What Is Mattie s Solution to Never Having to Leave Ethan Again

Ethan Frome
Edith Wharton

THE STORY, continued

CHAPTER V

Supper is over. You'll at present come across whether Ethan's dream will be realized- whether he'll accept a cozy evening past the burn down with Mattie.

Mattie sits by the lamp with a chip of sewing. Feeling content after a skilful twenty-four hour period's work, Ethan stretches his stocking anxiety to the burn down and lights his pipe. He asks Mattie to sit down closer, for he wants to look at her. When she settles in Zeena's rocker, Ethan has a momentary shock. He sees Zeena's confront instead of Mattie's.

Annotation: This domestic scene is never as blissful as it seems. You lot saw at supper how Mattie and Ethan feel Zeena's presence in the firm. She haunts this scene, also. Symbolized past the cat, Zeena has a firm agree on Ethan's conscience. Her grip will tighten as the book goes on.

Uneasy in Zeena'south place, Mattie moves dorsum by the lamp. The true cat, similar a stand up-in for its mistress, jumps into the vacant chair and through narrowed optics watches Mattie and Ethan converse.

They talk naturally and simply of everyday things: the weather condition, Starkfield gossip, the next church social. Eavesdropping on them, you'd recall this is just another evening in a long cord of evenings they have shared. Ethan knows they're pretending to be married, and he'd like to continue the illusion equally long as he can.

At length he says to Mattie, "This is the dark we were to take gone coasting." His tone suggests that they'll become some other fourth dimension. "Nosotros might go tomorrow if there's a moon." Seeing Mattie's enthusiasm, he becomes bolder. He describes the perils of coasting down the Corbury road, especially at the corner down by the big elm. "If a young man didn't keep his eyes open up he'd go plumb into it," he says. Neither Mattie or Ethan wants to be frightened one-half to decease on Corbury route, so they agree that maybe they're better off staying dwelling house.

Note: You heard them talk of the menacing elm tree earlier in the story. Why should this big tree demand then much attention? After y'all can count on the presence of the elm tree to touch the lives of the primary characters.

Mention of the Corbury road emboldens Ethan to reveal what he'd been thinking about all evening. He says to Mattie that under the Varnum spruces "I saw a friend of yours getting kissed." Ethan hopes that talking nigh Ruth and Ned'southward buss might somehow lead to some pocket-sized intimacy betwixt him and Mattie. But equally soon as he has spoken the words, he wishes that he hadn't, for they were besides vulgar and out of place. And they brand Mattie blush to the roots of her hair.

NOTE: Why might Mattie plough ruby so quickly? In the era when the story takes place, etiquette forbade talk in mixed company of about every actual part and function. To talk of kissing or more intimate matters in the presence of unmarried girls was particularly improper. Like any social do, the custom was probably ignored as often equally it was honored. But Mattie is either likewise scared or too naive to break the rules.

Mattie'south embarrassment forces Ethan to keep his altitude. He alludes to Ruth and Ned's impending marriage, a thinly disguised effort to talk to Mattie about her future. Does she want to marry? He could ask her directly, simply he won't dare. "It'll be your turn next," he suggests. Slightly annoyed and a bit nervously, Mattie wonders whether Ethan has raised the topic once again considering Zeena has something against her. "Last dark she seemed to take," she explains. Over again, Zeena intrudes.

To talk openly of Zeena'southward attitude toward Mattie has suddenly moved Ethan and Mattie'southward relationship to a new phase. They've never spoken every bit candidly to each other every bit they practice now. Feeling like conspirators who have gone as well far, they agree to cease talking virtually Zeena. They understand each other with perfect clarity, it seems, a rare moment of 2 minds in perfect harmony. Ethan slides his mitt cautiously toward Mattie, and his fingertips affect the end of the fabric she is sewing. The tension betwixt them is electric.

All of a sudden, a sound! The true cat jumps after a mouse, sending Zeena's empty rocker into a ghostly movement. Ethan is struck with a painful idea that Zeena herself will exist rocking there at this time tomorrow, and he'll never have some other dreamlike evening such as this. His body and encephalon anguish with his sudden return to reality. A terrible weariness takes hold of him. He doesn't know what to do or say. Unaware of what he's doing, he stoops his head and kisses the fleck of cloth in his paw. Mattie has already begun to whorl upward her work, and the fabric glides slowly from his lips.

So ends Mattie and Ethan'due south evening together. They arrange the room for the night, say proficient night, and become upstairs separately. When Mattie closes her bedroom door Ethan remembers "that he had not even touched her paw."

CHAPTER 6

Consider the high hopes Ethan had for his evening with Mattie. Wouldn't you lot await him to be sullen with disappointment the next morning? Only at breakfast he'southward irrationally happy. Why? Nada in his life has changed. He had not even touched Mattie'south fingertip. His cheerfulness mystifies fifty-fifty him.

He reasons that terminal night he had tasted life with Mattie, and he'd done goose egg to spoil it. He feels adept most that.

Annotation: Ethan feels proud to accept resisted temptation. He could have thrown himself at Mattie. Had she resisted- which is very likely- the evening would take been spoiled. Moreover, she might have told Zeena about his advances, or she might have packed her bags and run away. In short, Ethan felt he had nothing to proceeds from giving in to his impulses. Therefore, he kept a cool head. Bravo, Ethan!

Later, setting off to work, he's tempted to tell Mattie, "We shall never be lonely over again like this." Again he resists, aware that a deeper involvement with Mattie can go nowhere. Instead he says matter-of-factly, "I guess I can make out to be habitation for dinner." (By "dinner" Ethan means the midday meal.)

He has a tight schedule for the day's chores: He must haul lumber to the village, purchase glue, and repair the pickle-dish earlier Zeena returns. If all goes well he'll consummate his tasks and nonetheless accept time left to spend alone with Mattie. Merely all does not go well. A sleet storm has coated the roads with ice. The logs are slippery and take twice as long to load onto the sledge. One of his horses slips and falls, injuring a knee which Ethan must wash and bind.

Because of the delays Ethan postpones his trip to Starkfield until after dinner. He must hurry to exist back earlier Zeena arrives. In the village he works aimlessly to unload the logs, then hastens to Michael Eady's shop for the gum. Ethan finds Denis Eady lounging with friends around the stove. Denis, clerking for the solar day, doesn't know where the glue is kept. Impatiently Ethan waits for Denis to search the shop. To Ethan, who's in a dreadful bustle, Denis seems to dawdle deliberately. The search is in vain.

Note: Have yous noticed that each time Denis Eady shows upward, Ethan feels as though he's been slapped in the face? Denis is probably a fine fellow, but to Ethan he is a threat, for Denis is a legitimate suitor for Mattie's manus. Furthermore, Denis' heartiness and cheerful personality brand Ethan squirm. He can't return Denis' warm greeting or a slap on the back.

Ethan rushes to Mrs. Homan's shop, where the widow Homan hunts down her concluding bottle of glue, asking Ethan questions about his need for it and talking all the while. Glue in hand, Ethan dashes out and quickly mounts his sled. The widow calls subsequently him, "I hope Zeena ain't broken anything she sets store [values] by." Mrs. Homan's words are lost on Ethan, simply non on you lot. Yous might almost guess that Ethan'south purchase won't remain a private matter very long, and that somehow Zeena is bound to find out.

Ethan drives home as quickly as he can, again thinking of what Mattie might exist doing. There's no sign of Jotham, who'due south been sent to option up Zeena at the train. As Ethan enters the business firm, he shows Mattie the gum and heads directly for the pickle-dish in the china closet. She grabs him past the sleeve and whispers, "Zeena's come up." They stand and stare at each other like culprits defenseless in the act. Has their plan been foiled? Not if Ethan tin can help information technology. He assures Mattie that he'll come down to mend the dish that night.

"How is she?" Ethan wants to know. He's curious nigh Zeena considering after her trips abroad from home, she usually comes back "nervous." That is, she'south even more snappish than usual. Mattie can't tell because Zeena said zilch when she came in. She hurried straight to her room.

In the concurrently Jotham returns. Ethan invites him to supper, thinking Jotham volition serve to keep things calm at the table. He turns down the invitation. Since Jotham won't walk away from a free meal very oft, Ethan senses that there's a message in his refusal. Is information technology that Zeena didn't see the doctor? Did she dislike his advice? Or is it some other news? Ethan feels apprehensive about the approaching meal, even though Mattie has prepared the room and tabular array as attractively as on the previous night.

CHAPTER 7

Ethan goes cautiously to greet his wife.

Zeena sits in the darkened bedroom, commodities upright, withal wearing her traveling clothes. Something is wrong. Ethan'due south effort to be friendly falls apartment.

"I'chiliad a dandy bargain sicker than you think," she announces, an edge of pride in her vocalism. The words sound ominous, but not to Ethan, for Zeena has cried "wolf" as well frequently. She and her husband have held this chat before. This fourth dimension, however, Ethan thinks: what if at last Zeena's words are true?

Yous know immediately what Ethan is thinking. He may long for Zeena's death, but he says kindly, "I hope that'due south not so, Zeena."

"I've got complications," says Zeena, which means that she is not just sick, but seriously sick. In fact, she simply might die. Ethan is of a sudden tossed between waves of jubilation and pity for Zeena. She wants his sympathy, simply she looks so hard and solitary sitting in the darkness that the best Ethan tin do is question the reliability of her new physician.

"Everybody in Bettsbridge knows near Dr. Cadet," says Zeena. She cites the case of Eliza Spears, a woman Dr. Buck brought back from nearly death.

NOTE: Yous're not told what's wrong with Zeena, but she and her doctor recall it'due south grave enough to require surgery. Medical practices in Ethan'due south day were even so fairly primitive, and operations were often performed only as a last resort. Besides, people shunned operations, regarding them as "indelicate." Zeena, of class, disdains operations. After all, what violates your privacy more than than a surgeon's knife? Ethan can be grateful, for he saves a smashing deal of money in surgeons' fees.

More than or less convinced- or peradventure only resigned to Zeena's trust in Dr. Buck- Ethan asks what treatment the doctor prescribes. Detect that he is more curious about the treatment, which will cost him money, than about the diagnosis.

"He wants I should take a hired girl," says Zeena, and "I oughtn't to have to practice a single thing around the firm."

What news could striking Ethan harder? Whatsoever treatment would be cheaper than hiring a full-time, live-in housegirl. Still worse is that the matter has already been settled. Zeena's Aunt Martha has establish a girl who will make it in Starkfield by railroad train late tomorrow afternoon.

Acrimony and dismay seize Ethan. He doubts that Zeena is as ill as she claims, and is convinced that she had gone to Bettsbridge as function of a scheme to forcefulness a retainer on him.

Enraged, he asks, "Did Dr. Cadet tell you how I was to pay her wages?" Just as furiously, Zeena shouts back, "No, he didn't. For I'd 'a' been ashamed to tell him that you grudged me the money to become back my health, when I lost it nursing your own mother!"

The ii fling biting criticism and charges at each other "like serpents shooting venom." This is the first time open anger has raged between them in 7 years of union. When their wrath is spent, Ethan feels ashamed over stooping to such senseless savagery. Moreover, lashing out at Zeena won't solve the applied problem of having a new girl on his easily the adjacent solar day. "I haven't got the coin... You'll accept to transport her back," he tells Zeena. He fifty-fifty vows to do everything around the house himself. Zeena scoffs at that and asks about the fifty dollars Ethan collected from Andrew Hale for the lumber.

Yesterday Ethan was right. He should non have lied virtually Hale'southward greenbacks payment, and once more regrets words he has spoken impulsively. He stammers that the whole matter was a misunderstanding. He doesn't take the money, and won't get information technology for at least three months.

How volition they work out their differences? Ethan pledges to work that much harder to delight her and Mattie. Zeena's solution stuns him: she plans to send Mattie abroad.

At the await on Ethan'south face Zeena laughs out loud. (He can't recollect always hearing her laugh earlier.) Ethan has misunderstood. She never intended to go on ii girls in the firm. No wonder he worried over the expense.

Zeena'due south laugh is so wicked, yous tin't avoid the sensation that it signals her triumph over Ethan. She has successfully dealt him a accident below the belt.

Ethan can't believe it. "Mattie Silver's not a hired daughter. She'south your relation," he says. Merely Zeena regards Mattie as a pauper who's outstayed her welcome, and "it's somebody else's turn now."

No sooner has Zeena finished condemning Mattie when the young girl's cheerful vox calls them to supper. When Zeena refuses to go down, Mattie gaily offers to bring nutrient upwards.

Notation: Y'all can't ignore the dissimilarity between Zeena's coldheartedness and Mattie's innocent goodwill in this and several following scenes. Your sympathies lie with Mattie, of course. Yet bear in mind that Zeena is the wronged partner in the union. Subsequently all, information technology's not she who becomes involved, still innocently, in an extramarital human relationship.

Ethan sweeps to Mattie'due south defense. "You lot ain't going to do information technology, Zeena?" Only Zeena holds firm. Then follows 1 of the longest speeches Ethan makes in the book. Although information technology'southward only four sentences, it'due south spoken with great passion and intensity. It's clear to Zeena that Ethan is frantic to hold on to Mattie. "If you lot practise a thing like that what practise you suppose folks'll say of y'all?" he asks her. She shoots back a cutting respond: "I know well enough what they say of my having kep' her hither as long as I have." -

Notation: Zeena's respond implies that village people have been talking about Ethan and Mattie, although you won't observe evidence of such gossip in the book. Also, where could Zeena take heard such talk? She rarely sees anyone from Starkfield. Then what does she hateful? Was her comment just a lucky stab in the dark? Don't you wish that Ethan would call her bluff and say, "Now what is that supposed to hateful?" But Ethan is scared, and couldn't bear to have his relationship with Mattie exposed.

Ethan scowls at Zeena. This evil, brooding woman has robbed him of a happy life. Now she intends to deprive him of the i thing that could make up for every hardship he has suffered. Violence wells up inside him. He takes a wild step toward her and clenches his fist. But suddenly the flame of hatred goes out, and like a lamb he goes downstairs to tell Mattie the news.

Mattie serves Ethan his dinner, merely he can't eat. He rises from his chair and walks around the table to her side. She looks at him, frightened. In terror she melts confronting him. "What is it- what is it?" she stammers. In answer, he presses his lips confronting hers. For an instant she'southward swept away past the intensity of his passion. So she backs off.

Ethan says, "Y'all can't go, Matt! I'll never permit you go!"

"Go- go?" she stammers. "Must I go?"

Ethan breaks the news to Mattie, who droops before him "like a broken branch."

NOTE: Yous might wonder why Ethan doesn't put his foot down and declare himself boss. A insurrection d'etat would spare himself and Mattie a good deal of heartache. Does he take the strength to defy Zeena? He'south yet to stand to her. Is he likely to start now? In improver, because Zeena is kin to Mattie and Ethan isn't, Zeena technically has the correct to make up one's mind Mattie'southward fate.

Ethan knows that when Zeena makes up her mind, that's it! Mattie must go. Only where? She has no home, no family, no prospects for work. She'south hopeless in the truest sense of the word. Ethan despairs to remember of her facing the world alone. He's reminded of tales of unfortunate girls seeking piece of work in big cities and, in the process, losing their decency.

Ethan springs up suddenly. "Yous can't go, Matt! I won't allow yous! She always had her way, but I hateful to take mine now-" He stops in mid-sentence, hearing Zeena's footsteps behind him- and says non another word. So much for Ethan's rebellion.

Zeena takes her identify at the table. Grim-faced equally always, but unusually chipper, she heaps food on her plate, adjusts her dentures, and digs in. Her conquest of Ethan must have improved her appetite. She has a scrap of meat and an affectionate word for the cat. (A advantage for being a faithful stand-in, perhaps?) Matter-of-factly she answers Mattie's questions virtually her visit to Bettsbridge. She cheers up- and even smiles a petty- when describing the "intestinal disturbances amid her friends and relatives." She addresses her cousin equally "Matt," something she rarely did. What she says to "Matt," however, is that the pie she served for dinner "sets a mite heavy" in her stomach. In other words, it gives her indigestion.

Zeena has some rarely used heartburn medicine stored somewhere, and shortly leaves the table to fetch it. In a few moments, she returns, "her lips twitching with acrimony, a flush of excitement on her sallow face." In her hands she carries the pieces of the red glass pickle-dish.

"I'd similar to know who washed this," she says, visibly upset. In fact, she'due south more distraught than aroused. Tears hang on her eyelids. Her voice quavers as she explains how she put her precious pickle-dish on the height shelf of the closet to keep it safe.

Annotation: Zeena is plainly shaken past the discovery of her broken pickle-dish. But what causes such distress? Doesn't she seem to overreact? The dish has sentimental value because it came from her Aunt Philura in Philadelphia. Merely does Zeena seem similar the sentimental blazon? Possibly she is terribly injure by Ethan and Mattie's deception. All we know for sure is that Zeena's response to the breaking of her treasure is way out of proportion to its monetary worth. For a moment she seems similar a poor pathetic soul, perhaps deserving a little pity.

Ethan responds, "The cat done it," which is truthful to a point. But Zeena scoffs. Mattie then speaks out and accepts the blame.

"Yous got down my pickle-dish- what for?" Zeena wants to know. When Mattie explains, Zeena thunders, "Y'all wanted to make the supper-table pretty, and you waited till my back was turned.... You lot're a bad girl, Mattie Silver, and I always known it."

If Zeena had whatever doubts or pangs of conscience about letting Mattie go, she'southward costless of them at present. She feels perfectly justified in casting Mattie out to her fate.

To cap her flare-up Zeena leaves the room carrying the pickle-dish as if it were a dead torso. She thinks aloud that this tragedy would non have occurred if she had listened to folks and sent Mattie away long agone.

Affiliate VIII

That night, afterward Zeena falls asleep, Ethan comes downstairs to a small room which he sometimes uses every bit a study. He has some thinking to do.

As he lies downwards on the sofa-bed, a hard object jabs his cheek. It's a needlework absorber, the but 1 Zeena always fabricated. Cushions are normally soft, but not this one. Remember, it'southward Zeena's. Ethan flings information technology across the room, and props his head against the wall instead.

What to do about Mattie weighs on his mind. Earlier in the evening she had left a note on the kitchen tabular array. "Don't trouble, Ethan," it read- the start words she had ever written to him. How dismaying that in the future he would reach Mattie only with dead words on cold newspaper.

But Ethan does want to "trouble" nigh Mattie. He tin can't let his hopes die. He's just twenty-eight. Why should he give his life to Zeena? She'southward a hundred times meaner and more discontented at present than when he married her.

Ethan thinks about a human much like himself who had lived over the mount. The human being escaped from his miserable wife past going Westward with the girl he loved. In that location followed a divorce, a remarriage, even a baby girl. The abandoned wife had sold the farm and opened a thriving lunchroom in Bettsbridge.

The story fires Ethan's thoughts. He'll do the aforementioned- exit with Mattie, take her W, and try his luck. He begins to compose a expert-bye letter to Zeena, which she'll find on the bed after he'southward gone. "Zeena, I've done all I could for you," he writes. "...Maybe both of us will do amend separate... you lot can sell the farm and mill, and continue the coin-"

Notation: You probably know Ethan well enough to speculate on why he decides to write a letter to Zeena instead of telling her and walking out. Would she call him ludicrous and express joy in his face up? Is he a coward? Is this another of Ethan's self-delusions? Or is he simply avoiding some other cruel argument?

The give-and-take coin gives him pause. What money will he use to carry out his plan? The farm and manufactory are mortgaged to the limit. No 1 would lend him a dime. In the West he'd surely find work, but information technology costs money to go Due west. Alone he would accept a adventure, but with Mattie in tow...?

And Zeena? Ethan frets about her, even every bit he plans to run from her. She'd exist lucky to earn a thousand dollars by selling the subcontract- if she could fifty-fifty discover a buyer. When Ethan worked day and night, the farm provided only a meager living. Well, he thinks, she tin get out the subcontract and try her luck with her family unit. See what they can practice for her. Give her a taste of the bitter medicine she was trying to force on Mattie.

Ethan'due south middle falls on an advertisement in an old newspaper in the room. The advertizement announces "Trips to the W: Reduced Rates." Eagerly he reads the listing of fares, and in a moment realizes the truth. In that location'due south no need worrying near how to live in the Westward because he doesn't have the fare for the trip. There is no way out- none. He is a prisoner for life, and he knows it. Lying back on the sofa-bed he weeps and gradually falls asleep.

Waking at dawn, he feels chilly and stiff. He'southward jolted by the thought that Mattie leaves today. What he'll exercise without her, he can't imagine. Of a sudden Mattie enters the small written report and tells Ethan that she had lain awake all nighttime listening for him to come up upstairs.

Although this is her terminal morning, she starts the day like whatever other, doing her chores. With the daily routine begun, Ethan thinks he may have exaggerated Zeena's threats concluding dark. He'due south hopeful that in the light of a new twenty-four hour period, she may come to her senses. But he must wait until Zeena awakens to know if his hunch is correct.

Outside, Ethan sees Jotham Powell arriving for piece of work as usual. All is so ordinary, Ethan tin can't believe that this will be an exceptionally sad day in his life. Jotham, still, reports that Dan'l Byrne volition be taking Mattie'due south body to the train at nearly apex. According to instructions from Zeena, Jotham plans to take Mattie to the station later- in time to take hold of the six o'clock train to Stamford.

"Oh, it ain't so sure well-nigh Mattie'southward going-" suggests Ethan. But Jotham- and possibly Ethan himself- knows that Zeena clings to her decisions. When the 2 men go inside for breakfast, they notice Zeena unusually alert and active, the mode y'all'd expect a child to be on a special day. She announces the day's schedule, laying to residue whatever uncertainty that Mattie volition go out today.

Now it's the eleventh hr for Ethan. He'south got to do something, but what? I affair he's sure almost, he's non going to sit around the house and look on helplessly as Mattie is banished.

He starts to town, being reminded equally he walks of happy moments he shared with Mattie at this tree or that bend in the road. Of a sudden it occurs to him that he still has one chance to raise funds for his trip West. Andrew Hale might pay his debt if he knew that Zeena'southward poor wellness required Ethan to hire a new servant. Pride wouldn't keep Ethan from asking Hale for payment this time. Just this once, Ethan thinks, he might resort to lying. His best tactic, he knew, would be to enlist the assistance of Mrs. Hale, a kindly person, who could be persuaded to help Ethan plead his instance to her married man.

NOTE: This is the first time you see Ethan plotting something openly dishonest. Would you lot phone call him a dishonest man, however? Do you think that his matter of the heart is quack? You lot may find it worthwhile to ponder the state of Ethan's morality.

Near boondocks he catches sight of Hale's sled, with Unhurt'southward youngest son in the driver's seat, his female parent beside him. What adept luck! Just the person Ethan wants to talk to.

Mrs. Hale greets Ethan cordially. Immediately you lot see why she'due south considered a kind person. Her confront has "pink wrinkles twinkling with benevolence." No one else in the book resembles her even faintly.

Mrs. Hale has already heard about Zeena'southward trip to Bettsbridge to meet the physician. She wishes Zeena well, and adds, "I always tell Mr. Hale I don't know what she'd 'a' done if she hadn't 'a' had you to look afterwards her; and I used to say the same thing 'tour your mother. You've had an atrocious hateful time, Ethan Frome."

At that Mrs. Unhurt nods sympathetically and drives away. Ethan is left standing in the heart of the road, struck impaired with shame and astonishment. Never in his twenty-8 years has anyone spoken so kindly to him. No one has understood his plight so well. Until this moment, no one has admired him like Mrs. Hale.

Ethan is not but surprised, he'south overcome with guilt. To think he was going to accept advantage of the Hales' sympathy to obtain coin! To think he was going to lie to the only people around who pitied him! A scoundrel might deceive his friends, merely non Ethan.

Slowly Ethan returns to the farm. He has all of a sudden recognized who and what he is: a poor man with a ill wife, "whom his desertion would exit lonely and destitute."

CHAPTER Nine

Tin you lot doubt that Mattie will leave before the day is out? Tin yous incertitude that something drastic will happen in this, the climactic chapter of the book?

Ethan acknowledges that Zeena has won a victory. In defeat, he enters the kitchen to find his wife reading a book called "Kidney Troubles and Their Cure," an undeniable clue to her condition.

Notation: Zeena shows signs of suffering from a kidney trouble, virtually likely a kidney stone. It would certainly be appropriate for her to have a hard, gritty rock growing within her. On the other mitt, doesn't she deserve sympathy, too, because the pain caused by a kidney stone is reputed to be excruciating? It can turn the gentlest soul into a tiger.

He goes upstairs to assistance Mattie with her trunk. There is no answer when he calls exterior the bedroom. Opening the door he finds out why. She sits on her body, sobbing.

"Oh, don't- oh, Matt!" he says to condolement her. Startled to see him there, she clings to him. He puts his lips to her fragrant hair. At that moment Zeena calls from downstairs to bustle up and bring the trunk, for Dan'l Byrne won't expect much longer.

Ethan hoists the body onto his shoulders and carries it downwardly the stairs. Zeena, absorbed by her book, doesn't even await up equally he goes past. Mattie helps him lift the bulky body onto the sleigh, which drives off in haste.

Each infinitesimal pushes Mattie and Ethan another step closer to the moment that neither tin can face. To put off the time when he must say skilful-bye to Mattie, Ethan decides that he- not Jotham Powell- will bulldoze her to the Flats to catch her train. Later the noon repast Ethan declares his intention to Zeena.

"I want yous should stay here this afternoon, Ethan," his married woman says. "Jotham can drive Mattie over." Zeena has plans for Ethan to repair the stove for the new girl. Ethan is adamant to practice as he wants, however. "If information technology was good enough for Mattie," he says, "I guess information technology's good enough for a hired daughter." His temper surging, Ethan storms out of the house. He'd rather face Zeena'southward anger after than give up his final precious hour or two with Mattie. While hitching the horse to the sleigh he recalls that the day he first met Mattie, only over a year ago, was soft and mild, simply like this one.

When he re-enters the house the kitchen is deserted. He finds Mattie, dressed to get, looking around his small study where he had slept concluding nighttime. Is this the last fourth dimension he'll see her continuing here? Ethan refuses to believe it, still clinging to a hope that this is all a mistake. He shudders at the thought of returning home lone only a few hours from now.

Zeena won't bid Mattie good-bye. She's gone to her room and left discussion not to disturb her. And then it's terminal! Zeena has accomplished her goal. As far as she's concerned, information technology's good riddance to Mattie. When she comes downstairs again she will notice a new girl in Mattie's place.

Although it'southward early, Ethan says it's time to get. He plans to take a detour to Shadow Pond on his way to the Flats. He wants Mattie to run into the place where they once had picnicked together. During a church outing last summertime he had come upon her surrounded past a group of young admirers. When she saw him arroyo, she broke from the group and gave him a cup of coffee. And then they sabbatum by the pond on a fallen tree. He plant a locket she had lost. Each remembers the lovely summer afternoon as a time of supreme happiness.

The pond is frozen at present, but still beautiful. Seeing the place again gives Ethan a fleeting illusion that he is a free man, and that he'due south wooing the girl he intends to ally. For a few moments they spill out their hearts to each other. He'd like to whisper sugariness words into her ear, but tin't. In spite of loving feelings, he's never learned how to limited his love.

Annotation: How plumbing equipment that the identify where Ethan and Mattie began their fleeting romance be named Shadow Pond. Like a shadow, their honey cannot last.

Like all pleasant dreams, this one ends too. The sun sinks behind the colina, turning the landscape gray again. They must resume their journey to the train.

"What practise y'all mean to do?" Ethan asks.

Mattie doesn't know. Work in a shop will damage her health again. Relatives won't accept her in, even if she were willing to ask them.

"You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you if I could," he says.

"I know there isn't," she says. To prove information technology, she pulls from her clothes the expert-bye letter that Ethan had begun to write to Zeena final night. Mattie had constitute information technology in Ethan'due south study.

He is at one time astounded and overjoyed that she read the alphabetic character. Would she have gone West with him? "Tell me, Matt! Tell me!"

"I used to retrieve of it sometimes, summertime nights..." she answers.

Ethan'due south heart reels with the thought that Mattie has loved him since last summer- since Shadow Pond.

At this point can annihilation good come from such news? Won't information technology brand their parting all the more painful? Perhaps, just knowing the depth of Mattie'southward feelings helps Ethan declare his love openly. For once his natural language sings without restraint: "I desire to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you lot and treat you. I want to exist there when y'all're sick and when you're lonesome." Rather than accept her married to someone else, he adds, "I'd a'most rather have you dead...!"

"Oh, I wish I was, I wish I was!" she sobs.

What he has said suddenly shames him. "Don't let'due south talk that way," he whispers.

By the time the sleigh nears the edge of the village, daylight has surrendered to darkness. Ethan and Mattie hear the shouts of children. Some village boys have but finished their coasting for the day. Mattie reminds Ethan that he was to have taken her down the hill concluding night.

At the crest of the steep hill on the Corbury road, he asks, "How'd y'all like me to have you down at present?" Mattie hesitates. Is at that place time? Ethan promises her that at that place'due south all the time they want. He'll do almost anything, it seems, to postpone the moment of parting.

Under the Varnum spruces they observe a sled that probably belongs to Ned Hale. They set up to coast, Mattie in front and Ethan steering. It's very dark, only Ethan laughs away the danger. "I could go down this coast with my eyes tied," he boasts.

Downward they fly. Budgeted the perilous elm tree near the bend in the road, Mattie shrinks back confronting Ethan for prophylactic. "Don't be scared, Matt!" he cries every bit they make the turn and speed down to the bottom of the gradient.

They start the long walk upwardly. Ethan wants to know if Mattie had been afraid of the elm tree. "I told you I was never scared with y'all," she answers.

At the top of the hill they render the sled. Standing in the shadows of the Varnum spruces Mattie asks, "Is this where Ned and Ruth kissed each other?" She flings her arms around Ethan. 2 nights ago he had seethed with envy of Ned and Ruth. Tonight others might envy him and Mattie. Breathlessly, they kiss.

"Good-bye- good-adieu," she stammers.

"Oh, Matt," he cries, "I tin can't allow yous become."

They cling and sob like children. "What's the good of either of the states going anywheres without the other now?" he says.

"Ethan! Ethan! I want you lot to take me down again!" she cries, her tearful cheek confronting his face up. "...And then 't nosotros'll never come upwards any more." She wants Ethan to steer the sled right into the big elm so they'd "never have to go out each other any more."

Ethan tin can't believe her proposal. "You're crazy!" he says.

Annotation: Yous might concur with Ethan that Mattie's urge to destroy herself and take Ethan with her proves that she is "crazy." But that'south role of the tragedy. In a classic tragedy the hero ends up expressionless. Usually the hero yearns for death as a release from the suffering of life. Is Ethan better off dead? Mattie thinks so. She begins to list all the things incorrect with life. Ethan listens and is convinced.

Mattie uses flattery to persuade Ethan to take a suicide run with her. No i in the world, she says, has ever been as kind to her. So she pleads with him, conjuring up an image of life in his business firm with a new hired daughter. He envisions the firm and thinks of Zeena, the intolerable woman he would come across every night for years and years.

These are powerful arguments, too stiff for Ethan to repel. They cling to each other. He finds her oral cavity again. In the distance the train whistle blows. "Come up," Mattie whispers, tugging him toward the sled.

The slope below them is deserted. All of Starkfield is at supper. They mount the sled. Of a sudden, he springs up. "I desire to sit down in forepart," he says.

Mattie protests. "How can y'all steer in front?"

"I don't have to. We'll follow the track."

NOTE: Ethan adds that he'due south going to sit in front because he wants to feel her holding him on the way downward the slope. That's a fair reason. But yous tin't help wondering if that's the only reason. By sitting in front, wouldn't he receive the full force of the impact with the tree? Or does he desire to make certain he dies because he tin't live without her? Has his self-destructive urge become stronger than hers? Deep inside, does he perchance want her to survive the suicide attempt?

On the sled Mattie clasps Ethan. He leans back, and their lips encounter one concluding time. The descent starts. Information technology seems to Ethan that they are flight. The big elm looms ahead. "Nosotros can fetch information technology; I know we can fetch information technology-" he says, determined to hit the tree trunk squarely.

All of a sudden he thinks of Zeena's twisted, ugly face. For an instant he's distracted, and the sled swerves slightly from its deadly form. But he rights information technology once again and drives it into the blackness mass of the tree....

The story pauses for a moment. Take Mattie and Ethan "fetched" it? Ethan survives, of course. In the prologue of the novel yous've already seen him many years after the boom-up.

And Mattie? Y'all discover her fate at the same time as Ethan. Lying mazed on his back, he sees a star through the branches of the elm. Is it Sirius? he wonders. Also tired to think, he closes his heavy lids to sleep. The silence is profound. Is this like the moment of death?

Ethan hears a fiddling brute squeak under the snow. It sounds like a frightened field mouse in pain, pain then intense he feels it in his own body. The audio seems to come up from something soft and springy under his outstretched hand. Slowly things come into focus. His hand is resting on Mattie'southward head; the cries of pain come from her lips.

Faintly she speaks his proper name.

"Oh, Matt, I thought we'd fetched it," he moans in grief and desperation. But both, to their regret, have lived through the smash-up.

What becomes of them after you volition find out in the epilogue-that is, in the untitled last chapter of the book.

NOTE: Expiry pacts between lovers who cannot bear to part occur in both life and literature. Greek mythology tell of Baucis and Philemon, whose wish to die at the same moment is granted by the gods. In Dante'due south Inferno the lovers Paolo and Francesca impale themselves, but expiry brings them no relief from suffering. They are doomed to spend eternity in the second circle of hell, their punishment for yielding to desires of the flesh. Then too, Romeo and Juliet inflict death upon themselves, although technically not every bit a consequence of a prearranged agreement. Regardless of the time or identify, stories of lovers' suicides almost never fail to stir the emotions.

EPILOGUE

The epilogue begins precisely where the prologue concluded, twenty-four years afterward Ethan and Mattie crashed into the elm tree.

Ethan and his overnight guest, the narrator of the story, pace into the Frome farmhouse. Two women in the kitchen stop talking when they notice the stranger.

Fifty-fifty before he'south introduced the narrator is struck by the room's shabby appearance. The meager furnishings are soiled and worn from utilize.

Now that Ethan has come home one of the women- a tall, bony, grayness- haired figure- starts to fix the evening meal. The other woman remains huddled in an armchair near the stove. She can't get upward because her trunk is limp. She can move her caput, simply that'southward all. She has the brilliant witchlike stare of someone suffering from a disease of the spine.

NOTE: Although the narrator needs to be told who these women are, you don't. Y'all've met them before and know them well: Mattie and Zeena.

However, you're probably non ready for the shocking modify that has taken place since you final saw them.

When Ethan comments that the room feels cold, the small-scale woman in the chair explains in a high, sparse voice that the stove has just been refilled with wood. She adds that her companion had taken a long nap and had neglected the burn down. "I idea I'd be frozen stiff," she complains.

Ignoring the allegation, the tall woman returns to the tabular array with dinner- the cold leftovers of a mince pie. Every bit she sets the battered pie dish down, Ethan introduces her: "This is my wife, Mis' Frome."

"And this," he says, turning toward the shriveled effigy in the chair, "is Miss Mattie Silver...."

Annotation: The gap between the "first acts of the tragedy," as Wharton put information technology, and the moment when you come across Zeena and Mattie a generation afterwards, has provoked a good deal of literary commentary. Henry James called it "peculiar." In response, Wharton said the volume had to exist organized this way to achieve the dramatic impact she sought. If the book had been longer, she may have structured it differently. Just Wharton deliberately turned Ethan's tale into a novelette rather than a total-length novel to create a stark effect in both the story and its telling.

Back in Starkfield the next mean solar day, Mrs. Hale and old Mrs. Varnum can inappreciably believe that their young boarder, the narrator, had spent the night under Ethan Frome'due south roof. Mrs. Hale tells him, "You lot're the only stranger has set foot in that firm for over xx years."

The fact that he gained admittance to Ethan's house makes the narrator something of a glory to his landlady. Now she can trust him with more data about what happened to Ethan, Mattie, and Zeena after the smash-upward. In fact, Mrs. Hale seems near relieved to spill out the painful memories she's kept bottled inside her these many years. Her loosened tongue brings Ethan'due south story up to date.

After the collision with the elm tree Ethan was carried to the government minister's house to recover. Mattie, much more seriously hurt, was brought upward the hill to the Varnum business firm. Ruth (now Mrs. Hale) was with her when she awoke. Mattie, seeing her good friend at her bedside, bankrupt down and told Ruth everything.

Word of the accident spread around town, of course. Simply just Ruth knew why Ethan and Mattie had been coasting that dark when they should have been on their way to the Flats to encounter Mattie's train.

What Zeena thought nobody knows. To this day she'southward said cypher. Zeena had hurried to Ethan'south side after the smash-upwardly. Afterwards, when Mattie was well enough to be moved, Zeena took her back to the subcontract, also. The bedridden girl has lived in that location always since.

"It was a miracle," says Mrs. Hale. Earlier the accident Zeena had been so sick, she couldn't even care for herself. But when the call came "she seemed to be raised right up." For over 20 years at present she's had strength enough to intendance for both Ethan and Mattie.

Not that it's been easy, adds Mrs. Hale. Quite the contrary, in fact. Suffering has turned Mattie sour, and Zeena has e'er been a crank. Sometimes the two women torment each other. To see Ethan's face when Mattie and Zeena exercise battle would break your heart, for he's the one who suffers most.

On pleasant summertime days Mattie can be moved into the yard, and there'southward some relief in that. But in winter the 3 of them are shut up in one small kitchen. New England winters last a long time. Can you empathize at present why Ethan goes to the Starkfield postal service office each noontime to pick upwards mail that nearly never comes? No wonder, too, that his shoulders are stooped and his face is grim. Exercise yous recall that Ethan's gaunt figure makes him appear equally though he'due south "dead and in hell?" In a way, he is. Every bit Mrs. Hale intimates, she doesn't see "much divergence betwixt the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes downwards in the graveyard; 'cept that down in that location they're all quiet, and the women take got to hold their tongues."

A Step BEYOND

THE STORY

---

[Ethan Frome Contents] [PinkMonkey.com]

© Copyright 1985 by Barron's Educational Series, Inc.
Electronically Enhanced Text © Copyright 1993, World Library, Inc.
Further distribution without the written consent of PinkMonkey.com, Inc. is prohibited.

gutierrezformight.blogspot.com

Source: http://pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/barrons/ethnfrmx.asp

Share this post