throat, but harsh melodies burst
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: from it as he locked the barn and sprang up
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: the hill to the house. He reached the kitchen porch
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: and turned the door handle, but the door did not
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: yield to his touch. Startled at finding it locked, he
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: rattled the handle violently. Then he reflected that Mattie was alone,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: and that it was natural she should barricade herself. At nightfall,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: he stood in the darkness, expecting to hear her step.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: It did not come, and after vainly straining his ears,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: he called out, in a voice that shook with joy. Hello.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: Matt silence answered, But in a minute or two he
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: caught a sound on the stairs and saw a line
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: of light about the door frame, as he had seen
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: it the night before. So strange was the precision with
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: which the incidents of the previous evening were repeating themselves
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: that he half expected when he heard the key turn,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: to see his wife before him on the threshold. But
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: the door opened and Mattie faced him. She stood just
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: as Zena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: against the black background of the kitchen. She held the
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: light at the same level, and it drew out with
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: the same distinctness, her slim, young throat and the brown
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: wrist no bigger than a child's. Then striking upward, it
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: black curve of her brows. She wore her usual dress
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: of darkish stuff, and there was no bow at her neck,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: but through her hair she had run a streak of
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: crimson ribbon. This tribute to the unusual transformed and glorified her.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: She seemed to even taller, fuller, more womanly in shape
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: and motion. She stood aside, smiling silently while he entered,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and then moved away from him, with something soft and
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: flowing in her gait. She set the lamp on the table,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper,
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries, and his favorite pickles in
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: a dish of gay red glass. A bright fire glowed
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: in the stove, and the cat lay stretched before it,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: watching the table with drowsy eyes. Ethan was suffocated with
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: the sense of well being. He went out into the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: passage to hang up his coat and pull off his
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: wet boots. When he came back, Mattie had set the
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: teapot on the table, and the cat was rubbing itself
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: persuasively against her ankles. My puss, I nearly tripped over you,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: she cried, the laughter sparkling through her lashes. Again, Ethan
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: felt a sudden twinge of jealousy. Could it be his
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: coming that gave her such a kindled face? Well, matt
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: any visitors, he threw off, stooping down carelessly to examine
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: the fastening of the stove. She nodded and laughed, yes, one,
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: And he felt a blackness settling on his brows. Who
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: was that? He questioned, raising himself up to slant a
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: glance at her beneath his scowl. Her eyes danced with malice.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: Why Jotham Powell? He came in after he got back
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and for a drop of coffee before he went down home.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: The blackness lifted in light flooded Ethan's brain. That all well,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I hope you made out to let him have it,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: And after a pause, he felt it right to add
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: I suppose he got Zena over to the flats? All right?
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, in plenty of time. The name threw a
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: chill between them, and they stood a moment looking sideways
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: at each other, before Mattie said, with a shy laugh,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I guess it's about time for supper. They drew their
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: seats up to the table, and the cat, unbidden, jumped
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: between them into Zena's empty chair. Oh, Puss, said Mattie,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: and they laughed again. Ethan, a moment earlier, had felt
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: himself on the brink of eloquence, but the mention of
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: Zena had paralyzed him. Mattie seemed to feel the contagion
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: of his embarrassment and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: tea while he feigned an insatiable appetite for doughnuts and
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: sweet pickles. At last, after casting about for an effective opening,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: he took a long gulp of tea, cleared out throat,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: and said, looks as if there'd be more snow. She
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: feigned great interest. Is that so? Do you suppose it'll
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: interfere with Zena's getting back? She flushed red as the
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: question escaped her, and hastily set down the cup she
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: was lifting. Ethan reached over for another helping of pickles.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: You never can tell this time of year, it drifts
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: so bad on the flats. The name had benumbed him again,
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: and once more he felt as if Zena were in
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: the room between them. Oh, Puss, you're too greedy, Matty cried.
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: Zena's seat to the table and was stealthily elongating its
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: body in the direction of the milk jug, which stood
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: between Ethan and Mattie. The two leaned forward at the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: same moment, and their hands met on the handle of
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: the jug. Mattie's hand was underneath, and Ethan kept his
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: clasped on it a moment longer than was necessary. The cat,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: profiting by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: and in doing so backed into the pickle dish, which
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: fell to the floor with a crash. Mattie, in an instant,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: had sprung from her chair and was down on her
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: knees by the fragments. Oh, Ethan, Ethan, it's all to pieces.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: What will Zina say? But this time his courage was up. Well,
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: she'll have to say it to the cat anyway, He
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: rejoined with a laugh, kneeling down at Mattie's side to
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: scrape up the swimming pickles. She lifted stricken eyes to him. Yes,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: but you see, she never meant it should be used,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: not even when there was company, and I had to
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: get up on the step ladder to reach it down
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: from the top shelf of the china closet where she
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: keeps it. With all her best things, And of course
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: she'll want to know why I did it. The case
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: latent resolution. She needn't know anything about it. If you
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: keep quiet, I'll get another just like it tomorrow. Where
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: did it come from? I'll go to Shed's Falls for
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: it if I have to. Oh, you'll never get another
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: one even there. It was a wedding present, don't you remember?
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: It came all the way from Philadelphia, from Zena's aunt
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: that married the minister. That's why she wouldn't ever use it. Oh, Ethan, Ethan,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: what in the world shall I do? She began to cry,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: and he felt as if every one of her tears
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: were poring over him like burning lead. Don't, Matt, don't, oh, don't,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: he implored her. She struggled to her feet, and he
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: rose and followed her helplessly. While she spread out the
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: pieces of glass on the kitchen dresser. It seemed to
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: him as if the shattered fragments of their evening lay
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: there here. Give them to me, he said, in a
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: voice of sudden authority. She drew aside, instinctively obeying his tone. Oh, Ethan,
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: what are you going to do. Without replying, he gathered
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: the pieces of glass into his broad palm and walked
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: out of the kitchen to the passage. There he lit
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: a candle end opened the china closet, and, reaching his
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: long arm up to the highest shelf, laid the pieces
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: together with such accuracy of touch that a close inspection
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: convinced him of the empos possibility of detecting from below
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: that the dish was broken. If he glued it together
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: the next morning, months might elapse before his wife noticed
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: what had happened, and meanwhile, he might, after all be
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: able to match the dish at Shad's Falls or in Bettsbridge.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of immediate discovery,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: and found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: from the floor. It's all right, matt come back and
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: finish supper, he commanded her. Completely reassured, she shone on
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: him through tear hung lashes, and his souls swelled with
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: pride as he saw how his tone subdued her. She
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: did not even ask what he had done, except when
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: he was steering a big log down the mountain to
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: his mill. He had never known such a thrilling sense
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: of mastery. End of chapter four, Chapter five. They finished supper,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: and while Mattie cleared the table, Ethan went to look
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: at the cows, and then took a last turn about
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: the house. The earth lay dark on a muffled sky,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: and the air was so still that now and then
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: a tree far off on the edge of the wood lot.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: When he returned to the kitchen, Mattie had pushed up
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: his chair to the stove and seated herself near the
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: lamp with a bit of sewing. The scene was just
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: as he had dreamed of it that morning. He sat down,
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: drew his pipe from his pocket, and stretched his feet
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: to the glow. His hard day's work in the keen
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: and he had a confused sense of being in another
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: world where all was warmth and harmony, and time could
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: bring no change. The only drawback to his complete well
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: being was the fact that he could not see Mattie
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: from where he sat, But he was too indolent to move,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: and after a moment he said, come over here and
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: sit by the stove. Zena's empty rocking chair stood facing him.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: Mattie rose obediently and seated herself in it. As her
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: young brown head detached itself against the patchwork cushion that
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: habitually framed his wife's gaunt countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: It was almost as if the other face, the face
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: of the superseded woman, had obliterated that of the intruder.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: After a moment, Mattie seemed to be affected by the
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: same sense of constraint. She changed her position, leaning forward
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: to bend her head above her work, so that he
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: saw only the foreshortened tip of her nose and the
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: streak of red in her hair. Then she slipped to
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: her feet, saying I can't see to sew, and went
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: back to her chair by the lamp. Ethan made a
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: he returned to his seat, he pushed it sideways that
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: he might get a view of her profile and of
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: the lamp light falling on her hands. The cat, who
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: up into Zena's chair, rolled itself into a ball, and
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: lay watching them with narrowed eyes. Deep quiet sank on
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: the room. The clock ticked above the dresser. A piece
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: of charred wood fell now and then in the stove,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: and the faint, sharp scent of the geraniums mingled with
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: the odor of Ethan's smoke, which became hean to throw
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: grayish cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room. All
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: constraint had vanished between the two, and they began to
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: talk easily and simply. They spoke of every day things,
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: of the prospect of snow, of the next church, sociable,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: of the loves and quarrels of Starkfield. The commonplace nature
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: of what they said produced an ethan an illusion of
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: long established intimacy which no outburst of emotion could have given,
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: And he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: they had always spent their evenings thus and would always
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: go on doing so. This is the night we were
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: to have gone coasting, that he said at length, with
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: the rich sense as he spoke, that they could go
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: on any other night they chose, since they had all
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: the time before them. She smiled back at him. I
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: guess he forgot. No, I didn't forget. But it's as
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: dark as Egypt outdoors. We might go tomorrow if there's
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: a moon, She laughed with pleasure, her head tilted back,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: the lamp light sparkling on her lips and teeth. That
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: would be lovely, Ethan. He kept his eyes fixed on her,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: marveling at the way her face changed with each turn
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: of their talk, like a wheat field under a summer breeze.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: It was intoxicating to find such magic in his clumsy words.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: Had he longed to try new ways of using it.
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: Would you be scared to go down the Corburry Road
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: with me on a night like this? He asked her,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: cheeks burned redder. I ain't any more scared than you are. Well,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: i'd be scared, then I wouldn't do it. That's an
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: ugly corner down by the big elm. If a fellow
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: didn't keep his eyes open, he'd go plumb into it.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority which
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: his words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the feeling, he added,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: I guess we're well enough here. She let her lids
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: sink slowly in the way he loved. Yes, we're well
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: enough here, she sighed. Her tone was so sweet that
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: farther end of the strip of brown stuff that she
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: was hemming. Say, matt he began with a smile. What
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: do you think I saw under the varnum spruces coming
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: along home? Just now I saw a friend of yours
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: getting kissed. The words had been on his tongue all
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: the evening, but now that he had spoken them, they
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: struck him as inexpressively, vulgar and out of place. Mattie
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: needle rapidly twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: the end of it away from him. I suppose it
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: was ruth and ned, she said, in a low voice,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: as though he had suddenly touched on something grave. Ethan
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: had imagined that his allusion might open the way to
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: the accepted pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: harmless caress, if only a mere touch on her hand.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: But now he felt as if her blush had set
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: a flaming guard about her. He supposed it was his
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: natural awkwardness that made him feel so. He knew that
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: most young men made nothing at all of giving a
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: pretty girl a kiss, And he remembered that the night before,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: when he had put his arm about Matil, she had
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: not resisted, But that had been out of doors, under
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: the open, irresponsible night. Now, in the warm, lamp lit room,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: with all its ancient implications of conformity and order, she
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable. To
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: ease his constraint, he said, I suppose they'll be setting
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: a date before long. Yes, I shouldn't wonder if they
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: got married some time along in the summer. She pronounced
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: the word married as if her voice caressed it. It
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: shot through Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: in his chair, it'll be your turn next. I wouldn't wonder,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: she laughed, a little uncertainly. Why do you keep on
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: saying that? He echoed her laugh. I guess I'd do
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: it to get used to the idea. He drew up
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: to the table again, and she sewed on in silence
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: with dropped lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: the way in which her hands went up and down
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: a pair of birds make short, perpendicular flights over a
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: nest they were building at length. Without turning her head
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: or lifting her lids, she said, in a low tone,
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: it's not because you think Zena's got anything against me,
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: is it. His former dread started up full armed at
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: the suggestion. Why what do you mean, he stammered. She
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: raised distressed eyes to his, her work dropping on the
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: table between them. I don't know, I thought last night
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: she seemed to have. I'd like to know what, he growled.
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: Nobody can tell. With Cina. It was the first time
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: they had ever spoken so openly of her attitude toward Mattie,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: and the repetition of the name seemed to carry it
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: to the farthest corners of the room and send it
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: back to them in long, weepercussions of sound. Mattie waited
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: as if to give the echo time to drop, and
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: then went on, she hasn't said anything to you. He
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: shook his head. No, not a word. She tossed the
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: hair back from her forehead with a laugh. I guess
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: I'm just nervous. Then I'm not going to think about
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: it any more. Oh no, don't, let's think about it.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: Mat The sudden heat of his tone made her color
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: mount again, not with a rush, but gradually, delicately, like
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: the reflection of a thought stealing slowly across her heart.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: She sat silent, her hands clasped on her work, and
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: it seemed to him that a warm current flowed toward
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: him on the strip of stuff that still lay unrolled
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: between them. Cautiously, he slid his hand palm downward along
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: the table till his finger tips touched the end of
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: the stuff. A faint vibration of her lashes seemed to
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: show that she was aware of his gesture and that
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: it had sent a counter current back to her, and
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: she let her hands lie motionless on the other end
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: of the strip as they sat. Thus, he heard a
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: sound behind him and turned his head. The cat had
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: jumped from Zena's chair to dart at a mouse in
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: the wainscot, and as a result of the sudden movement,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: the empty chair had set up a spectral rocking. She'll
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: be rocking in it herself this time to morrow. Ethan thought,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I've been in a dream, and this is the only
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: evening we'll ever have together. The return to reality was
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: as painful as the return to consciousness after taking an anesthetic.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: His body and brain ached with indescribable weariness, and he
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: could think of nothing to say or to do that
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: should arrest the mad flight of the moments. His alteration
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: of mood seemed to have communicated itself to Mattie. She
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: looked up at him languidly, as though her lids were
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: waited with sleep and had cost her an effort to
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: raise them. Her glance fell on his hand, which now
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 1: completely covered the end of her work, and grasped it
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: as if it were a part of herself. He saw
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: a scarcely perceptible tremor cross her face, and without knowing
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: what he did, he stooped his head and kissed the
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: bit of stuff in his hold. As his lips rested
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: on it, he felt it glide slowly from beneath them,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: and saw that Mattie had risen and was silently rolling
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: up her work. She fastened it with a pin, and
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: then finding her thimble and scissors, put them, with a
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: roll of stuff into the box covered with fancy paper,
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: which he had once brought to her from Bettsbridge. He
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: stood up, also looking vaguely about the room. The clock
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: above the dressers struck eleven. Is the fire all right,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: she asked in a low voice. He opened the door
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: of the stove and poked aimlessly at the embers. When
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: he raised himself again, he saw that she was dragging
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: toward the stove the old soap box lined with carpet,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: in which the cat made its bed. Then she recrossed
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: the floor and lifted two of the geranium pots in
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: her arms, moving them away from the cold window. He
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: followed her and brought the other geraniums, the hyacinth bulbs
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: in a cracked custard bowl, and the German ivy trailed
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: over an old croquet hoop. When these nightly duties were performed,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: there was nothing left to do but to bring in
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: the tin candlestick from the passage, light the candle and
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: blow out the lamp. Ethan put the candlestick in Mattie's hand,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: and she went out of the kitchen ahead of him.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: The light that she carried before her, making her dark
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: hair look like a drift of mist on the moon.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: Good night, matt he said, as she put her foot
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: on the first step of the stairs. She turned and
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: looked at him a moment. Good night, Ethan, she answered,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: and went up. When the door of her room had
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: closed on her, he remembered that he had not even
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: touched her hand. End of Chapter five, Chapter six. The
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: next morning, at breakfast, Jothin Powell was between them, and
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: Ethan tried to hide his joy under an air of
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: exaggerated indifference, lounging back in his chair to throw scraps
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: to the cat, growling at the weather, and not so
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: clear away the dishes. He did not know why he
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: was so irrationally happy, for nothing was changed in his
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: life for hers. He had not even touched the tip
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: of her fingers or looked her full in the eyes.
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: But their evening together had given him a vision of
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: what life at her side might be, and he was
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: glad now that he had done nothing to trouble the
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: sweetness of the picture. He had a fancy that she
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: knew what had restrained him. There was a last load
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: of lumber to be hauled to the village, and Jotham Powell,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter, had
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: come round to help with the job. But a wet
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: snow melting to sleet had fallen in the night and
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: turned the roads to glass. There was more wet in
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: the air, and it seemed likely to both men that
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: the weather would milden toward afternoon, and to make the
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: going safer. Ethan therefore proposed to his assistant that they
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: should load the sledge at the wood lot as they
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: had done on the previous morning, and put off the
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: teeming to Starkfield till later in the day. This plan
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: had the advantage of enabling him to send Jotham to
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: the flats after dinner to meet Sinobia, while he himself
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: took the lumber down to the village. He told Jotham
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: to go out and harness up the grays, and for
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: a moment he and Mattie had the kitchen to themselves.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: She had plunged the breakfast dishes into a tin dish
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: bare to the elbow, the steam from the hot water
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: beating her forehead and tightening her rough hair into little
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: brown rings like the tendrils on the traveler's joy. Ethan
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: stood looking at her, his heart in his throat. He
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: wanted to say, we shall never be alone again like this. Instead,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: he reached down his tobacco pouch from a shelf of
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: the dresser, put it into his pocket, and said, I
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: guess I can make out to be home for dinner.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: She answered all right, Ethan, and he heard her singing
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: over the dishes as he went. As soon as the
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: sledge was loaded, he meant to send Jotham back to
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: the farm and hurry on foot into the village to
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: buy the glue for the pickle dish. With ordinary luck,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: he should have had time to carry out this plan.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: But everything went wrong from the start. On the way
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: over to the wood lot, one of the grays slipped
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: on a glare of ice and cut his knee, and
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: when they got him up again, Jotham had to go
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: back to the barn for a strip of rag to
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: bind the cut. Then, when the loading finally began, a
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: trunks were so slippy read that it took twice as
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: long as usual to lift them and get them in
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: place on the sledge. It was what Jotham called a
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: sour morning for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: under their wet blankets, seemed to like it as little
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: as the men. It was long past the dinner hour
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: when the job was done, and Ethan had to give
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: up going to the village because he wanted to lead
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: the injured horse home and wash the cut himself. He
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: thought that by starting out again with the lumber as
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: soon as he had finished his dinner, he might get
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: back to the farm with the glue before Jotham and
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: the old sorrel had had time to fetch Snobia from
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: the flats. But he knew the chance was a slight one.
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: It turned on the state of the roads and on
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: the possible lateness of the Bettsbridge train. He remembered afterward,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: with a grim flash of self derision, what importance he
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: had attached to the weighing of these probabilities. As soon
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: as dinner was over, he set out again for the
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: wood lot, not daring to linger till Jotham Powell left.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: The hired man was still drying his wet feet at
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a quick
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: look as he said beneath his breath, I'll be back early.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: He fancied that she nodded her comprehension, and with that
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: scant solace he had to trudge off through the rain.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: He had driven his load half way to the village
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: when Jotham Powell overtook him, urging the reluctant sorrel toward
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: the flats. I'll have to hurry up to do it,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: Ethan mused, as the sleigh dropped down ahead of him
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: over the dip of the schoolhouse hill. He worked like
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: ten at the unloading, and when it was over, hastened
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: on to Michael Edy's for the glue. Ede and his
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: assistant were both down street, and young Denis, who seldom
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: deigned to take their place, was lounging by the stove
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: with a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield. They
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: hailed Ethan with ironic compliment and offers of conviviality, but
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: no one knew where to find the glue. Ethan, consumed
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: with the longing for a last moment alone with Mattie,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: hung about impatiently while Denis made an ineffectual search in
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: the obscurer corners of the store. Looks as if we
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: were all sold out. But if you'll wait around till
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: the old man comes along, maybe he could put his
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: hand on it. I'm obliged to you, but I'll try
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: if I can get it down at missus Holman's, Ethan answered,
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: burning to be gone. Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: aver an oath that what Edie's store could not produce
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: would never be found at the widow homelands. But Ethan,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: heedless of this boast, had already climbed to the sledge
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: and was driving on to the rival establishment. Here. After
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: considerable search and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: it for and whether ordinary flower paste wouldn't do as
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: well if she couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: hunted down her solitary bottle of glue to its hiding
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: place in a medley of cough lozenges and corset laces.
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: I hope Zena ain't broken anything she set store by,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: she called after him, as he turned the grays toward home.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: The fitful bursts of sleet had changed into a steady rain,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: and the horses had heavy work, even without a load
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: behind them. Once or twice, hearing sleigh bells Ethan turned
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: his head, fancying that Zena and Jotham might overtake him,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: But the old sorrel was not in sight, and he
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: set his face against the rain and urged on his
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: ponderous pair. The barn was empty when the horses turned
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: into it, and after giving them the most perfunctory ministrations
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: they had ever received from him, he strode up to
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: the house and pushed open the kitchen door. Mattie was
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: there alone, as he had pictured her. She was bending
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: over a pan on the stove, but at the sound
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: of his step, she turned with a start and sprang
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: to him. See here, matt I've got some stuff to
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: mend the dish with. Let me get at it quick,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: he cried, waving the bottle in one hand while he
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: put her lightly aside. But she did not seem to
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: hear him. Oh, Ethan, Zena's come, she said in a whisper,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: clutching his sleeve. They stood and stared at each other,
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: pale as Culprit's. But the Sorel's not in the barn,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: Ethan stammered. Jotham Powell brought some goods over from the
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: flats for his way, and he drove right on home
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: with them, she explained. He gazed blankly about the kitchen,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: which looked cold and squalid in the rainy winter twilight.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: How is she, he asked, dropping his voice to Matty's whisper.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: She looked away from him uncertainly. I don't know. She
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: went right up to her room. She didn't say anything. No,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: Ethan let out his doubts in a low whistle and
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: thrust the bottle back into his pocket. Don't fret, I'll
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: come down and mend it in the night, he said.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: He pulled on his wet coat again and went back
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: to the barn to feed the grays. While he was there,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when the
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: horses had been attended to, Ethan said to him, you
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: might as well come back up for a bite. He
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: was not sorry to assure himself of Jotham's neutralizing presence
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: at the supper table. For Zena was always nervous after
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: a journey, but the hired man, though seldom loath to
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: still if jaws to answer slowly, I'm obliged to you,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: but I guess I'll go along back. Ethan looked at
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: him in surprise. Better come up and dry off. Looks
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: as if there'd be something hot for supper. Jotham's facial
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: muscles were unmoved by this appeal, and his vocabulary being limited,
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: he merely repeated, I guess I'll go along back to Ethan.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: There was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism. Perhaps
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: Zena had failed to see the new doctor, or had
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: not liked his counsels. Ethan knew that in such cases,
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: the first person she met was likely to be held
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: responsible for her grievance. When he re entered the kitchen,
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: the lamp lit up the same scene of shining comfort
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: as on the previous evening. The table had been as
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: carefully laid, A clear fire glowed in the stove, the
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: cat dozed in its warmth, and Matty came forward carrying
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: a plate of doughnuts. She and Ethan looked at each
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: other in silence. Then she said, as she had said
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: the night before, I guess it's about time for supper.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: End of chapter six. Chapter seven, Ethan went out into
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: the passage to hang up his wet garments. He listened
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: for Zina's step, and, not hearing it, called her name
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: up the stairs. She did not answer, and after a
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: moment's hesitation, he went up and opened her door. The
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: her sitting by the window bolt upright, and knew by
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: the rigidity of the outline projected against the pane that
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: she had not taken off her traveling dress. Well Zena,
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: he ventured from the threshold. She did not move, and
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: he continued the supper's about ready. Ain't you coming? She replied,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: I don't feel as if I could touch a morsel.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: It was the consecrated formula, and he exp affected it
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: to be followed as usual by her rising and going
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: down to supper, But she remained seated, and he could
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: think of nothing more felicitous than I presume you're tired
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: after the long ride. Turning her head at this, she
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: answered solemnly, I'm a great deal sicker than you think.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: Her words fell on his ear with a strange shock
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: of wonder. He had often heard her pronounce them before.
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: What if at last they were true? He advanced a
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: step or two into the dim room. I hope that's
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: not so, Zena, he said. She continued to gaze at
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: him through the twilight with a mien of wan authority,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: as of one consciously singled out for a great fate.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: I've got complications, she said. Ethan knew the word for
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: one of exceptional import. Almost everybody in the neighborhood had troubles,
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: frankly localized and specified, but only the chosen had complications.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: To have them was in its self a distinction, though
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: it was also in most cases a death warrant. People
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: struggled on for years with troubles, but they almost always
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: succumbed to complications. Ethan's heart was jerking to and fro
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: between two extremities of feeling, but for the moment compassion prevailed.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: His wife looked so hard and lonely, sitting there in
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: the darkness with such thoughts. Is that what the new
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: doctor told you, he asked, instinctively lowering his voice. Yes,
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: he says, any regular doctor would want me to have
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: an operation. Ethan was aware that in regard to the
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: important question of surgical intervention, the female opinion of the
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: neighborhood was divided, some glorying in the prestige conferred by operations,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: while others shunned them as indelicate. Ethan from Motives of
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: Economy had always been glad that Zena was of the
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: latter faction. In the agitation caused by the gravity of
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: her announcement, he sought consolatory short cut. What do you
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: know about this doctor anyway? Nobody ever told you that
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: before he saw his blunder, before she could take it up.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: She wanted sympathy, not consolation. I didn't need to have
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: anybody tell me. I was losing ground every day. Everybody
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: but you could see it. And everybody in Bettsbridge knows
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: about doctor Buck. He has his office in Worcester and
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: comes over once a fortnight to Shad's Falls and Bettsbridge
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: for consultations. Eliza Spears was wasting away with kidney trouble
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: before she went to him, and now she's up and
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: around and singing in the choir. Well, I'm glad of that.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: You must do just what he tells you, Ethan answered, sympathetically.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: She was still looking at him. I mean to, she said.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: He was struck by a new note in her voice.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: It was neither whining nor reproachful, but dryly resolute. What
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: does he want you should do, he asked, with a
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: mounting vision of fresh expenses. He wants I should have
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: a hired girl, he says, I oughtn't to have to
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: do a single thing around the house A hired girl.
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: Ethan stood transfixed. Yes, and Aunt Martha found me one
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: right off. Everybody said I was lucky to get a
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: girl to come away out here, and I agreed to
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: give her a dollar extra to make sure she'll be
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: over tomorrow afternoon. Wrath and dismay contended in Ethan. He
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: had foreseen an immediate demand for money, but not a
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: permanent drain on his scant resources. He no longer believed
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: what Zena had told him of the supposed seriousness of
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: her state. He saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: a plot hatched between herself and her pierce relations to
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: foist on him the cost of a servant. And for
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: the moment, wrath predominated, if you meant to engage a girl,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: you ought to have told me before you started. He said,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: how could I tell you before I started? How did
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: I know what doctor Buck would say? Oh, doctor Buck.
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: Ethan's incredulity escaped in a short laugh. Did doctor Buck
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: tell you how I was to pay her wages? Her
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: voice rose furiously with his No, he didn't, for I'd
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: have been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: the money to get back my health when I lost
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: it nursing your own mother, you lost your health nursing mother. Yes,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: and my folks all told me at the time, you
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: couldn't do no less than marry me. After Zena. Through
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: the obscurity which hid their faces, their thoughts seemed to
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: dart at each other like serpents shooting venom. Ethan was
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: seized with horror of the scene and shame at his
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: own share in it. It was as senseless and savage
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: as a physical fight between two enemies. In the darkness.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: He turned to the shelf above the chimney, groped for matches,
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: and lit the one candle in the room. At first,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: its weak flame made no impression on the shadows. Then
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: Zina's face stood grimly out again, and the uncurtained pain
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: which had turned from gray to black. It was the
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: first scene of open anger between the couple in their
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: sad seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: had lost an irretrievable advantage in descending to the level
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: of a crimination. But the practical problem was there and
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: had to be dealt with. You know, I haven't got
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: the money to pay for a girl, Zena. You'll have
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: to send her back. I can't do it. The doctor says,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: it'll be my death if I go on slaving the
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: way I've had to. He doesn't understand how I've stood
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: it as long as I have slaving. He checked himself again.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: You sha'n't look a hand if he says so, I'll
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: do everything round the house myself. She broke in. You're
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: neglecting the farm enough already, and this being true, He
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: found no answer and left her time to add ironically,
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: better send me over to the almshouse and done with it.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: I guess there's been fromes there afore. Now. The burned
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: into him, but he let it pass. I haven't got
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: the money. That settles it. There was a moment's pause
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: in the struggle, as though the combatants were testing their weapons.
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: Then Zina said, in a level voice. I thought you
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: were to get fifty dollars from Andrew Hale for that lumber.
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: Andrew Hale never pays under three months. He had hardly
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: spoken when he remembered the excuse he had made for
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: not accompanying his wife to the station the day before,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: and the blood rose to his frowning brows. Why you
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: told me yesterday you'd fixed it up with him to
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: pay cash down? You said that was why you couldn't
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: drive me over to the flats. Vean had no suppleness
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: in deceiving. He had never before been convicted of a lie,
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: and all the resources of evasion failed him. I guess
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 1: that was a misunderstanding, he stammered. You ain't got the money, no,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: and you ain't going to get it. No. Well, I
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't know that when I engaged the girl, could I No,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: He paused to control his voice. But you know it now.
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. You're a poor
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: man's wife, Zina. But I'll do the best I can
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: for you. For a while, she sat motionless, as if reflecting,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: her arms stretched along the arms of her chair, her
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed on vacancy. Oh, I guess we'll make out,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: she said mildly. The change in her tone reassured him.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: Of course we will. There's a whole lot more I
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: can do for you and Mattie. Zena, while he spoke,
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: seemed to be following out some elaborate mental calculation. She
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: emerged from it to say, they'll be Mattie's board less. Anyhow, Ethan,
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: supposing the discussion to be over, had turned to go
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: down to supper, he stopped short, not grasping what he heard.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: Mattie's bored less he began. Zena laughed. It was an odd,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar sound. He did not remember ever having heard her
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: laugh before. You didn't suppose I was going to keep
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: two girls? Did you no wonder? You were scared at
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: the expense? He still had but a confused sense of
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: what she was saying. From the beginning of the discussion,
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: he had instinctively avoided the mention of Mattie's name, fearing
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: he hardly knew what criticism, complaints or vague allusions to
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: the imminent probability of her marrying. But the thought of
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: a definite rupture had never come to him, and even
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: now could not lodge itself in his mind. I don't
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: know what you mean, he said, Mattie, Silver's not a
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: hired girl. She's your relation. She's a pauper that's hung
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: on to us all after her father had done his
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: best to ruin us. I've kept her here for a
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: whole year. It's somebody else's turn now. As the shrill
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: words shot out, Ethan heard a tap on the door,
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: which he had drawn shut. When he turned back from
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 1: the threshold, Ethan Zena. Mattie's voice sounded gaily from the landing.
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: Do you know what time it is? Supper's been ready
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: half an hour. Inside the room, there was a moment's silence,
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: then Zena called out from her seat, I'm not coming
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: down to supper. Oh I'm sorry, aren't you well? Sha'n't
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: I bring you up a bite of something. Ethan roused
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: himself with an effort and opened the door. Go along down,
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: matt Zena's just a little tired. I'm coming. He heard her,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: all right, and her quick step on the stairs. Then
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: he shut the door and turned back into the room.
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: His wife's attitude was unchanged, her face inexorable, and he
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: was seized with a despairing sense of his helplessness. You
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: ain't gonna do it, Zina, do what she emitted between
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: flattened lips. Send Mattie away like this. I never bargain
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: to take her for life, he continued, with rising vehemence.
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: Can't put her out of the house like a thief,
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: a poor girl without friends or money. She's done her
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: best for you, and she's got no place to go to.
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: You may forget she's your kin, but everybody else'll remember
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: it if you do a thing like that. What do
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: you suppose folks will say of you? Zena waited a moment,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: as if giving him time to feel the full force
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: of the contrast between his own excitement and her composure.
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: Then she replied, in the same smooth voice, I know
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: well enough what they say of my having Kepper here,
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: as long as I have Ethan's hand dropped from the
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: door knob, which he had held clenched since he had
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: drawn the door shut on Mattie. His wife's retort was
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: like a knife cut across the sinews, and he suddenly
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: felt weak and powerless. He had meant to humble himself
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: to argue that Mattie's keep didn't cost much, after all,
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 1: that he could make out to buy a stove and
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: fix up a place in the attic for the hired girl.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: But Zena's words revealed the peril of such pleadings. You
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: mean to tell her she's got to go at once,
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: he faltered out, in terror of letting his wife complete
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: her sentence, As if trying to make him see reason,
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: She replied impartially. The girl will be over from Betsbridge tomorrow,
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: and I presume she's got to have somewheres to sleep.
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: Ethan looked at her with loathing. She was no longer
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: the listless creature who had lived at his side in
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: a state of sullen self absorption, but a mysterious alien presence,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: an evil energy secreted from the long years of silent brooding.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: It was the sense of his helplessness that sharpened his antipathy.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: There had never been anything in her that one could
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: appeal to, but as long as he could ignore and command,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: he had remained indifferent. Now she had mastered him, and
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: he abhorred her. Mattie was her relation, not his. There
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: were no means by which he could compel her to
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: keep the girl under her roof all the long misery
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 1: of his baffled past of his youth, of failure, hardship
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: and vain effort rose up in his soul and bitterness
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: and seemed to take shape before him and the woman
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: who at every turn had barred his way. She had
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: taken everything else from him, and now she meant to
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: take the one thing that made up for all the others.
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: For a moment, such a flame of hate rose in
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: him that it ran down his arm and clenched his
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: fist against her. He took a wild step forward and
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: then stopped. You're you're not coming down, he asked in
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: a bewildered voice. No, I guess I'll lay down on
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 1: the bed a little while, she answered mildly, and he
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 1: turned and walked out of the room. In the kitchen,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: Mattie was sitting by the stove, the cat curled up
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: on her knees. She sprang to her feet as Ethan
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: entered and carried the covered dish of meat pie to
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: the table. I hope Sena isn't sick, she asked. No,
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: she shone at him across the table. Well sit right down, then,
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: you must be starving. She uncovered the pie and pushed
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: it over to him, so they were to have one
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: more evening together. Her happy eyes seemed to say. He
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: helped himself mechanically and began to eat. Then disgust took
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: him by the throat, and he laid down his fork.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: Mattie's tender gaze was on him, and she marked the gesture, Why, Ethan,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: what's the matter? Don't it taste right? Yes, it's first rate,
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: only I. He pushed his plate away, rose from his chair,
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: and walked around the table to her side. She started
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: up with frightened eyes. Ethan, there's something wrong. I knew
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: there was. She seemed to melt against him in her terror,
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: and he caught her in his arms, held her fast there,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted butterflies. What
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: is it? What is it? She stammered, But he had
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: found her lips at last and was drinking unconsciousness of
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: everything but the joy they gave him. She lingered a moment,
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 1: caught in the same strong current. Then she slipped from
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 1: him and drew back a step or two, pale and troubled.
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: Her look smote him with compunction, and he cried out
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: as if he saw her drowning in a dream. You
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: can't go, matt I'll never let you go go, she stammered,
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: Must I go? The words went on, sounding between them
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: as though a torch of warning flew from hand to
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: hand through a black landscape. Ethan was overcome with shame
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: at his lack of self control in flinging the news
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: at her so brutally. His head reeled and he had
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: to support himself against the table. All the while he
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: felt as if he were still kissing her, and yet
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: dying of thirst for her lips. Ethan, what has happened?
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: Is zena mad with me? Her cry steadied him, though
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: it deepened his wrath and pity. No, no, he assured her,
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 1: It's not that. But this new doctor has scared her
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: about herself. You know, she believes all they say the
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: first time she sees them, and this one's told her
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: she won't get well unless she lays up and don't
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 1: do a thing about the house. Not for months, he paused,
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: his eyes wandering from her miserably. She stood silent a moment,
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: drooping before him like a broken branch. She was so
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: small and weak looking that had wrung his heart. But
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: suddenly she lifted her head and looked straight at him.
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: And she wants some one handier in my place? Is
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: that it That's what she says to night. If she
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: says it to night, she'll say it to morrow. Both
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: bowed to the inexorable truth. They knew that Zena never
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: changed her mind, and that in her case, a resolve,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: once taken, was equivalent to an act performed. There was
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: a long silence between them. Then Matty said, in a
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: low voice, don't be too sorry Ethan. Oh God, oh God.
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: He groaned. The glow of passion he had felt for
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: her had melted to an aching tenderness. He saw her
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: quick lids beating back the tears, and longed to take
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: her in his arms and soothe her. You're letting your
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: supper get she admonished him, with a pale gleam of gayety.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: Oh Matt, Matt, where'll you go to? Her lids sank,
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: and a tremor crossed her face. He saw that, for
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: the first time, the thought of the future came to
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 1: her distinctly. I might get something to do over at Stamford.
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: She faltered, as if knowing that he knew she had
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: no hope. He dropped back into his seat and hid
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: his face in his hands. Despair seized him at the
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: thought of her setting out alone to renew the weary
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 1: quest for work in the only place where she was known.
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: She was surrounded by indifference or animosity, and what chance
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: had she inexperienced and untrained among the million bread seekers
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: of the cities. There came back to him miserable tales
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: he had heard at Worcester, and the faces of girls
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: whose lives had begun as hopefully as Mattie's. It was
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: not possible to think of such things without a revolt
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: of his whole being. He sprang up, suddenly, you can't go,
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: matt I won't let you. She's always had her way, aye,
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: but I mean to have mine now. Mattie lifted her
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: hand with a quick gesture, and he heard his wife's
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 1: step behind him. Zena came into the room with her
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: dragging down at the heel step, and quietly took her
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: accustomed seat between them. I feel a little mite better,
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: and doctor Buck says, I ought to eat all I
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: can to keep my strength up, even if I ain't
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: got any appetite, she said in her flat whine, reaching
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: across Mattie for the tea pot. Her good dress had
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: been replaced by the black calico and brown knitted shawl
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: which formed her daily wear, and with them she had
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: put on her usual face and manner. She poured out
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: her tea, added a great deal of milk to it,
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: helped herself largely to pie and pickles, and made the
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: familiar gesture of adjusting her false teeth before she began
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: to eat. The cat rubbed itself, ingratiatingly against her, and
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: she said, good pussy, stooped to stroke it, and gave
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: it a scrap of meat from her plate. Ethan sat speechless,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: not pretending to eat, But Mattie nibbled valiantly at her
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: food and asked Zena one or two questions about her
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: visit to Bettsbridge. Zena answered, in her every day tone,
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: and warming to the theme, regaled them with several vivid
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: descriptions of intestinal disturbances among her friends and relatives. She
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 1: looked straight at Mattie as she spoke, a faint smile,
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: deepening the vertical lines between her nose and chin. When
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: supper was over, she rose from her seat and pressed
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: her hand to the flat service over the region of
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: her heart. That pie of yours always set some quite heavy,
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 1: matt she said, not ill naturedly. She seldomly abbreviated the
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: girl's name, and when she did so, it was always
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: a sign of affability. I've a good mind to go
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: and hunt up those stomach powders I got last year
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: over in Springfield, she continued. I ain't tried them for
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: quite a while, and maybe they'll help the heartburn. Mattie
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: lifted her eyes. Can't I get them for you, Zina,
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: she ventured, No, they're in a place you don't know about.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: Zena answered darkly with one of her secret looks. She
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: went out of the kitchen, and Mattie rising began to
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: clear the dishes from the table. As she passed Ethan's chair,
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: their eyes met and clung together desolately. The warm, still
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: kitchen looked as peaceful as the night before. The cat
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: had sprung to Zena's rocking chair, and the heat of
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: the fire was beginning to draw out the faint, sharp
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: scent of the geraniums. Ethan dragged himself wearily to his feet.
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: I'll go out and take a look around, he said,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: going toward the passage to get his lantern. As he
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: reached the door, he met Zena coming back into the room.
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: Her lips twitching with anger, a flush of excitement on
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: her sallow face. The shawl had slipped from her shoulders
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: and was dragging at her down trodden heels, and in
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: her hand she carried the fragment of the red glass
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: pickle dish. I'd like to know who has done this,
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: she said, looking sternly from Ethan to Mattie. There was
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice. I
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: went to get those powders I'd put away in father's
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 1: old spectacle case top of the china closet, where I
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: keep the things I set store by. So's folks, shan't
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: meddle with them. Her voice broke, and two small tears
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: hung on her lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks.
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: It takes the step ladder to get at the top shelf.
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: And I put Aunt Flora Maples pickle dish up there
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: a purpose when we was married, and it's never been
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: down since sept for the spring cleaning, and then I
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: always lifted it with my own hands. So's it shouldn't
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: get broke. She laid the fragments reverently on the table.
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: I want to know who'd done this. She quavered at
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: the challenge. Ethan turned back into the room and faced her.
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: I can tell you then, the cat done it. The cat,
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: that's what I said. She looked at him hard, and
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 1: then turned her eyes to Mattie, who was carrying the
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 1: dish pan to the table. I'd like to know how
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: the cat got into my china closet, she said, Chasin mice,
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: I guess, Ethan rejoined. There was a mouse round the
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: kitchen all last evening. Zena continued to look from one
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: to the other. Then she emitted her small, strange laugh.
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 1: I knew the cat was a smart cat, she said,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: in a high voice, but I didn't know he was
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: smart enough to pick up the pieces of my pickle
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: dish and lay him edge to edge on the very shelf.
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 1: He knocked him off of Mattie suddenly drew her arms
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: out of the steaming water. It was in Ethan's fault, Zena.
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: The cat did break the dish, but I got it
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 1: down from the china closet, and I'm the one to
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 1: blame for it's getting broken. Zena stood beside the ruin
• 2:11:29
  Speaker 1: of her treasure, stiffening into a stony image of resentment.
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: You got down my pickle dish. What for a bright
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 1: flush flew to Matty's cheeks. I wanted to make the
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: supper table pretty, she said. You wanted to make the
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: supper table pretty, and you waited till my back was turned,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 1: and took the thing I set most store by of
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: anything I've got, and wouldn't never use it, not even
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: when the minister come to dinner, or Aunt Martha Pears
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: come over from Bettsbridge. Zena paused with a as if
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: terrified by her own evocation of the sacrilege. You're a
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 1: bad girl, Matty Silver, and I always known it. It's
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 1: the way your father begun, and I was warned of
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: it when I took you, and I tried to keep
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: my things where you couldn't get at him. And now
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: you've took from me the one I cared for most
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: of all. She broke off in a short spasm of
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: sobs that passed and left her more than ever like
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: a shape of stone. If I had a listen to folks,
• 2:12:26
  Speaker 1: you'd a gone before now, and this wouldn't have happened,
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: she said, and gathering up the bits of broken glass,
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: she went out of the room as if she carried
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: a dead body. End of chapter seven. Chapter eight, when
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: Ethan was called back to the farm by his father's illness,
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 1: his mother gave him for his own use a small
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: room behind the untenanted best parlor. Here he had nailed
• 2:12:53
  Speaker 1: up shelves for his books, built himself a box sofa
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: out of boards in a mattress, laid out his papers
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: on a kitchen table hung on the rough plaster wall,
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: and engraving of Abraham Lincoln, and a calendar with thoughts
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 1: from the poets, and tried, with these meager properties to
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: produce some likeness to the study of a minister who
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: had been kind to him and lent him books. When
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: he was at Worcester, he still took refuge there in summer,
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: but when Mattie came to live at the farm, he
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: had to give her his stove, and consequently the room
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: was uninhabitable for several months of the year. To this retreat,
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: he descended as soon as the house was quiet, and
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: Zena's steady breathing from the bed had assured him that
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: there was to be no sequel to the scene in
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: the kitchen. After Zina's departure, he and Mattie had stood speechless,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: neither seeking to approach the other. Then the girl had
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: returned to her task of clearing up the kitchen for
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 1: the night, and he had taken his lantern and gone
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: on his usual round outside the house. The kitchen was
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: empty when he came back to it, but his tobacco
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: pouch and pipe had been laid on the table, and
• 2:13:52
  Speaker 1: under them was a scrap of paper torn from the
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: back of a Seedsman catalog, on which three words were written,
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: don't trouble ethan. Going into his cold, dark study, he
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: placed the lantern on the table, and, stooping to its light,
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: read the message again and again. It was the first
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: time that Mattie had ever written to him, and the
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 1: possession of the paper gave him a strange new sense
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 1: of her nearness. Yet it deepened his anguish by reminding
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 1: him that henceforth they would have no other way of
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: communicating with each other. For the life of her smile,
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: the warmth of her voice, only cold paper and dead words.
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: Confused motions of rebellions stormed in him. He was too young,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: too strong, too full of the sap of living to
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: submit so easily to the destruction of his hopes. Must
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: he wear out all his years at the side of
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: a bitter, querulous woman. Other possibilities had been in him,
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: possibilities sacrificed one by one to Zena's narrow mindedness and ignorance.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: And what good had come of it. She was a
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: hundred times bitter and more discontented than when he had
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: married her. The one pleasure left her was to inflict
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: pain on him. All the healthy instincts of self defense
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: rose up in him against such waste. He bungled himself
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: into his old coonskin coat and lay down on the
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: box sofa to think. Under his cheek he felt a
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: hard object with strange protuberances. It was a cushion which
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: Zena had made for him when they were engaged, the
• 2:15:19
  Speaker 1: only piece of needlework he had ever seen her do.
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 1: He flung it across the floor and propped his head
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: against the wall. He knew a case of a man
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: over the mountain, a young fellow of about his own age,
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 1: who had escaped from just such a life of misery
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: by going west with the girl he cared for. His
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: wife had divorced him, and he had married the girl
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: and prospered. Ethan had seen the couple the summer before
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: at Shad's Falls, when they had come to visit relatives.
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: They had a little girl with fair curls, who wore
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 1: a gold locket and was dressed like a princess. The
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: deserted wife had not done badly either. Her husband had
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 1: given her the farm and she had managed to sell it,
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: and with that and the alimony, she had started a
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 1: lunch room at Bedsbridge and bloomed into activity and importance.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 1: Ethan was fired by the thought why should he not
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: leave with Matty the next day? Instead of letting her
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: go alone, he would hide his valise under the seat
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 1: of the sleigh, and Zena would suspect nothing till she
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: went upstairs for her afternoon nap and found a letter
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 1: on the bed. His impulses were still near the surface,
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 1: and he sprang up, re lit the lantern, and sat
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: down at the table. He rummaged in the drawer for
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: a sheet of paper, found one, and began to write, Zena,
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: I've done all I could for you, and I don't
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 1: see as it's been of any use. I don't blame you,
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 1: nor I don't blame myself. Maybe both of us will
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: do better separate. I'm going to try my luck west,
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: and you can sell the farm and mill and keep
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: the money. His pen paused on the word, which brought
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 1: home to him the relentless conditions of his lot. If
• 2:16:51
  Speaker 1: he gave the farm and mill to Zena, what would
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: be left him to start his own life with. Once
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 1: in the West, he was sure of picking up work,
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: he would not have feared to try his chancel, But
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: with Mattie depending on him, the case was different. And
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: what of Zena's fate. Farm and mill were mortgaged to
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: the limit of their value, and even if she found
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: a purchaser in itself an unlikely chance, it was doubtful
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 1: if she could clear a thousand dollars on the sale. Meanwhile,
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 1: how could she keep the farm going? It was only
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: by incessant labor and personal supervision that Ethan drew a
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: meager living from his land, and his wife, even if
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: she were in better health than she imagined, could never
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: carry such a burden alone. Well, she could go back
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 1: to her people then and see what they would do
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: for her. It was the fate she was forcing on Mattie.
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 1: Why not let her try it herself. By the time
• 2:17:40
  Speaker 1: she had discovered his whereabouts and brought suit for divorce.
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: He would probably wherever he was be earning enough to
• 2:17:46
  Speaker 1: pay her a sufficient alimony, and the alternative was to
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: let Mattie go forth alone, with far less hope of
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 1: ultimate provision. He had scattered the contents of the table
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 1: drawer in his search for a sheet of paper, and
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 1: as he took up his pen, his eyes fell on
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: an old copp of the Bettsbridge Eagle. The advertising sheet
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: was folded uppermost, and he read the seductive words trips
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: to the West Reduced Rates. He drew the lantern near
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: and eagerly scanned the fairs. Then the paper fell from
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: his hand, and he pushed aside his unfinished letter. A
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: moment ago, he had wondered what he and Mattie were
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 1: to live on when they reached the West. Now he
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: saw that he had not even the money to take
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: her there. Borrowing was out of the question. Six months
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 1: before he had given his only security to raise funds
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: for necessary repairs to the mill, and he knew that
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: without security, no one at Starkfield would lend him ten dollars.
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: The inexorable facts close in on him like prison mortars
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: handcuffing a convict. There was no way out, none. He
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: was a prisoner for life, and now his one ray
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: of light was to be extinguished. He crept back heavily
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 1: to the sofa, stretching himself out, with limbs so leaden
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: that he felt as if they would never move again.
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: Tears rose in his throat and slowly burned their way
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: to his lids. As he lay there, the window pane
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 1: that faced him, growing gradually lighter inlaid upon the darkness
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 1: a square of moon suffused sky. A crooked tree branch
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: crossed it, a branch of the apple tree under which
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: on summer evenings he had sometimes found Mattie sitting. When
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 1: he came up from the mill, slowly the rim of
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: the rainy vapors caught fire and burned away, and a
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: pure moon swung into the blue Ethan, rising on his elbow,
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: watched the landscape whiten and shape itself under the sculpture
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 1: of the moon. This was the night on which he
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: was to have taken Mattie coasting, and there hung the
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: lamp to light them. He looked out at the slopes
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: bathed in luster, the silver edged darkness of the woods,
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 1: the spectral purple of the hills, against the sky, and
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: it seemed as though all the beauty of the night
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 1: had been poured out to mock his wretchedness. He fell asleep,
• 2:19:50
  Speaker 1: and when he woke, the chill of the winter dawn
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: was in the room. He felt cold and stiff and hungry,
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: and ashamed of being hungry. He rubbed his eyes and
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: went to the win window. A red sun stood over
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: the gray rim of the fields, behind trees that looked
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: black and brittle. He said to himself, this is Matt's
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: last day, and tried to think what the place would
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: be without her. As he stood there, he heard a
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: step behind him, and she entered. Oh, Ethan, were you
• 2:20:20
  Speaker 1: here all night? She looked so small and pinched in
• 2:20:24
  Speaker 1: her poor dress, with the red scarf wound about her,
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that Ethan
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: stood before her without speaking. You must be frozen. She
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 1: went on, fixing lustreless eyes on him. He drew a
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: step nearer. How did you know I was here? Because
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 1: I heard you go downstairs again after I went to bed,
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: and I listened all night and you didn't come up.
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 1: All his tenderness rushed to his lips. He looked at
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: her and said, I'll come right along and make up
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: the kitchen fire. They went back to the kitchen, and
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: he felt the coal and kindlings and cleared out the
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: stove for her, while she brought in the milk and
• 2:21:04
  Speaker 1: the cold remains of the meat pie. When warmth began
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 1: to radiate from the stove and the first ray of
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, Ethan's dark thoughts melted
• 2:21:13
  Speaker 1: in the mellower air. The sight of Mattie going about
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: her work as he had seen her on so many
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: mornings made it seem impossible that she should ever cease
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: to be a part of the scene. He said to
• 2:21:23
  Speaker 1: himself that he had doubtless exaggerated the significance of Zena's threats,
• 2:21:27
  Speaker 1: and that she, too, with the return of daylight, would
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: come to a saner mood. He went up to Mattie
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 1: as she bent above the stove, and laid his hand
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 1: on her arm. I don't want you should trouble either,
• 2:21:39
  Speaker 1: he said, looking down into her eyes with a smile.
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: She flushed up warmly and whispered back, no, Ethan, I
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 1: ain't gonna trouble. I guess things will straighten out. He added.
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: There was no answer, but a quick throb of her lids,
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: and he went on, she ain't said anything this morning. No,
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen her yet. Don't you take any notice
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: when you do? With this injunction, he left her and
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 1: went out to the Cowborn. He saw Jotham Powell walking
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: up the hill through the morning mist, and the familiar
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: sight added to his growing conviction of security. As the
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: two men were clearing out the stalls, Jotham rested on
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: his pitchfork to say, Daniel Burne's goin over to the
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: flats to day noon, and he could take Mattie's trunk
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: along and make it easier ridin' when I take her
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: over in the sleigh. Ethan looked at him blankly, and
• 2:22:30
  Speaker 1: he continued. Miss Frome said the new girl'd be at
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: the flats at five, and I was to take Mattie then,
• 2:22:36
  Speaker 1: so's she could catch the six o'clock train for Stamford.
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: Ethan felt the blood drumming in his temples. He had
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 1: to wait a moment before he could find voice to say, Oh,
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: it ain't so sure about Mattie's going. That's so, said
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 1: Jotham indifferently, and they went on with their work. When
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: they returned to the kitchen. The two women were already
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 1: at breakfast. Zena had an air of unusual alertness activity.
• 2:23:01
  Speaker 1: She drank two cups of coffee and fed the cat
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: with the scraps left in the pie dish. Then she
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: rose from her seat, and, walking over to the window,
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: snipped two or three yellow leaves from the geraniums. Aunt
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: Martha's ain't got a faded leaf on em, but they
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: pine away when they ain't cared for, she said reflectively.
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 1: Then she turned to Jotham and asked, what time do
• 2:23:21
  Speaker 1: you say Daniel Byrne be along. The hired man threw
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: a hesitating glance at Ethan. Round about noon, he said.
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: Zena turned to Mattie. That trunk of yours is too
• 2:23:32
  Speaker 1: heavy for the sleigh, and Daniel Byrne'll be round to
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: take it over to the flats, she said, I'm much
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: obliged to you, Zina, said Mattie, I'd like to go
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: over things with you first. Zena continued, in an unperturbed voice.
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: I know there's a huckabuck towel missing, and I can't
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: take out what you've done with that. MAT's safe used
• 2:23:51
  Speaker 1: to stand behind the stuffed owl on the parlor. She
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: went out, followed by Mattie, and when the men were alone,
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: Jotham said to his employer, I guess I'd better let
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 1: Danel come around. Then Ethan finished his usual morning tasks
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: about the house and barn. Then he said to Jotham,
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going down to Starkfield. Tell them not to wait dinner.
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again.
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: That which had seemed incredible on the sober light of
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: day had really come to pass, and he was to
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 1: assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie's banishment. His manhood
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: was humbled by the part he was compelled to play,
• 2:24:28
  Speaker 1: and by the thought of what Mattie must think of him.
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: Confused impulses struggled in him as he strode along to
• 2:24:34
  Speaker 1: the village. He had made up his mind to do something,
• 2:24:37
  Speaker 1: but he did not know what it would be. The
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: early mist had vanished, and the fields lay like a
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: silver shield under the sun. It was one of the
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: days when the glitter of winter shines through a pale
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: haze of spring. Every yard of the road was alive
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 1: with Mattie's presence, and there was hardly a branch against
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: the sky. Or a tangle of brambles on the bank,
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 1: in which some bright shred of memory was not caught.
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: Once in the stillness, the call of a bird in
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 1: the mountain ash was so like her laughter that his
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: heart tightened and then grew large. And all these things
• 2:25:09
  Speaker 1: made him see that something must be done at once.
• 2:25:13
  Speaker 1: Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 1: a kind hearted man, might be induced to reconsider his
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: refusal and advance a small sum on the lumber, if
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: he were told that Seena's ill health made it necessary
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: to hire a servant. Hale, after all, knew enough of
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: Ethan's situation to make it possible for the latter to
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: renew his appeal without too much loss of pride. And moreover,
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: how much did pride count in the ebullition of passions
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 1: in his breast. The more he considered his plan, the
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: more hopeful it seemed. If he could get missus Hale's ear,
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: he felt certain of success, and with fifty dollars in
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: his pocket, nothing could keep him from Mattie. His first
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: object was to reach Starkfield before Hale had started for
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 1: his work. He knew the carpenter had a job down
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 1: the Corbury Road, and was likely to leave his house early.
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: Ethan's long stride grew more rapid with the accelerated beat
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 1: of his thoughts, and as he reached the foot of
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: Schoolhouse Hill he caught sight of Hale's sleigh in the distance.
• 2:26:07
  Speaker 1: He hurried forward to meet it, but as it drew near,
• 2:26:10
  Speaker 1: he saw that it was driven by the carpenter's youngest boy,
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: and that the figure at his side, looking like a
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: large upright cocoon and spectacles, was that of missus Hale.
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: Ethan signed them to stop, and Missus Hale leaned forward,
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: her pink wrinkles twinkling with benevolence. Mister Hale, Why yes,
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: you'll find him down home now. He ain't going to
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 1: his work this forenoon. He woke up with a touch
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: of lumbago, and I just made him put on one
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 1: of old doctor Kidder's plasters and set right up into
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: the fire, beaming maternally on Ethan. She bent over to
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: add I only just heard from mister Hale about Zena's
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: going over to Betsburdge to see that new doctor. I'm
• 2:26:48
  Speaker 1: real sorry she's feeling so bad again. I hope he
• 2:26:51
  Speaker 1: thinks he can do something for her. I don't know
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: anybody round here's had more sickness than Zena. I always
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: tell mister Hale, I don't know what she'd ha done
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: if she hadn't had Ye to look after her. And
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: I used to say the same thing about your mother.
• 2:27:03
  Speaker 1: You had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome. She gave
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: him a last nod of sympathy while her son chirped
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: to the horse, and Ethan as she drove off, stood
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the road and stared after the
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: retreating sleigh. It was a long time since any one
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: had spoken to him as kindly as Missus Hale. Most
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: people were either indifferent to his troubles or disposed to
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: think it natural that a young fellow of his age
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: should have carried without repining the burden of three crippled lives.
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: But Missus Hale had said, you've had an awful mean time,
• 2:27:34
  Speaker 1: Ethan Frome, and he felt less alone with his misery.
• 2:27:38
  Speaker 1: If the Hales were sorry for him, they would surely
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: respond to his appeal. He started down the road toward
• 2:27:44
  Speaker 1: their house, but at the end of a few yards
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: he pulled up sharply, the blood in his face. For
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: the first time. In the light of the words he
• 2:27:52
  Speaker 1: had just heard, he saw what he was about to do.
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: He was planning to take advantage of the hales sympathy
• 2:27:58
  Speaker 1: to obtain money from them on false pretenses. That was
• 2:28:02
  Speaker 1: a plain statement of the cloudy purpose which had driven
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: him in headlong to Starkfield. With the sudden perception of
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: the point to which his madness had carried him, the
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 1: madness fell, and he saw his life before him as
• 2:28:14
  Speaker 1: it was. He was a poor man, the husband of
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: a sickly woman whom his desertion would leave alone and destitute.
• 2:28:21
  Speaker 1: And even if he had had the heart to desert her,
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: he could have done so only by deceiving two kindly
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 1: people who had pitied him. He turned and walked slowly
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: back to the farm. End of chapter eight. Chapter nine,
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: at the kitchen door, Daniel Byrne sat in his sleigh
• 2:28:43
  Speaker 1: behind a big boned gray who pawed the snow and
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 1: swung his long head restlessly from side to side. Ethan
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 1: went into the kitchen and found his wife by the stove.
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: Her head was wrapped in her shawl, and she was
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 1: reading a book called Kidney Troubles and Their Cure, on
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 1: which he had had to pay extra postage only a
• 2:29:01
  Speaker 1: few days before. Zena did not move or look up
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: when he entered, and after a moment he asked, where's Mattie.
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 1: Without lifting her eyes from the page, she replied, I
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: presume she's getting down her trunk. The blood rushed to
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: his face. Getting down her trunk alone, Jotham powells down
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: on the wood lot, and Daniel Byrne says he darsn't
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: leave that horse. She returned. Her husband, without stopping to
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: hear the end of the phrase, had left the kitchen
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: and sprung up the stairs. The door of Mattie's room
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: was shut, and he wavered a moment on the landing.
• 2:29:39
  Speaker 1: Matt he said in a low voice, but there was
• 2:29:42
  Speaker 1: no answer, and he put his hand on the door knob.
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: He had never been in her room, except once in
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 1: the early summer, when he had gone there to plaster
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: up a leak in the eaves, but he remembered exactly
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: how everything it looked, the red and white quilt on
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 1: her narrow bed, the pretty pincushion on the chest of drawers,
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: and over it, the enlarged photograph of her mother in
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: an oxidized frame with a bunch of dyed grasses at
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 1: the back. Now these and all other tokens of her
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 1: presence had vanished, and the room looked as bare and
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: comfortless as when Zena had showed her into it on
• 2:30:13
  Speaker 1: the day of her arrival. In the middle of the
• 2:30:16
  Speaker 1: floor stood her trunk, and on the trunk she sat
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: in her sunday dress, her back turned to the door,
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 1: and her face in her hands. She had not heard
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: Ethan's call because she was sobbing, and she did not
• 2:30:27
  Speaker 1: hear his step till he stood close behind her and
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 1: laid his hands on her shoulders. Matt, Oh, don't, oh, Matt,
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 1: She started up, lifting her wet face to his Ethan,
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 1: I thought I was ever going to see you again.
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: He took her in his arms, pressing her close, and
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: with a trembling hand, smoothed away the hair from her forehead.
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 1: Not see me again? What do you mean, she sobbed out,
• 2:30:55
  Speaker 1: Chotham said. She told him we wasn't to wait dinner
• 2:30:57
  Speaker 1: for you, and I thought you thought I meant to
• 2:31:00
  Speaker 1: cut it, he finished for her. Grimly. She clung to
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 1: him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
• 2:31:07
  Speaker 1: which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: slopes and had the faint, woody fragrance of fresh sawdust
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: in the sun. Through the door, they heard Zena's voice
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: calling out from below. Daniel Byrne says, you'd better hurry
• 2:31:21
  Speaker 1: up if you want them to take that trunk. They
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: drew apart with stricken faces words of resistance, rushed to
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: Ethan's lips, and died there. Mattie found her handkerchief and
• 2:31:32
  Speaker 1: dried her eyes. Then, bending down, she took hold of
• 2:31:35
  Speaker 1: a handle of the trunk. Ethan put her aside. You
• 2:31:39
  Speaker 1: let go, matt he ordered her. She answered, it takes
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: two to coax it round the corner, and submitting to
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 1: this argument, he grasped the other handle, and together they
• 2:31:49
  Speaker 1: maneuvered the heavy trunk out to the landing. Now let go,
• 2:31:53
  Speaker 1: he repeated. Then he shouldered the trunk and carried it
• 2:31:56
  Speaker 1: down the stairs and across the passage to the kitchen. Zena,
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 1: who had gone back to her seat by the stove,
• 2:32:02
  Speaker 1: did not lift her head from her book as he passed.
• 2:32:04
  Speaker 1: Mattie followed him out of the door and helped him
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 1: to lift the trunk into the back of the sleigh.
• 2:32:09
  Speaker 1: When it was in place, they stood side by side
• 2:32:11
  Speaker 1: on the doorstep, watching Daniel Byrne plunge off behind his
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: fidgety horse. It seemed to Ethan that his heart was
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: bound with cords which an unseen hand was tightening with
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 1: every tick of the clock. Twice he opened his lips
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: to speak to Mattie and found no breath at length.
• 2:32:29
  Speaker 1: As she turned to re enter the house, he laid
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: a detaining hand on her. I'm going to drive you over,
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: matt he whispered. She murmured back, I think Zina once
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: I should go with Jotham. I'm going to drive you over,
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: he repeated, and she went into the kitchen without answering.
• 2:32:48
  Speaker 1: At dinner, Ethan could not eat if he lifted his eyes.
• 2:32:51
  Speaker 1: They rested on Zena's pinched face, and the corners of
• 2:32:54
  Speaker 1: her straight lips seemed to quiver away into a smile.
• 2:32:58
  Speaker 1: She ate well, declaring that the mild weather made her
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: feel better, and pressed a second helping of beans on
• 2:33:04
  Speaker 1: Jotham Powell, whose wants she generally ignored. Mattie when the
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: meal was over, went about her usual task of clearing
• 2:33:11
  Speaker 1: the table and washing up the dishes. Zena, after feeding
• 2:33:14
  Speaker 1: the cat, had returned to her rocking chair by the stove,
• 2:33:17
  Speaker 1: and Jotham Powell, who always lingered last, reluctantly pushed back
• 2:33:21
  Speaker 1: his chair and moved toward the door. On the threshold.
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: He turned back to say to Ethan, what time'll I
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: come round for Mattie. Ethan was standing near the window,
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: mechanically filling his pipe while he watched Mattie move to
• 2:33:35
  Speaker 1: and fro. He answered, you needn't come round. I'm going
• 2:33:39
  Speaker 1: to drive her over myself. He saw the rise of
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: the color in Mattie's averted cheek and the quick lifting
• 2:33:45
  Speaker 1: of Zena's head. I want you should stay here this afternoon, Ethan,
• 2:33:50
  Speaker 1: his wife said, Chotham can drive Mattie over. Mattie flung
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: an imploring glance at him, but he repeated curtly, I'm
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: going to drive her over myself. Zena continued, in the
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: same even tone. I wanted you should stay and fix
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: up that stove in Mattie's room afore the girl gets here.
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: It ain't been drawing right for nigh in a month now.
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: Ethan's voice rose indignantly. If it was good enough for Mattie,
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: I guess it's good enough for a hired girl. That
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: girl that's coming, told me she was used to a
• 2:34:22
  Speaker 1: house where they had a furnace. Zena persisted with the
• 2:34:25
  Speaker 1: same monotonous mildness. She'd better have stayed there. Then he
• 2:34:30
  Speaker 1: flung back at her, and turning to Mattie, he added,
• 2:34:33
  Speaker 1: in a hard voice, you be ready by three, matt
• 2:34:36
  Speaker 1: I've got business at Corbury. Jotham Powell had started for
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 1: the barn, and Ethan strode down after him, a flame
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: with anger, the pulses in his temples throbbed, and a
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: fog was in his eyes. He went about his task
• 2:34:49
  Speaker 1: without knowing what force directed him, or whose hands and
• 2:34:52
  Speaker 1: feet were fulfilling his orders. It was not till he
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 1: led out the sorrel and backed him between the shafts
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: of the sleigh that he once more became conscious of
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: what he was doing. As he passed the bridle over
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: the horse's head and wound the trances around the shafts,
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 1: he remembered the day when he had made the same
• 2:35:09
  Speaker 1: preparations in order to drive over and meet his wife's
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 1: cousin at the flats. It was little more than a
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: year ago, on just such a soft afternoon, with a
• 2:35:17
  Speaker 1: feel of spring in the air, The sorrel, turning the
• 2:35:20
  Speaker 1: same big ringed eye on him, nuzzled the palm of
• 2:35:23
  Speaker 1: his hand in the same way, and one by one,
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: all the days between rose up and stood before him.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: He flung the bear skin into the sleigh, climbed to
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: the seat, and drove up to the house. When he
• 2:35:35
  Speaker 1: entered the kitchen, it was empty, but Mattie's bag and
• 2:35:37
  Speaker 1: shawl lay ready by the door. He went to the
• 2:35:40
  Speaker 1: foot of the stairs and listened. No sound reached him
• 2:35:43
  Speaker 1: from above, but presently he thought he heard some one
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: moving about in his deserted study, and pushing open the door,
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: he saw Mattie in her hat and jacket, standing with
• 2:35:53
  Speaker 1: her back to him, near the table. She started at
• 2:35:56
  Speaker 1: his approach, and, turning quickly, said is it time? What
• 2:36:00
  Speaker 1: are you doing here, matt he asked her. She looked
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: at him timidly. I was just taking a look round,
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 1: that's all, she answered, with a wavering smile. They went
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: back into the kitchen without speaking, and Ethan picked up
• 2:36:14
  Speaker 1: her bag and shawl. Where's Zena, he asked. She went
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: right upstairs after dinner. She said she had those shooting
• 2:36:22
  Speaker 1: pains again and didn't want to be disturbed. Didn't she
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: say good bye to you. No, that was all she said. Ethan,
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: looking slowly about the kitchen, said to himself with a
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: shudder that in a few hours he would be returning
• 2:36:36
  Speaker 1: to it alone. Then the sense of unreality overcame him
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: once more, and he could not bring himself to believe
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: that Mattie stood there for the last time before him.
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: Come on, he said, almost gaily, opening the door and
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: putting her bag into the sleigh. He sprang to his
• 2:36:52
  Speaker 1: seat and bent over to tuck the rug about her
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: as she slipped into the place at his side. Now,
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 1: then go along, he said, with a shake of the
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: reins that sent the Sorrel placidly jogging down the hill.
• 2:37:04
  Speaker 1: We got lots of time for a good ride, matt
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: he cried, seeking her hand beneath the fur and pressing
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 1: it in his His face tingled, and he felt dizzy,
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 1: as if he had stopped in at the Starkfield Saloon
• 2:37:15
  Speaker 1: on a zero day for a drink. At the gate.
• 2:37:18
  Speaker 1: Instead of making for Starkfield, he turned the Sorel to
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: the right up the Bettsbridge Road. Mattie sat silent, giving
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: no sign of surprise, but after a moment she said,
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: are you going round by shadow pond. He laughed and answered,
• 2:37:32
  Speaker 1: I knew you'd know. She drew closer under the bear skin,
• 2:37:37
  Speaker 1: so that looking sideways around his coat sleeve he could
• 2:37:40
  Speaker 1: just catch the tip of her nose and a blown
• 2:37:42
  Speaker 1: brown wave of hair. They drove slowly up the road
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 1: between fields glistening under the pale sun, and then bent
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: to the right down a lane edged with spruce and larch.
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: Ahead of them, a long way off, a range of
• 2:37:54
  Speaker 1: hills stained by mottlings of black forest flowed away in
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: round white curves against the sky. The lane passed into
• 2:38:01
  Speaker 1: a pine wood with bowls reddening in the afternoon sun
• 2:38:04
  Speaker 1: and delicate blue shadows on the snow. As they entered it,
• 2:38:08
  Speaker 1: the breeze fell, and a warm stillness seemed to drop
• 2:38:11
  Speaker 1: from the branches with the dropping needles. Here the snow
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: was so pure that the tiny tracts of wood animals
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: had left on it intricate lace like patterns, and the
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: bluish cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments
• 2:38:24
  Speaker 1: of bronze. Ethan drove on in silence till they reached
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: a part of the wood where the pines were more
• 2:38:30
  Speaker 1: widely spaced. Then he drew up and helped Mattie to
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 1: get out of the sleigh. They passed between the aromatic trunks,
• 2:38:36
  Speaker 1: the snow breaking crisply under their feet, till they came
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: to a small sheet of water with steep wooded sides
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 1: across its frozen surface. From the farther bank a single
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 1: hill rising against the western sun through the long conical
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: shadow which gave the lake its name. It was a shy,
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: secret spot, full of the same dumb melancholy that Ethan
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 1: felt in his heart. He looked up and down the
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: pebbly beach till his eye lit on a fallen tree trunk,
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: half submerged in snow. That's where we sat at the picnic,
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 1: he reminded her. The entertainment of which he spoke was
• 2:39:10
  Speaker 1: one of the few that they had taken part in together,
• 2:39:13
  Speaker 1: a church picnic which, on a long afternoon of the
• 2:39:16
  Speaker 1: preceding summer, had filled the retired place with merrymaking. Mattie
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 1: had begged him to go with her, but he had refused. Then,
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: towards sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 1: been felling timber, he had been caught by some strayed
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: revelers and drawn into the group by the lake, where Mattie,
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: encircled by facetious youths and bright as a BlackBerry under
• 2:39:36
  Speaker 1: her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy fire.
• 2:39:40
  Speaker 1: He remembered the shyness he had felt at approaching her
• 2:39:43
  Speaker 1: in his uncouth clothes, and then the lighting up of
• 2:39:45
  Speaker 1: her face, and the way she had broken through the
• 2:39:47
  Speaker 1: group to come to him with the cup in her hand.
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 1: They had sat for a few minutes on the fallen
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: log by the pond, and she had missed her gold
• 2:39:55
  Speaker 1: locket and set the young men searching for it. And
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: it was Ethan who had spied it in the moss.
• 2:40:00
  Speaker 1: That was all. But all Their intercourse had been made
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 1: up of just such inarticulate flashes, when they seemed to
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 1: come suddenly upon happiness, as if they had surprised a
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: butterfly in the winter woods. It was right there I
• 2:40:13
  Speaker 1: found your locket, he said, pushing his foot into a
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: dense tuft of blueberry bushes. I never saw anybody with
• 2:40:20
  Speaker 1: such sharp eyes, she answered. She sat down on the
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: tree trunk in the sun, and he sat down beside her.
• 2:40:28
  Speaker 1: You were as pretty as a picture in that pink hat.
• 2:40:31
  Speaker 1: He said, She laughed with pleasure. Oh, I guess it
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: was the hat she rejoined. They had never before avowed
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: their inclination so openly, and Ethan for a moment had
• 2:40:42
  Speaker 1: the illusion that he was a free man wooing the
• 2:40:45
  Speaker 1: girl he meant to marry. He looked at her hair
• 2:40:47
  Speaker 1: and longed to touch it again, and to tell her
• 2:40:50
  Speaker 1: that it smelt of the woods, but he had never
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: learned to say such things. Suddenly she rose to her
• 2:40:56
  Speaker 1: feet and said, we mustn't stay here any longer. He
• 2:41:00
  Speaker 1: continued to gaze at her, vaguely, only half roused from
• 2:41:03
  Speaker 1: his dream. There's plenty of time, he answered. They stood
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: looking at each other as if the eyes of each
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: were straining to absorb and hold fast the other's image.
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: There were things he had to say to her before
• 2:41:15
  Speaker 1: they parted, but he could not say them in that
• 2:41:17
  Speaker 1: place of summer memories, And he turned and followed her
• 2:41:20
  Speaker 1: in silence to the sleigh. As they drove away, the
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: sun sank behind the hill, and the pine bowls turned
• 2:41:26
  Speaker 1: from red to gray. By a devious track between the fields,
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: they wound back to the Starkfield Road under the open sky.
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: The light was still clear, with a reflection of cold
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: red on the eastern hills. The clumps of trees and
• 2:41:39
  Speaker 1: the snow seemed to draw together in ruffled lumps, like
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: birds with their heads under their wings, and the sky,
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more alone.
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: As they turned into the Starkfield Road, Ethan said, Matt,
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: what do you mean to do? She did not answer
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: at once, but at length she said, I'll try to
• 2:42:01
  Speaker 1: get a place in a store. You know you can't
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: do it. The bad air and standing all day nearly
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: killed you before. I'm a lot stronger than I was
• 2:42:11
  Speaker 1: before I came to Stockfield, and now you're going to
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 1: throw away all the good it's done you. There seemed
• 2:42:17
  Speaker 1: to be no answer to this, and again they drove
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: on for a while without speaking, With every yard of
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: the way, some spot where they had stood and laughed
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: together or been silent, clutched at Ethan and dragged him back.
• 2:42:30
  Speaker 1: Isn't there any of your father's folks could help you?
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: There isn't any of em, I'd ask. He lowered his
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: voice to say, you know there's nothing I wouldn't do
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: for you if I could. I know there isn't, but
• 2:42:44
  Speaker 1: I can't. She was silent, but he felt a slight
• 2:42:48
  Speaker 1: tremor in the shoulder against his Oh, Matt, he broke out.
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: If I could a gone with you now, i'd a
• 2:42:55
  Speaker 1: done it. She turned to him, pulling a scrap of
• 2:42:58
  Speaker 1: paper from her breast. Ethan, I found this, she stammered.
• 2:43:04
  Speaker 1: Even in the failing light, he saw it was the
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 1: letter to his wife that he had begun the night
• 2:43:08
  Speaker 1: before and forgotten to destroy. Through his astonishment, there ran
• 2:43:11
  Speaker 1: a fierce thrill of joy. Matt. He cried, if I
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: could have done it, would you, Oh Ethan, Ethan, what's
• 2:43:20
  Speaker 1: the use With a sudden movement, She tore the letter
• 2:43:23
  Speaker 1: in shreds and sent them fluttering off into the snow.
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 1: Tell me, mat tell me, he adjured her. She was
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 1: silent for a moment. Then she said, in such a
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: low tone that he had to stoop his head to
• 2:43:35
  Speaker 1: hear her. I used to think of it sometimes summer nights,
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 1: when the moon was so bright I couldn't sleep. His
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 1: heart reeled with the sweetness of it. As long ago
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: as that, she answered, as if the date had been
• 2:43:51
  Speaker 1: long fixed for her. The first time was at Shadow Pond.
• 2:43:56
  Speaker 1: Was that why you gave me my coffee before the others.
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, did I. I was dreadfully put out
• 2:44:03
  Speaker 1: when you wouldn't go to the picnic with me. And
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 1: then when I saw you coming down the road, I
• 2:44:08
  Speaker 1: thought maybe you'd gone home that way a purpose, and
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: that made me glad. They were silent again. They had
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 1: reached the point where the road dipped to the hollow
• 2:44:17
  Speaker 1: by Ethan's mill, and as they descended, the darkness descended
• 2:44:20
  Speaker 1: with them, dropping down like a black veil from the
• 2:44:23
  Speaker 1: heavy hemlock boughs. I'm tied hand and foot, Matt, there
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: isn't a thing I can do, he began again. You
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: must write to me sometimes, Ethan, Oh what good'll writing do?
• 2:44:36
  Speaker 1: I want to put out my hand and touch you.
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 1: I want to do for you and care for you.
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: I want to be there when you're sick and when
• 2:44:43
  Speaker 1: you're lonesome. You mustn't think but what i'll do? All right?
• 2:44:48
  Speaker 1: You won't need me? You mean, I suppose you'll marry, oh, Ethan,
• 2:44:53
  Speaker 1: she cried, I don't know how it is you make
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: me feel. Mat. I'd almost rather have you dead than that.
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: Oh I wish I was, I wish I was. She sobbed.
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: The sound of her weeping shook him out of his
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: dark anger, and he felt ashamed. Don't let's talk that way,
• 2:45:12
  Speaker 1: he whispered. Why shouldn't we when it's true. I've been
• 2:45:16
  Speaker 1: wishing it every minute of the day. Mat you be quiet,
• 2:45:20
  Speaker 1: don't you say it? There's never anybody been good to me.
• 2:45:24
  Speaker 1: But you don't say that either when I can't lift
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: a hand for you. Yes, but it's true just the same.
• 2:45:33
  Speaker 1: They had reached the top of school House Hill, and
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: Starkfield lay below them in the twilight. A cutter mounting
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 1: the road from the village passed them by in a
• 2:45:41
  Speaker 1: joyous flutter of bells, and they straightened themselves and looked
• 2:45:45
  Speaker 1: ahead with rigid faces. Along the main street, lights had
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 1: begun to shine from the house fronts, and stray figures
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: were turning in here and there at the gates. Ethan,
• 2:45:54
  Speaker 1: with a touch of his whip, roused the Sorrel to
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: a languid trot. As they drew near the end of
• 2:45:59
  Speaker 1: the the cries of children reached them, and they saw
• 2:46:02
  Speaker 1: a knot of boys with sleds behind them, scattering across
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: the open space before the church. I guess this will
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: be their last coast for a day. Or two, Ethan said,
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 1: looking up at the mild sky. Mattie was silent, and
• 2:46:17
  Speaker 1: he added, we were to have gone down last night.
• 2:46:21
  Speaker 1: Still she did not speak, and, prompted by an obscure
• 2:46:24
  Speaker 1: desire to help himself and her through their miserable last hour,
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: he went on discursively. Ain't it funny we haven't been
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: down together but just that once last winter? She answered,
• 2:46:36
  Speaker 1: It wasn't often I got down to the village, that's so,
• 2:46:40
  Speaker 1: he said. They had reached the crest of the Corbury Road,
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: and between the indistinct white glimmer of the church and
• 2:46:47
  Speaker 1: the black curtain of the Varnum spruces, the slope stretched
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 1: away below them without a sled on its length. Sumaratic
• 2:46:53
  Speaker 1: impulse prompted Ethan to say, how do you like me
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: to take you down now? She forced a laugh. Why
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: there isn't time. There's all the time we want come along.
• 2:47:06
  Speaker 1: His one desire now was to postpone the moment of
• 2:47:08
  Speaker 1: turning the sorrel toward the flats. But the girl, she faltered,
• 2:47:13
  Speaker 1: The girl'll be waiting at the station. Well let her wait.
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 1: You'd have to if she didn't come. The note of
• 2:47:21
  Speaker 1: authority in his voice seemed to subdue her, and when
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: he had jumped from the sleigh, she let him help
• 2:47:26
  Speaker 1: her out, saying, only with a vague feint of reluctance,
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: but there isn't a sled round anywheres. Yes, there is
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: right over there under the spruces. He threw the bear
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 1: skin over the sorrel, who stood passively by the roadside,
• 2:47:40
  Speaker 1: hanging a meditative head. Then he caught Mattie's hand and
• 2:47:43
  Speaker 1: drew her after him toward the sled. She seated herself obediently,
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 1: and he took his place behind her, so close that
• 2:47:50
  Speaker 1: her hair brushed his face. All right, matt he called out,
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: as if the width of the road had been between them.
• 2:47:57
  Speaker 1: She turned her head to say, it's dreadful. Are you
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: sure you can see? He laughed contemptuously, I could go
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 1: down this coast with my eyes tied. And she laughed
• 2:48:08
  Speaker 1: with him, as if she liked his audacity. Nevertheless, he
• 2:48:11
  Speaker 1: sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long hill,
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: for it was the most confusing hour of the evening,
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 1: the hour when the last clearness from the upper skies
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: merged with the rising night in a blur that disguises
• 2:48:23
  Speaker 1: landmarks and falsifies distances, now, he cried. The sledge started
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk,
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: night opening out below them and the air singing by
• 2:48:38
  Speaker 1: like an organ. Mattie sat perfectly still. But as they
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: reached the bend at the foot of the hill, where
• 2:48:44
  Speaker 1: the big elm thrust out a deadly elbow, he fancied
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: that she shrank a little closer. Don't be scared, matt
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: he cried exultantly, as they spun safely past it and
• 2:48:54
  Speaker 1: flew down the second slope. And when they reached the
• 2:48:57
  Speaker 1: level ground beyond and the speed of the sledge began
• 2:48:59
  Speaker 1: to slacken, he heard her give a little laugh of glee.
• 2:49:03
  Speaker 1: They sprang off and started to walk back up the hill.
• 2:49:05
  Speaker 1: Ethan dragged the sledge with one hand and passed the
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: other through Matty's arm. Were you scared I'd run you
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 1: into the elm, he asked, with a boyish laugh. I
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 1: told you I was never scared with you, she answered.
• 2:49:18
  Speaker 1: The strange exultation of his mood had brought on one
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: of his rare fits of boastfulness. It is a tricky
• 2:49:23
  Speaker 1: place though the leasts were, But we never come up again.
• 2:49:26
  Speaker 1: But I can measure distances to a hair's breadth always could,
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: She murmured, I always say you've got the surest eye.
• 2:49:36
  Speaker 1: Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: leaned on each other without speaking. But at every step
• 2:49:42
  Speaker 1: of their climb, Ethan said to himself, it's the last
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 1: time we'll ever walk together. They mounted slowly to the
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: top of the hill. When they were abreast of the church,
• 2:49:51
  Speaker 1: he stooped his head to her to ask, are you tired?
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: And she answered, breathing quickly. It was splendid. With the
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: pressure of his arm, he guided her toward the Norway Spruces.
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 1: I guess this sled must be ned Hale's. Anyhow, I'll
• 2:50:06
  Speaker 1: leave it where I found it. He drew the sled
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: up to the Varnum gate and rested it against the fence.
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 1: As he raised himself, he suddenly felt Mattie close to
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: him among the shadows. Is this where ned and Ruth
• 2:50:18
  Speaker 1: kissed each other. She whispered breathlessly and flung her arms
• 2:50:22
  Speaker 1: about him, Her lips groping for his swept over his face,
• 2:50:26
  Speaker 1: and he held her fast in a rapture of surprise.
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: Good Bye, good bye, she stammered and kissed him again. Oh, Matt,
• 2:50:36
  Speaker 1: I can't let you go, broke from him in the
• 2:50:38
  Speaker 1: same old cry. She freed herself from his hold, and
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: he heard her sobbing. Oh I can't go either, she wailed, Matt.
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: What'll we do? What'll we do? They clung to each
• 2:50:51
  Speaker 1: other's hands like children, and her body shook with desperate sobs.
• 2:50:56
  Speaker 1: Through the stillness, they heard the church clock striking five. Oh, Ethan,
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: it's time, she cried. He drew her back to him.
• 2:51:05
  Speaker 1: Time for what you don't suppose I'm going to leave
• 2:51:08
  Speaker 1: you now? If I missed my train, where'd I go?
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: Where are you going? If you catch it? She stood silent,
• 2:51:15
  Speaker 1: her hands lying cold and relaxed in his What's the
• 2:51:19
  Speaker 1: good of either of us going anywheres without the other one? Now?
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 1: He said. She remained motionless, as if she had not
• 2:51:25
  Speaker 1: heard him. Then she snatched her hands from his, threw
• 2:51:29
  Speaker 1: her arms about his neck, and pressed a sudden, drenched
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 1: cheek against his face. Ethan, Ethan, I want you to
• 2:51:36
  Speaker 1: take me down again, down where the coast, right off,
• 2:51:41
  Speaker 1: she panted, So it will never come up any more,
• 2:51:45
  Speaker 1: mat What on earth do you mean? She put her
• 2:51:48
  Speaker 1: lips close against his ear to say, right into the
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: big elm, you said you could, so't we'd never have
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 1: to leave each other any more. Why what are you
• 2:51:57
  Speaker 1: talking of? You're crazy? I'm not crazy, but I will
• 2:52:02
  Speaker 1: be if I leave you. Oh, Matt, Matt, he groaned.
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: She tightened her fierce hold about his neck. Her face
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: lay close to his face. Ethan, Where'll I go if
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: I leave you? I don't know how to get along alone?
• 2:52:17
  Speaker 1: You said so yourself. Just now, nobody but you was
• 2:52:21
  Speaker 1: ever good to me. And there'll be that strange girl
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 1: in the house, and shall sleep in my bed where
• 2:52:27
  Speaker 1: I used to lay nights and listen to hear you
• 2:52:29
  Speaker 1: come up the stairs. The words were like fragments torn
• 2:52:33
  Speaker 1: from his heart. With them came the hated vision of
• 2:52:36
  Speaker 1: the house he was going back to, of the stairs
• 2:52:38
  Speaker 1: he would have to go up every night, of the
• 2:52:40
  Speaker 1: woman who would wait for him there. And the sweetness
• 2:52:43
  Speaker 1: of Mattie's avowal, The wild wonder of knowing at last
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 1: that all that had happened to him had happened to
• 2:52:48
  Speaker 1: her too, made the other vision more abhorrent, the other
• 2:52:52
  Speaker 1: life more intolerable to return to her. Pleadings still came
• 2:52:56
  Speaker 1: to him between short sobs, but he no longer heard
• 2:52:59
  Speaker 1: what she was saying. Her hat had slipped back, and
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: he was stroking her hair. He wanted to get the
• 2:53:04
  Speaker 1: feeling of it into his hand so that it would
• 2:53:06
  Speaker 1: sleep there like a seed in winter. Once he found
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: her mouth again, and they seemed to be by the
• 2:53:11
  Speaker 1: pond together in the burning august sun. But his cheek
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 1: touched hers, and it was cold and full of weeping.
• 2:53:18
  Speaker 1: And he saw the road to the flats under the night,
• 2:53:20
  Speaker 1: and heard the whistle of the train up the line.
• 2:53:23
  Speaker 1: The spruces swathed them in blackness and silence. They might
• 2:53:26
  Speaker 1: have been in their coffins underground. He said to himself,
• 2:53:31
  Speaker 1: perhaps it'll feel like this, and then again after this,
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: I sha'n't feel anything. Suddenly he heard the old sorrel
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 1: whinny across the road, and thought, he's wondering why he
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't get his supper come. Mattie whispered, tugging at his hand.
• 2:53:49
  Speaker 1: Her somber violence constrained him. She seemed the embodied instrument
• 2:53:53
  Speaker 1: of fate. He pulled the sled out, blinking like a
• 2:53:56
  Speaker 1: night bird, as he passed from the shade of the
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: spruces into the transparent dust the open The slope below
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 1: them was deserted. All Starkfield was at supper, and not
• 2:54:05
  Speaker 1: a figure crossed the open space before the church. The sky,
• 2:54:09
  Speaker 1: swollen with the clouds that announce a thaw, hung as
• 2:54:12
  Speaker 1: low as before a summer storm. He strained his eyes
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 1: through the dimness, and they seemed less keen, less capable
• 2:54:19
  Speaker 1: than usual. He took his seat on the sledge, and
• 2:54:22
  Speaker 1: Mattie instantly placed herself in front of him. Her hat
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: had fallen into the snow, and his lips were in
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: her hair. He stretched out his legs, drove his heels
• 2:54:31
  Speaker 1: into the road to keep the sledge from slipping forward,
• 2:54:33
  Speaker 1: and bent her head back between his hands. Then suddenly
• 2:54:36
  Speaker 1: he sprang up again. Get up, he ordered her. It
• 2:54:41
  Speaker 1: was the tone she always heeded, but she cowered down
• 2:54:44
  Speaker 1: in her seat, repeating vehemently. No, no, no, get up.
• 2:54:50
  Speaker 1: Why I want to sit in front? No? No, how
• 2:54:56
  Speaker 1: can you steer in front? I don't have to. We'll
• 2:54:59
  Speaker 1: follow the They spoke in smothered whispers, as though the
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: Knight were listening. Get up, get up, he urged her,
• 2:55:08
  Speaker 1: but she kept on, repeating, why do you want to
• 2:55:10
  Speaker 1: sit in front? Because I because I want to feel
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 1: you holding me. He stammered and dragged her to her feet.
• 2:55:19
  Speaker 1: The answer seemed to satisfy her, or else she yielded
• 2:55:22
  Speaker 1: to the power of his voice. He bent down, feeling
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: in the obscurity for the glassy slide worn by preceding coasters,
• 2:55:28
  Speaker 1: and placed the runners carefully between its edges. She waited
• 2:55:32
  Speaker 1: while he seated himself with crossed legs in the front
• 2:55:34
  Speaker 1: of the sledge. Then she crouched quickly down at his
• 2:55:37
  Speaker 1: back and clasped her arms about him. Her breath in
• 2:55:40
  Speaker 1: his neck set him shuddering again, and he almost sprang
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: from his seat, but in a flash he remembered the alternative.
• 2:55:47
  Speaker 1: She was right, This was better than parting. He leaned
• 2:55:50
  Speaker 1: back and drew her mouth to his. Just as they started,
• 2:55:54
  Speaker 1: he heard the sorrels whinny again, and the familiar wistful call,
• 2:55:58
  Speaker 1: and all the confused images it brought with it went
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: with him down the first reach of the road. Half
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: Way down, there was a sudden drop, then arise, and
• 2:56:06
  Speaker 1: after that another long, delirious descent as they took wing.
• 2:56:10
  Speaker 1: For this it seemed to him that they were flying, indeed,
• 2:56:14
  Speaker 1: flying far up into the cloudy night, with stark Field
• 2:56:17
  Speaker 1: immeasurably below them, falling away like a speck and space.
• 2:56:21
  Speaker 1: Then the big Elms shot up ahead, lying in wait
• 2:56:24
  Speaker 1: for them at the bend of the road, and he
• 2:56:25
  Speaker 1: said between his teeth, we can fetch it. I know
• 2:56:29
  Speaker 1: we can fetch it. As they flew toward the tree,
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and her blood seemed to
• 2:56:34
  Speaker 1: be in his veins. Once or twice the sledge swerved
• 2:56:37
  Speaker 1: a little under them. He slanted his body to keep
• 2:56:40
  Speaker 1: it headed for the elm, repeating to himself again and again,
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: I know we can fetch it, and little phrases she
• 2:56:46
  Speaker 1: had spoken ran through his head and danced before him
• 2:56:49
  Speaker 1: on the air. The big tree loomed bigger and closer,
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 1: and as they bore down on it, he thought, it's
• 2:56:55
  Speaker 1: waiting for us, it seems to know. But suddenly his
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 1: wife's face, with twisted, monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between him
• 2:57:03
  Speaker 1: and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 1: brush it aside. The sledge swerved in response, but he
• 2:57:09
  Speaker 1: righted it again, kept it straight, and drove down on
• 2:57:12
  Speaker 1: the black projecting mass. There was a last instant when
• 2:57:15
  Speaker 1: the air shot past him like millions of fiery wires,
• 2:57:18
  Speaker 1: and then the elm. The sky was still thick, but
• 2:57:23
  Speaker 1: looking straight up he saw a single star, and tried
• 2:57:26
  Speaker 1: vaguely to reckon whether it were serious or or the
• 2:57:31
  Speaker 1: effort tired him too much had he closed his heavy
• 2:57:33
  Speaker 1: lids and thought that he would sleep. The stillness was
• 2:57:36
  Speaker 1: so profound that he heard a little animal twittering somewhere
• 2:57:39
  Speaker 1: near by under the snow. It made a small, frightened
• 2:57:42
  Speaker 1: cheap like a field mouse, and he wondered languidly if
• 2:57:45
  Speaker 1: it were hurt. Then he understood that it must be
• 2:57:48
  Speaker 1: in pain, pain so excruciating that he seemed mysteriously to
• 2:57:52
  Speaker 1: feel it shooting through his own body. He tried in
• 2:57:54
  Speaker 1: vain to roll over in the direction of the sound,
• 2:57:57
  Speaker 1: and stretched his left arm out across the snow. And
• 2:58:00
  Speaker 1: now it was as though he felt, rather than heard,
• 2:58:02
  Speaker 1: the twittering. It seemed to be under his palm, which
• 2:58:05
  Speaker 1: rested on something soft and springy. The thought of the
• 2:58:09
  Speaker 1: animal's suffering was intolerable to him, and he struggled to
• 2:58:12
  Speaker 1: raise himself and could not, because a rock or some
• 2:58:15
  Speaker 1: huge mass seemed to be lying on him, but he
• 2:58:18
  Speaker 1: continued to finger about cautiously with his left hand, thinking
• 2:58:22
  Speaker 1: he might get hold of the little creature and help it.
• 2:58:24
  Speaker 1: And all at once he knew that the soft thing
• 2:58:26
  Speaker 1: he had touched was Mattie's hair, and that his hand
• 2:58:29
  Speaker 1: was on her face. He dragged himself to his knees,
• 2:58:33
  Speaker 1: the monstrous load on him moving with him as he moved,
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: and his hand went over and over her face, and
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: he felt that the twittering came from her lips. He
• 2:58:41
  Speaker 1: got his face down close to hers, with his ear
• 2:58:44
  Speaker 1: to her mouth, and in the darkness he saw her
• 2:58:46
  Speaker 1: eyes open and heard her say his name. Oh, matt
• 2:58:51
  Speaker 1: I thought we'd fetched it, he moaned, And far off
• 2:58:55
  Speaker 1: up the hill he heard the sorrel whinnie and thought
• 2:58:59
  Speaker 1: I ought to begetting him his feed. The querulous drone
• 2:59:06
  Speaker 1: ceased as I entered Frome's kitchen, and of the two
• 2:59:09
  Speaker 1: women sitting there, I could not tell which had been
• 2:59:12
  Speaker 1: the speaker. One of them, on my appearing, raised her tall,
• 2:59:15
  Speaker 1: bony figure from her seat, not as if to welcome me,
• 2:59:18
  Speaker 1: for she threw me no more than a brief glance
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: of surprise, but simply to set about preparing the meal,
• 2:59:23
  Speaker 1: which Frome's absence had delayed. A slatternly calico wrapper hung
• 2:59:27
  Speaker 1: from her shoulders, and the wisps of her thin gray
• 2:59:30
  Speaker 1: hair were drawn away from a high forehead and fastened
• 2:59:33
  Speaker 1: at the back by a broken comb. She had pale,
• 2:59:36
  Speaker 1: opaque eyes which revealed nothing and reflected nothing, and her
• 2:59:39
  Speaker 1: narrow lips were of the same sallow color as her face.
• 2:59:43
  Speaker 1: The other woman was much smaller and slighter. She sat
• 2:59:46
  Speaker 1: huddled in an arm chair near the stove, and when
• 2:59:48
  Speaker 1: I came in, she turned her head quickly toward me
• 2:59:51
  Speaker 1: without the least corresponding movement of her body. Her hair
• 2:59:55
  Speaker 1: was as gray as her companion's, her face as bloodless
• 2:59:57
  Speaker 1: and shriveled, but amber tinted with swarthy shadows, sharpening the
• 3:00:01
  Speaker 1: nose and hollowing the temples. Under her shapeless dress, her
• 3:00:05
  Speaker 1: body kept its limp immobility, and her dark eyes had
• 3:00:08
  Speaker 1: the bright, witch like stare that disease of the spine
• 3:00:11
  Speaker 1: sometimes gives. Even for that part of the country, the
• 3:00:15
  Speaker 1: kitchen was a poor looking place, with the exception of
• 3:00:18
  Speaker 1: the dark eyed woman's chair, which looked like a soiled
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: relic of luxury bought at a country auction. The furniture
• 3:00:24
  Speaker 1: was of the roughest kind. Three coarse china plates and
• 3:00:27
  Speaker 1: a broken nosed milk jug had been set on a
• 3:00:29
  Speaker 1: greasy table scored with knife cuts, and a couple of
• 3:00:32
  Speaker 1: straw bottomed chairs, and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine
• 3:00:35
  Speaker 1: stood meagerly against the plaster walls. Myatt's cold here. The
• 3:00:40
  Speaker 1: fire must be most out from, said, glancing about him
• 3:00:43
  Speaker 1: apologetically as he followed me in. The tall woman, who
• 3:00:47
  Speaker 1: had moved away from us toward the dresser, took no notice,
• 3:00:51
  Speaker 1: but the other from her cushioned niche answered, complainingly in
• 3:00:54
  Speaker 1: a high, thin voice, It's only just been made up
• 3:00:57
  Speaker 1: this very minute. Zena fell asleep and slep ever so long,
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: and I thought I'd be frozen stiff before I could
• 3:01:03
  Speaker 1: wake her up and get her attend to it. I
• 3:01:06
  Speaker 1: knew then that it was she who had been speaking
• 3:01:08
  Speaker 1: when we entered. Her companion, who was just coming back
• 3:01:11
  Speaker 1: to the table with the remains of a cold mince
• 3:01:13
  Speaker 1: pie and a battered pie dish, set down her unappetizing
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: burden without appearing to hear the accusation brought against her.
• 3:01:20
  Speaker 1: Frome stood hesitatingly before her as she advanced. Then he
• 3:01:24
  Speaker 1: looked at me and said, this is my wife, Miss Frome.
• 3:01:28
  Speaker 1: After another interval, he added, turning toward the figure in
• 3:01:31
  Speaker 1: the arm chair, and this is miss Mattie Silver. Missus
• 3:01:38
  Speaker 1: Hale tender soul had pictured me as lost in the
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: flats and buried under a snow drift. And so lively
• 3:01:44
  Speaker 1: was her satisfaction on seeing me safely restored to her
• 3:01:46
  Speaker 1: the next morning that I felt my peril had caused
• 3:01:49
  Speaker 1: me to advance several degrees in her favor. Great was
• 3:01:52
  Speaker 1: her amazement, and that of old Missus Varnum on learning
• 3:01:55
  Speaker 1: that Ethan Frome's old horse had carried me to and
• 3:01:57
  Speaker 1: from Corbury Junction through the worst lizard of the winter.
• 3:02:01
  Speaker 1: Greater still their surprise when they heard that his master
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: had taken me in for the night. Beneath their wondering exclamations,
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: I felt a secret curiosity to know what impressions I
• 3:02:10
  Speaker 1: had received from my night in the Frome household, and
• 3:02:12
  Speaker 1: divine that the best way of breaking down their reserve
• 3:02:15
  Speaker 1: was to let them try to penetrate mine. I therefore
• 3:02:18
  Speaker 1: confined myself to saying, in a matter of fact tone,
• 3:02:21
  Speaker 1: that I had been received with great kindness, and that
• 3:02:23
  Speaker 1: Frome had made a bed for me in a room
• 3:02:25
  Speaker 1: on the ground floor, which seemed in happier days to
• 3:02:27
  Speaker 1: have been fitted up as a kind of writing room
• 3:02:29
  Speaker 1: or study. Well, missus Hale mused, in such a storm,
• 3:02:33
  Speaker 1: I suppose he felt he couldn't do less than take
• 3:02:35
  Speaker 1: you in. But I guess it went hard with Ethan.
• 3:02:38
  Speaker 1: I don't believe. But what you're the only stranger has
• 3:02:40
  Speaker 1: set foot in that house for over twenty years. He's
• 3:02:43
  Speaker 1: that proud. He don't even like his old friends to
• 3:02:45
  Speaker 1: go there. And I don't know as any do any
• 3:02:47
  Speaker 1: more except myself and the doctor. You still go there,
• 3:02:51
  Speaker 1: missus Hale, I ventured. I used to go a good
• 3:02:55
  Speaker 1: deal after the accident when I was first married, but
• 3:02:58
  Speaker 1: after a while I got to think it made him
• 3:02:59
  Speaker 1: feel worse to see us. And then one thing in
• 3:03:01
  Speaker 1: another came and my own troubles. But I generally make
• 3:03:05
  Speaker 1: out to drive over there round about New Year's and
• 3:03:07
  Speaker 1: once in the summer only. I try always to pick
• 3:03:10
  Speaker 1: a day when Ethan's off somewheres. It's bad enough to
• 3:03:13
  Speaker 1: see the two women sitting there, but his face when
• 3:03:15
  Speaker 1: he looks round that bare place just kills me. You see,
• 3:03:20
  Speaker 1: I can look back and call it up in his
• 3:03:21
  Speaker 1: mother's day before their troubles. Old Missus Varnum, by this
• 3:03:25
  Speaker 1: time had gone up to bed, and her daughter and
• 3:03:27
  Speaker 1: I were sitting alone after supper in the austere seclusion
• 3:03:31
  Speaker 1: of the horsehair parlor. Missus Hale glanced at me tentatively,
• 3:03:34
  Speaker 1: as though trying to see how much footing my conjectures
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: gave her. And I guess that if she had kept
• 3:03:39
  Speaker 1: silence till now, it was because she had been waiting
• 3:03:42
  Speaker 1: through all the years for some one who should see
• 3:03:44
  Speaker 1: what she alone had seen. I waited to let her
• 3:03:48
  Speaker 1: trust in me gather strength before I said, yes, it's
• 3:03:51
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. Seeing all three of them there together, She
• 3:03:56
  Speaker 1: drew her mild brows into a frown of pain. It
• 3:03:59
  Speaker 1: was just off from the beginning. I was here in
• 3:04:02
  Speaker 1: the house when they were carried up. They laid Mattie
• 3:04:04
  Speaker 1: Silver in the room you're in. She and I were
• 3:04:07
  Speaker 1: great friends, and she was to have been my bridesmaid
• 3:04:09
  Speaker 1: in the spring. When she came to I went up
• 3:04:12
  Speaker 1: to her and stayed all night. They gave her things
• 3:04:15
  Speaker 1: to quiet her, and she didn't know much till toward morning,
• 3:04:18
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, she woke up just
• 3:04:20
  Speaker 1: like herself and looked straight at me out of her
• 3:04:23
  Speaker 1: big eyes and said, oh, I don't know why I'm
• 3:04:26
  Speaker 1: telling you all this. Missus Hale broke off crying. She
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: took off her spectacles, wiped the moisture from them, and
• 3:04:33
  Speaker 1: put them on again with an unsteady hand. It got
• 3:04:36
  Speaker 1: about the next day. She went on that Scena Frome
• 3:04:40
  Speaker 1: had sent Mattie off in a hurry because she had
• 3:04:41
  Speaker 1: a hired girl coming, and the folks here could never
• 3:04:44
  Speaker 1: rightly tell what she and Ethan were doing that night coasting,
• 3:04:47
  Speaker 1: when they'd ought to have been on their way to
• 3:04:48
  Speaker 1: the flats to catch the train. I never knew myself
• 3:04:51
  Speaker 1: what Zina thought. I don't to this day. Nobody knows
• 3:04:55
  Speaker 1: Zina's thoughts. Anyhow, when she heard of the accident, she
• 3:04:59
  Speaker 1: came right in and stayed with Ethan over to the
• 3:05:01
  Speaker 1: minister's where they'd carried him. And as soon as the
• 3:05:03
  Speaker 1: doctor said that Mattie could be moved, Cena sent for
• 3:05:06
  Speaker 1: her and took her back to the farm, and there
• 3:05:10
  Speaker 1: she's been ever since. Missus Hale answered simply, there was
• 3:05:14
  Speaker 1: nowhere else for her to go, and my heart tightened
• 3:05:17
  Speaker 1: at the thought of the hard compulsions of the poor. Yes,
• 3:05:21
  Speaker 1: there she's been, missus Hale continued. Hen Zena's done for
• 3:05:25
  Speaker 1: her and done for Ethan as good as she could.
• 3:05:27
  Speaker 1: It was a miracle considering how sick she was, But
• 3:05:30
  Speaker 1: she seemed to be raised right up just when the
• 3:05:32
  Speaker 1: call came to her. Not as she's ever given up doctoring,
• 3:05:36
  Speaker 1: and she's had six bells right along. But she's had
• 3:05:38
  Speaker 1: the strength given to her to care for those two
• 3:05:41
  Speaker 1: for over twenty years. And before the accident came, she
• 3:05:44
  Speaker 1: thought she couldn't even care for herself. Missus Hale paused
• 3:05:47
  Speaker 1: a moment, and I remained silent, plunged in the vision
• 3:05:50
  Speaker 1: of what her words evoked. It's horrible for them all,
• 3:05:54
  Speaker 1: I murmured, Yes, it's pretty bad. They ain't any of
• 3:05:59
  Speaker 1: em easy peap either. Mattie was before the accident. I
• 3:06:03
  Speaker 1: never knew a sweeter nature. But she's suffered too much.
• 3:06:07
  Speaker 1: That's what I always say when folks tell me how
• 3:06:09
  Speaker 1: she's soured. And Zena she was always cranky, nought But
• 3:06:13
  Speaker 1: what she bears with Mattie wonderful. I've seen that myself.
• 3:06:17
  Speaker 1: But sometimes the two of them get going at each other,
• 3:06:20
  Speaker 1: and then Ethan's face had break your heart. When I
• 3:06:23
  Speaker 1: see that, I think it's Hymn that suffers most. Anyhow,
• 3:06:27
  Speaker 1: it ain't Zena because she ain't got the time. It's
• 3:06:30
  Speaker 1: a pity, though, missus Hale ended, sighing, that they're all
• 3:06:35
  Speaker 1: shut up there in that one kitchen. In the summer time,
• 3:06:38
  Speaker 1: unpleasant days, they move Mattie into the parlor or out
• 3:06:41
  Speaker 1: in the door yard, and that makes it easier. But
• 3:06:44
  Speaker 1: winters there's the fires to be thought of, and the
• 3:06:47
  Speaker 1: rain of dime despair. Up at the fromes, missus Hale
• 3:06:50
  Speaker 1: drew a deep breath, as though her memory were eased
• 3:06:53
  Speaker 1: of its long burden, and she had no more to say.
• 3:06:56
  Speaker 1: But suddenly an impulse of complete avowal seized her. She
• 3:06:59
  Speaker 1: took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the
• 3:07:02
  Speaker 1: bead work table cover, and went on with lowered voice.
• 3:07:06
  Speaker 1: There was one day, about a week after the accident,
• 3:07:09
  Speaker 1: when they all thought Matty couldn't live. Well, I say,
• 3:07:14
  Speaker 1: it's a pity she did. I said it right out
• 3:07:16
  Speaker 1: to our minister once, and he was shocked at me.
• 3:07:19
  Speaker 1: Only he wasn't with me that morning when she first
• 3:07:21
  Speaker 1: came too, had I say, if she'd had died, Ethan
• 3:07:25
  Speaker 1: might have lived. And the way they are now, I
• 3:07:28
  Speaker 1: don't seize there's much difference between the Fromes up at
• 3:07:31
  Speaker 1: the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard, except
• 3:07:34
  Speaker 1: that down there they're all quiet, and the women have
• 3:07:37
  Speaker 1: got to hold their tongues. End of Ethan Frome