a soldier of the American Revolution who was hanged as a spy by the British; his last words were supposed to have been `I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country' (1755-1776)
During my stay at Starkfield I lodged with a middle-aged widow
colloquially known as Mrs. Ned Hale.
South African succulent evergreen twining climber with yellow flowers grown primarily as a houseplant for its foliage; sometimes placed in genus Senecio
He followed her and brought the
other geraniums, the hyacinth bulbs in a cracked custard bowl and the German ivy trained over an old croquet hoop.
a vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by horses or dogs; for transportation over snow
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
footwear (shoes or slippers) with no heel (or a very low heel)
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
a pulley on a shaft that presses against a guide belt to guide or tighten it
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
East Indian sparsely prickly annual herb or perennial subshrub widely cultivated for its fleshy calyxes used in tarts and jelly and for its bast fiber
As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; "If you're too
busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over
with the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats."
You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
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a vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by horses or dogs; for transportation over snow
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
a serious collision (especially of motor vehicles)
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
(computer science) a code for information exchange between computers made by different companies; a string of 7 binary digits represents each character; used in most microcomputers
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots,
and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
furniture in the hall.
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permission and without paying copyright royalties.
a bell attached to a sleigh, or to the harness of a horse that is pulling a sleigh
A moment later he heard the jingle of departing sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty
expanse of snow before the church.
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
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It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
The metal reflectors of the
gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
vegetables (especially cucumbers) preserved in brine or vinegar
"It ain't done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use it
up," she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward Mattie:
"If you can get the taste out it'll do for pickles."
one of several thin slats of wood forming the sides of a barrel or bucket
The metal reflectors of the
gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
Her companion, who was just coming back to the table with the remains
of a cold mince-pie in a battered pie-dish, set down her unappetising
burden without appearing to hear the accusation brought against her.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
precipitation falling from clouds in the form of ice crystals
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
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The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
United States general who was the first African American to serve as chief of staff; later served as Secretary of State under President George W. Bush (born 1937)
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
pickle cured in brine and preserved in sugar and vinegar
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
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permission and without paying copyright royalties.
machine-readable text that is not sequential but is organized so that related items of information are connected
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word processing or hypertext form.
Still she did not speak and, prompted by an obscure desire to
help himself and her through their miserable last hour, he went on discursively: "Ain't it funny we haven't been down together but just
that once last winter?"
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
workplace consisting of farm buildings and cultivated land as a unit
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
The sun slanted through the south
window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on
the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted
them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie.
having a surface without slope, tilt in which no part is higher or lower than another
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
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rapid and efficient processing (storage and printing) of linguistic data for composition and editing
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But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
spatially or metaphorically from a higher to a lower level or position
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
determine the measurements of something or somebody, take measurements of
She
had measured out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed
and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow
flannel, had lain down with her face turned away.
a software program capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs on the same computer
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your equipment.
the posterior part of a human (or animal) body from the neck to the end of the spine
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
a piece of dishware normally used as a container for holding or serving food
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
cement consisting of a sticky substance that is used as an adhesive
If he glued it together the next morning
months might elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and
meanwhile he might after all be able to match the dish at Shadd's Falls
or Bettsbridge.
thoroughly clean the entire house, often done only once a year
"It takes the
stepladder to get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura Maple's
pickle-dish up there o' purpose when we was married, and it's never been
down since, 'cept for the spring cleaning, and then I always lifted it
with my own hands, so's 't shouldn't get broke."
any of various trees of the genus Ulmus: important timber or shade trees
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
one of several distinct subdivisions of a text intended to separate ideas; the beginning is usually marked by a new indented line
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either of two folds of skin that can be moved to cover or open the eye
He even noticed two or
three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him:
a way of throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her
laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
anything charmed or moved her.
a cathedral city in west central England on the River Severn
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
large branching biennial herb native to Eurasia and Africa and adventive in North America having large fernlike leaves and white flowers; usually found in damp habitats; all parts extremely poisonous
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
the time after sunset and before sunrise while it is dark outside
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
an American country dance which starts with the couples facing each other in two lines
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
perceive with attention; direct one's gaze towards
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
be conscious of a physical, mental, or emotional state
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
Now, in the warm lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order,
she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.
But after the trains begun running nobody ever
come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head
what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
the main stem of a tree; usually covered with bark; the bole is usually the part that is commercially useful for lumber
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where,
enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles
through the snow.
an outlying farm building for storing grain or animal feed and housing farm animals
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
(finance) the net sales minus the cost of goods and services sold
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moving or appearing to move away from a place, especially one that is enclosed or hidden
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
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terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
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activity directed toward making or doing something
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
unroll, unfold, or spread out or be unrolled, unfolded, or spread out from a furled state
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
The kitchen was empty when he came back to it; but his
tobacco-pouch and pipe had been laid on the table, and under them was
a scrap of paper torn from the back of a seedsman's catalogue, on which
three words were written: "Don't trouble, Ethan."
She took off her spectacles again, leaned toward me across the bead-work
table-cover, and went on with lowered voice: "There was one day, about
a week after the accident, when they all thought Mattie couldn't live.
the wood of trees cut and prepared for use as building material
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple
of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood meagrely against the plaster walls.
the state of being silent (as when no one is speaking)
Nevertheless, I might have
contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had
it not been for the provocation of Mrs. Hale's silence, and--a little
later--for the accident of personal contact with the man.
beyond the top or upper surface or edge; forward from an upright position
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
give a certain impression or have a certain outward aspect
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
move toward, travel toward something or somebody or approach something or somebody
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
dish baked in pastry-lined pan often with a pastry top
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
the gracefulness of a person or animal that is flexible and supple
Denis Eady was
the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness
and effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of "smart" business
methods, and whose new brick store testified to the success of the
attempt.
"It takes the stepladder to get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura Maple's
pickle-dish up there o' purpose when we was married, and it's never been
down since, 'cept for the spring cleaning, and then I always lifted it
with my own hands, so's 't shouldn't get broke."
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
a plant consisting of one or more buildings with facilities for manufacturing
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
the front of the human head from the forehead to the chin and ear to ear
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
a garment worn around the head or neck or shoulders for warmth or decoration
He had been straining for a glimpse
of the dark head under the cherry-coloured scarf and it vexed him that
another eye should have been quicker than his.
a swinging or sliding barrier that will close the entrance to a room or building or vehicle
On our right a line of light marked the door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the
door I heard a woman's voice droning querulously.
a statement (either spoken or written) that is made to reply to a question or request or criticism or accusation
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
The tall woman, who had moved away from us toward the dresser, took no
notice; but the other, from her cushioned niche, answered complainingly,
in a high thin voice.
Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence
while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked his arms
into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."
consisting of or of the nature of frozen or partially frozen rain
Then, when the loading finally
began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were
so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get
them in place on the sledge.
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
On our right a line of light marked the
door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the
door I heard a woman's voice droning querulously.
perceive by sight or have the power to perceive by sight
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
a device that produces electricity; may have several primary or secondary cells arranged in parallel or series
Zeena always
came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last visit to
Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an electric battery of which she had never been able to learn the use.
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one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.
court-ordered support paid by one spouse to another after they are separated
Her husband had given her the farm and she had managed to sell it, and
with that and the alimony she had started a lunch-room at Bettsbridge
and bloomed into activity and importance.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
Her nearest relations had
been induced to place their savings in her father's hands, and though,
after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of the Christian
duty of returning good for evil by giving his daughter all the advice
at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to supplement it by
material aid.
a seat for one person, with a support for the back
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots,
and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
furniture in the hall.
having a low or inadequate temperature or feeling a sensation of coldness or having been made cold by e.g. ice or refrigeration
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
Once, in the stillness, the call of a bird in a mountain ash
was so like her laughter that his heart tightened and then grew large;
and all these things made him see that something must be done at once.
a piece of furniture having a smooth flat top that is usually supported by one or more vertical legs
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
(of quantities) imprecise but fairly close to correct
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
high quality porcelain originally made only in China
"Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want
to know why I did it--"
The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.
the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
any of numerous shrubs of the genus Vaccinium bearing blueberries
She set the lamp on the table,
and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts,
stewed blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass.
the content of cognition; the main thing you are thinking about
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
keep or maintain in unaltered condition; cause to remain or last
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
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He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
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As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
a dwelling that serves as living quarters for one or more families
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
a depository containing historical records and documents
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or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
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the atmosphere and outer space as viewed from the earth
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
the central building block at the top of an arch or vault
"We never got away--how should you?" seemed to be written on every headstone; and whenever he went in or out of his gate he thought with a
shiver: "I shall just go on living here till I join them."
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
walk heavily and firmly, as when weary, or through mud
It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two
men entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove and
Zeena was already at the table.
primarily spatial sense; of relatively great or greater than average spatial extension or extension as specified
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
preoccupation with yourself to the exclusion of everything else
She was no longer the listless
creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption,
but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long
years of silent brooding.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had
the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
a group of animals (a herd or flock) moving together
After that, for a week, he drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
At first its weak flame made no impression on
the shadows; then Zeena's face stood grimly out against the uncurtained
pane, which had turned from grey to black.
(physics) electromagnetic radiation that can produce a visual sensation
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
bedding made of two layers of cloth filled with stuffing and stitched together
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
a covering for the body (or parts of it) consisting of a dense growth of threadlike structures (as on the human head); helps to prevent heat loss
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
cloak consisting of an oblong piece of cloth used to cover the head and shoulders
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance
It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from
the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing
him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and
freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days,
when he had tried to "jolly" the Worcester girls at a picnic.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
withdrawing into the background; making yourself inconspicuous
"I wouldn't ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl
like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady," Zeena answered in
a tone of plaintive self-effacement.
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
either of two fleshy folds of tissue that surround the mouth and play a role in speaking
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
an area within a building enclosed by walls and floor and ceiling
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
happening at a time subsequent to a reference time
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
the act of changing location by raising the foot and setting it down
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
On our right a line of light marked the
door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the
door I heard a woman's voice droning querulously.
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
in line with a length or direction (often followed by `by' or `beside')
Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as
weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand
at doctoring in the county.
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
move with force, "He pushed the table into a corner"
I thought
it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the
power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I decided, if Frome
turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait there till my train
came in.
a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
street that serves as a principal thoroughfare for traffic in a town
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
a piece of furniture holding one or more electric light bulbs
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
And within
a year of their marriage she developed the "sickliness" which had since
made her notable even in a community rich in pathological instances.
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
harmony of people's opinions or actions or characters
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
the feeling aroused by something strange and surprising
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
to a complete degree or to the full or entire extent (`whole' is often used informally for `wholly')
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
a winder around which thread or tape or film or other flexible materials can be wound
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
backache affecting the lumbar region or lower back; can be caused by muscle strain or arthritis or vascular insufficiency or a ruptured intervertebral disc
He woke up with a touch o' lumbago, and I just
made him put on one of old Dr. Kidder's plasters and set right up into
the fire."
someone who contracts for and supervises construction (as of a building)
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
It was what Jotham called a sour morning
for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping under their wet
blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
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Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
a human limb; technically the part of the superior limb between the shoulder and the elbow but commonly used to refer to the whole superior limb
Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early
morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her;
but no moments in her company were comparable to those when, her arm in
his, and her light step flying to keep time with his long stride, they
walked back through the night to the farm.
And there were other
sensations, less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together
with a shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter
hills, the flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the
intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow.
After his father's death it had taken time
to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or any one
else in Starkfield, to think he was going under again.
any support where you can sit (especially the part of a chair or bench etc. on which you sit)
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
the act of causing something to move to a lower level
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
Deep silence had fallen with the starless dusk, and they leaned on each
other without speaking; but at every step of their climb Ethan said to
himself: "It's the last time we'll ever walk together."
free from error; especially conforming to fact or truth
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
a free-reed instrument in which air is forced through the reeds by bellows
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
the upper part of the human body or the front part of the body in animals; contains the face and brains
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and
at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me formless night, said: "That's my gate down yonder."
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
an expression consisting of one or more words forming a grammatical constituent of a sentence
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I
grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
a painful burning sensation in the chest caused by gastroesophageal reflux (backflow from the stomach irritating the esophagus); symptomatic of an ulcer or a diaphragmatic hernia or other disorder
"I ain't tried them for quite
a while, and maybe they'll help the heartburn."
a room in a private house or establishment where people can sit and talk and relax
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
a support that consists of a horizontal surface for holding objects
"Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want
to know why I did it--"
The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.
I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew
that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of
the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill.
being level or straight or regular and without variation as e.g. in shape or texture; or being in the same plane or at the same height as something else (i.e. even with)
Even then he was the most striking figure
in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where,
enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles
through the snow.
a quick blow delivered with a whip or whiplike object
The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep
up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their
mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window
that the reel would never end.
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
cause or allow (a solid substance) to flow or run out or over
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
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one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.
He had been straining for a glimpse
of the dark head under the cherry-coloured scarf and it vexed him that
another eye should have been quicker than his.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation
did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an uncomprehending grunt.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
a place within a region identified relative to a center or reference location
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
the lowermost portion of a structure partly or wholly below ground level; often used for storage
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging
to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of
mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking.
There was a last load of lumber to be hauled to the village, and Jotham
Powell--who did not work regularly for Ethan in winter--had "come round"
to help with the job.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
spur on or encourage especially by cheers and shouts
Once or twice, hearing
sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham
might overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in sight, and he set his
face against the rain and urged on his ponderous pair.
a small fragment of something broken off from the whole
Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.
She set the lamp on the table,
and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts,
stewed blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass.
descend in free fall under the influence of gravity
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
any informal meal eaten outside or on an excursion
It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from
the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing
him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and
freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days,
when he had tried to "jolly" the Worcester girls at a picnic.
the latter part of the day (the period of decreasing daylight from late afternoon until nightfall)
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
a framework of wood or metal that contains a glass windowpane and is built into a wall or roof to admit light or air
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
wavelike motion; a gentle rising and falling in the manner of waves
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual
silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to
the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
face to mine.
characteristic of or befitting a slut or slattern; used especially of women
A slatternly calico wrapper hung from her shoulders
and the wisps of her thin grey hair were drawn away from a high forehead
and fastened at the back by a broken comb.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
withdrawing into the background; making yourself inconspicuous
"I wouldn't ever have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl
like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady," Zeena answered in
a tone of plaintive self-effacement.
a soft white precious univalent metallic element having the highest electrical and thermal conductivity of any metal; occurs in argentite and in free form; used in coins and jewelry and tableware and photography
Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his
wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance of
amusement drew her to the village.
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
move obliquely or sideways, usually in an uncontrolled manner
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
move forward or upward in order to touch; also in a metaphorical sense
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
without speed (`slow' is sometimes used informally for `slowly')
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
be lying, be prostrate; be in a horizontal position
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
(music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound)
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
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shorten lines in a drawing so as to create an illusion of depth
She changed her position, leaning forward to bend her
head above her work, so that he saw only the foreshortened tip of her
nose and the streak of red in her hair; then she slipped to her feet,
saying "I can't see to sew," and went back to her chair by the lamp.
any period of time during which glaciers covered a large part of the earth's surface
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the ice age, and the long dim stretch...
a person who holds Ph.D. degree (or the equivalent) from an academic institution
Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as
weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand
at doctoring in the county.
On our right a line of light marked the
door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the
door I heard a woman's voice droning querulously.
of or pertaining to a number system have 2 as its base
You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form.
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while
afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
appearing to be as specified; usually used as combining forms
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
the part of a rock formation that appears above the surface of the surrounding land
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
"It takes the
stepladder to get at the top shelf, and I put Aunt Philura Maple's
pickle-dish up there o' purpose when we was married, and it's never been
down since, 'cept for the spring cleaning, and then I always lifted it
with my own hands, so's 't shouldn't get broke."
happening without warning or in a short space of time
"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden
drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena--ain't suited with me any
more?" she faltered.
When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out
the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they would
sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town.
an expanse of scenery that can be seen in a single view
Day by day, after the
December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents
of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an
intenser glitter.
the smallest whole number or a numeral representing this number
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
the faculty through which the external world is apprehended
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears
of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush,
and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he
drove through the snowy fields.
a small lightweight carriage; drawn by a single horse
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
cause to be in a certain state; cause to be in a certain relation
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
The
cat had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot,
and as a result of the sudden movement the empty chair had set up a spectral rocking.
devoid of or deficient in light or brightness; shadowed or black
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
(of plants and shrubs) shedding foliage at the end of the growing season
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual
silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to
the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
face to mine.
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
His hard day's work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and
he had a confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth
and harmony and time could bring no change.
be present at (meetings, church services, university), etc.
He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after
the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the
churn and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.
one of a pair of long straps (usually connected to the bit or the headpiece) used to control a horse
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
On our right a line of light marked the
door of the room which had sent its ray across the night; and behind the
door I heard a woman's voice droning querulously.
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
Nevertheless, I might have
contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had
it not been for the provocation of Mrs. Hale's silence, and--a little
later--for the accident of personal contact with the man.
The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep
up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their
mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window
that the reel would never end.
a small room (or recess) or cabinet used for storage space
"Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want
to know why I did it--"
The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.
solid-hoofed herbivorous quadruped domesticated since prehistoric times
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
a vehicle mounted on runners and pulled by horses or dogs; for transportation over snow
Ethan therefore proposed to his
assistant that they should load the sledge at the wood-lot, as they had
done on the previous morning, and put off the "teaming" to Starkfield
till later in the day.
any of numerous climbing plants of the genus Vanilla having fleshy leaves and clusters of large waxy highly fragrant white or green or topaz flowers
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form.
Twice or thrice before she had suddenly
packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had
grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
(comparative of `much' used with mass nouns) a quantifier meaning greater in size or amount or extent or degree
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
a long thin board with one edge thicker than the other; used as siding by lapping one board over the board below
And all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when
the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like
hail against the loose-hung windows!
the hard fibrous lignified substance under the bark of trees
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the wood-shed and cow-barn.
change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin, made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
white sheep originating in Spain and producing a heavy fleece of exceptional quality
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
a person who participates in a social gathering arranged for dancing (as a ball)
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
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Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
He even noticed two or
three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him:
a way of throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her
laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
anything charmed or moved her.
It's the way your father
begun, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my
things where you couldn't get at 'em--and now you've took from me the one
I cared for most of all--" She broke off in a short spasm of sobs that
passed and left her more than ever like a shape of stone.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
burner such that combustible gas issues from a nozzle to form a steady flame
The metal reflectors of the gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
A moment later he heard the jingle of departing
sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty
expanse of snow before the church.
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer
sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
He still took refuge there in summer, but when Mattie came to
live at the farm he had to give her his stove, and consequently the room
was uninhabitable for several months of the year.
One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had
heard her speak from the bed behind him.
stable where horses and vehicles are kept for hire
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
The crash of a loaded branch
falling far off in the woods reverberated like a musket-shot, and once a
fox barked, and Mattie shrank closer to Ethan, and quickened her steps.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
uncomprehending grunt.
time for Earth to make a complete rotation on its axis
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
(New Testament) disciple of Jesus; brother of Peter; patron saint of Scotland
The hauling was not over till mid-day, and as the lumber was to be
delivered to Andrew Hale, the Starkfield builder, it was really easier
for Ethan to send Jotham Powell, the hired man, back to the farm on
foot, and drive the load down to the village himself.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
relative darkness caused by light rays being intercepted by an opaque body
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
orienting or directing homeward or to a destination
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
When Ethan was called back to the farm by his father's illness his
mother gave him, for his own use, a small room behind the untenanted
"best parlour."
a period of indeterminate length (usually short) marked by some action or condition
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
a unit of language that native speakers can identify
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
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one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.
It is powerful cold down here," Ethan assented; and with
lowered head he went up in his wife's wake, and followed her across the threshold of their room.
alongside each other, facing in the same direction
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.
She set the lamp on the table,
and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts,
stewed blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass.
His
father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature
end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be
of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
a wheeled vehicle that runs on rails and is propelled by electricity
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
all its nights to revelry.
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
(Greek mythology) 7 daughters of Atlas and half-sisters of the Hyades; placed among the stars to save them from the pursuit of Orion
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
the act of giving a formal (usually written) authorization
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties.
It is powerful cold down here," Ethan assented; and with
lowered head he went up in his wife's wake, and followed her across the
threshold of their room.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
a statement asserting the existence or the truth of something
And the sweetness of Mattie's avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at
last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the
other vision more abhorrent, the other life more intolerable to return
to...
At
Worcester, though he had the name of keeping to himself and not being
much of a hand at a good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped
on the back and hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation
of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return to
Starkfield.
the warmest season of the year; in the northern hemisphere it extends from the summer solstice to the autumnal equinox
In the summertime, on pleasant days, they move Mattie into
the parlour, or out in the door-yard, and that makes it easier... but
winters there's the fires to be thought of; and there ain't a dime to
spare up at the Fromes.'"
He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after
long intervals of secretive silence.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
destroy the integrity of; usually by force; cause to separate into pieces or fragments
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.
any movable possession (especially articles of clothing)
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
Ethan had
an idea that if she were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant
instinct would wake, and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the
county; but domesticity in the abstract did not interest her.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
of relatively small extent from one surface to the opposite or in cross section
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
something intended to communicate a particular impression
This display of opulence
was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known
that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently
kept him what Starkfield called "behind."
As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because
they were untrue--there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
from Hale--but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
excursions.
To-night the
pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward
despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of
joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
being of the achromatic color of maximum darkness; having little or no hue owing to absorption of almost all incident light
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
consent or assent to a condition, or agree to do something
When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out
the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they would
sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town.
a hill in Washington, D.C., where the Capitol Building sits and Congress meets
I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew
that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
trouble in carrying or managing caused by bulk or shape
He therefore made his demand with the awkwardness of a proud
man who will not admit to himself that he is stooping; and he was not
much surprised at Hale's refusal.
The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about
his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance
and magnified his sense of what he owed her.
bob forward and under so as to feed off the bottom of a body of water
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from
the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing
him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and
freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days,
when he had tried to "jolly" the Worcester girls at a picnic.
a structure attached to the exterior of a building often forming a covered entrance
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
He therefore made his demand with the awkwardness of a proud
man who will not admit to himself that he is stooping; and he was not
much surprised at Hale's refusal.
wooden panels that can be used to line the walls of a room
The
cat had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot,
and as a result of the sudden movement the empty chair had set up a
spectral rocking.
a number that identifies a position relative to an axis
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
medicine that is protected by a patent and available without a doctor's prescription
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
a mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services
Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any
question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but
on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent.
Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's house
with the two black Norway spruces at the gate.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the
mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for
any farther pretence of reserve, he went on slowly: "I've always set
down the worst of mother's trouble to that.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
made by intertwining threads in a series of connected loops rather than by weaving
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
mechanical vibrations transmitted by an elastic medium
He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had
startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after
long intervals of secretive silence.
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least unseal his lips.
a mixture of lime or gypsum with sand and water; hardens into a smooth solid; used to cover walls and ceilings
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
"Don't be scared, Matt!" he cried exultantly, as they spun safely past
it and flew down the second slope; and when they reached the level
ground beyond, and the speed of the sled began to slacken, he heard her
give a little laugh of glee.
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
So strange was the precision with which the incidents of
the previous evening were repeating themselves that he half expected,
when he heard the key turn, to see his wife before him on the threshold;
but the door opened, and Mattie faced him.
It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad
seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable
advantage in descending to the level of recrimination.
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and
at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me
formless night, said: "That's my gate down yonder."
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
turned into ice; affected by freezing or by long and severe cold
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
He was aware that he was "talking big," like Denis Eady; but his
reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which she
had said of the engaged couple "They're so happy!" made the words sound
as if she had been thinking of herself and him.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
a group of nearly parallel lines of electromagnetic radiation
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
occurring or encountered or experienced or observed frequently or in accordance with regular practice or procedure
I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual
silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to
the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
face to mine.
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
The kitchen was a poor place, not "spruce" and shining as his
mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a homelike
look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it.
a point located with respect to surface features of some region
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
the point where three areas or surfaces meet or intersect
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
the cardinal number that is the sum of one and one or a numeral representing this number
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
stimulation that calls up (draws forth) a particular class of behaviors
"You wanted to make the supper-table pretty; and you waited till my back
was turned, and took the thing I set most store by of anything I've got,
and wouldn't never use it, not even when the minister come to dinner,
or Aunt Martha Pierce come over from Bettsbridge--" Zeena paused with a
gasp, as if terrified by her own evocation of the sacrilege.
extending out above or beyond a surface or boundary
II
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
a piano with the strings on a horizontal harp-shaped frame; usually supported by three legs
The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to
know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a "cupolo" to his
house; offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.
She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.
not having a coat of paint or badly in need of a fresh coat
Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple
of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood
meagrely against the plaster walls.
discover or determine the existence, presence, or fact of
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges.
move while supporting, either in a vehicle or in one's hands or on one's body
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather,
and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away
the dishes.
A moment later he heard the jingle of departing
sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty
expanse of snow before the church.
made of layers of fabric held together by patterned stitching
Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and
angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast,
while the other held a lamp.
of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden
drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena--ain't suited with me any
more?" she faltered.
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
To-night the
pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward
despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of
joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.
an unfortunate mishap; especially one causing damage or injury
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer
sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
I simply felt that he lived in a depth of
moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that
his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic
as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the
profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
being or located on or directed toward the side of the body to the west when facing north
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
elastic straps that hold trousers up (usually used in the plural)
Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence
while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked his arms
into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and
incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."
having or producing a comfortable and agreeable degree of heat or imparting or maintaining heat
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
give money, usually in exchange for goods or services
Mattie Silver came from Stamford, and when she entered
the Fromes' household to act as her cousin Zeena's aid it was thought
best, as she came without pay, not to let her feel too sharp a contrast
between the life she had left and the isolation of a Starkfield farm.
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
a violent weather condition with winds 64-72 knots (11 on the Beaufort scale) and precipitation and thunder and lightning
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
He no
longer believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed seriousness of
her state: he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only a plot hatched
between herself and her Pierce relations to foist on him the cost of a
servant; and for the moment wrath predominated.
When these nightly duties were performed there was nothing left to do
but to bring in the tin candlestick from the passage, light the candle
and blow out the lamp.
Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any
question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but
on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent.
As her young brown head detached itself
against the patch-work cushion that habitually framed his wife's gaunt
countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock.
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
covered with bright patches (often used in combination)
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
To keep out of range of the revealing rays
from within he made a circuit through the untrodden snow and gradually
approached the farther angle of the basement wall.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
When the end came
it was she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker,
and she thought it "funny" that he had not settled beforehand who was
to have his mother's clothes and the sewing-machine.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
take to be the case or to be true; accept without verification or proof
As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; "If you're too
busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over
with the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats."
But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
an indentation of a shoreline larger than a cove but smaller than a gulf
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
It was the first time they had ever spoken
so openly of her attitude toward Mattie, and the repetition of the name
seemed to carry it to the farther corners of the room and send it back
to them in long repercussions of sound.
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational church.
The hush of midnight lay
on the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church
windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands
of yellow light.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
Then the
big elm shot up ahead, lying in wait for them at the bend of the road,
and he said between his teeth: "We can fetch it; I know we can fetch
it--"
As they flew toward the tree Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and her
blood seemed to be in his veins.
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
endowed with feeling and unstructured consciousness
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where,
enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles
through the snow.
a ball-and-socket joint between the head of the humerus and a cavity of the scapula
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
make a request or demand for something to somebody
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had
startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after
long intervals of secretive silence.
protected from heat and light with shade or shadow
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
showing the wearing effects of overwork or care or suffering
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from
the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing
him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and
freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days,
when he had tried to "jolly" the Worcester girls at a picnic.
The effect produced on Frome was rather of
a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than
ether intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic
dome overhead.
Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence
while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked his arms
into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and
incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."
any of numerous very small to minute arachnids often infesting animals or plants or stored foods
"I felt a little mite better, and Dr. Buck says I ought to eat all I can
to keep my strength up, even if I ain't got any appetite," she said in
her flat whine, reaching across Mattie for the teapot.
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
Every yard of the road was alive with
Mattie's presence, and there was hardly a branch against the sky or a
tangle of brambles on the bank in which some bright shred of memory was
not caught.
One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had
heard her speak from the bed behind him.
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
droop, sink, or settle from or as if from pressure or loss of tautness
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
(comparative and superlative of `early') more early than; most early
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
mentally confused; unable to think with clarity or act intelligently
His hard day's
work in the keen air made him feel at once lazy and light of mood, and
he had a confused sense of being in another world, where all was warmth
and harmony and time could bring no change.
To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of
free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to
nerve Jotham to such stoicism.
They went back to the kitchen, and he fetched the coal and kindlings
and cleared out the stove for her, while she brought in the milk and
the cold remains of the meat-pie.
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form.
Hale, after all, knew enough of Ethan's situation
to make it possible for the latter to renew his appeal without too much
loss of pride; and, moreover, how much did pride count in the ebullition
of passions in his breast?
He did his best to
supplement her unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to light
the kitchen fire, carrying in the wood overnight, and neglecting the
mill for the farm that he might help her about the house during the day.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
Here, after
considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she
couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary
bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and
corset-laces.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
the act of furnishing an equivalent person or thing in the place of another
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
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electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned
I simply felt that he lived in a depth of
moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that
his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic
as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the
profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
Most people were either indifferent to his troubles, or disposed
to think it natural that a young fellow of his age should have carried
without repining the burden of three crippled lives.
in violation of good taste even verging on the indecent
Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of surgical
intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was divided, some
glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while others shunned
them as indelicate.
the work of caring for the sick or injured or infirm
Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the
pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind
while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely
farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and
of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
of an achromatic color of any lightness intermediate between the extremes of white and black
The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp
scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which
began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish
cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.
a small pouch inside a garment for carrying small articles
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
in grief-stricken loneliness; without comforting circumstances or prospects
Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.
Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even
if she found a purchaser--in itself an unlikely chance--it was doubtful if
she could clear a thousand dollars on the sale.
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your equipment.
Two or three times some ghostly
landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked
back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse
began to show signs of exhaustion.
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
formal attendance (in court or at a hearing) of a party in an action
It was strange that the
girl did not seem aware of it: that she could lift her rapt face to her
dancer's, and drop her hands into his, without appearing to feel the
offence of his look and touch.
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and
angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast,
while the other held a lamp.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
a tall tower that forms the superstructure of a building (usually a church or temple) and that tapers to a point at the top
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
motion of hands or body to emphasize or help to express a thought or feeling
He even noticed two or
three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him:
a way of throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her
laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
anything charmed or moved her.
be inactive or indifferent while something is happening
The only drawback to his
complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where
he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said:
"Come over here and sit by the stove."
This display of opulence
was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known
that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently
kept him what Starkfield called "behind."
They walked on in silence through the blackness of the hemlock-shaded
lane, where Ethan's sawmill gloomed through the night, and out again
into the comparative clearness of the fields.
Ethan had
an idea that if she were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant
instinct would wake, and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the
county; but domesticity in the abstract did not interest her.
His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had
grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency.
Ethan drove on in silence till they reached a part of the wood where the
pines were more widely spaced, then he drew up and helped Mattie to get
out of the sleigh.
the sound made by something moving rapidly or by steam coming out of a small aperture
The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears
of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush,
and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he
drove through the snowy fields.
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
(often used as a combining form) in a good or proper or satisfactory manner or to a high standard (`good' is a nonstandard dialectal variant for `well')
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the
pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind
while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely
farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and
of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
He had never been in her room except once, in the early summer, when
he had gone there to plaster up a leak in the eaves, but he remembered
exactly how everything had looked: the red-and-white quilt on her narrow
bed, the pretty pin-cushion on the chest of drawers, and over it the
enlarged photograph of her mother, in an oxydized frame, with a bunch of
dyed grasses at the back.
red color or pigment; the chromatic color resembling the hue of blood
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
At
his approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half-laughing "Oh!" provoked
by the discovery of his presence.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
coming after all others in time or space or degree or being the only one remaining
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it,
letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
The metal reflectors of the
gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
Mrs. Hale's father had been the
village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's house,"
where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
mansion in the village.
be placed or located between other things or extend between spaces and events
The effect produced on Frome was rather of
a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than
ether intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic
dome overhead.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in
his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that
funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never
heard her before.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
afflicted with or marked by anxious uneasiness or trouble or grief
Once or twice in the
past he had been faintly disquieted by Zenobia's way of letting things
happen without seeming to remark them, and then, weeks afterward, in
a casual phrase, revealing that she had all along taken her notes and
drawn her inferences.
a mental representation of some haunting experience
The black wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
Nevertheless, I might have
contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had
it not been for the provocation of Mrs. Hale's silence, and--a little
later--for the accident of personal contact with the man.
move downward and lower, but not necessarily all the way
"She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with
smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
As he walked away the builder's last phrase lingered in
his ears, and he reflected grimly that his seven years with Zeena seemed
to Starkfield "not so long."
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go or come back to place, condition, or activity where one has been before
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
And there were other
sensations, less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together
with a shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter
hills, the flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the
intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow.
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As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then
he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light
slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any
question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but
on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent.
the shape of a raised edge of a more or less circular object
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her
things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
Now these and all other tokens of her presence
had vanished and the room looked as bare and comfortless as when Zeena
had shown her into it on the day of her arrival.
optical instrument consisting of a frame that holds a pair of lenses for correcting defective vision
He
hurried forward to meet it, but as it drew nearer he saw that it was
driven by the carpenter's youngest boy and that the figure at his side,
looking like a large upright cocoon in spectacles, was that of Mrs.
Hale.
(with `in') guardianship over; in divorce cases it is the right to house and care for and discipline a child
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a
sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
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Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
Mrs. Hale's father had been the
village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's house,"
where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
mansion in the village.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
direct one's interest or attention towards; go into
Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted
pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only
a mere touch on her hand.
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As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
physically and forcibly separated into pieces or cracked or split
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her
things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
thorny Eurasian shrub of small tree having dense clusters of white to scarlet flowers followed by deep red berries; established as an escape in eastern North America
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He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her
to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and
at first he could not think of a pretext for not doing so; then he said:
"I'd take you over myself, only I've got to collect the cash for the
lumber."
any of numerous small rodents typically resembling diminutive rats having pointed snouts and small ears on elongated bodies with slender usually hairless tails
The
cat had jumped from Zeena's chair to dart at a mouse in the wainscot,
and as a result of the sudden movement the empty chair had set up a
spectral rocking.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
"She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf
wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that
Ethan stood before her without speaking.
causing difficulty in breathing especially through lack of fresh air and presence of heat
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
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Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
His
father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature
end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be
of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge
cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
immerse briefly into a liquid so as to wet, coat, or saturate
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
a constitutional monarchy in northern Europe on the western side of the Scandinavian Peninsula; achieved independence from Sweden in 1905
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
From where he stood he
could not see the persons coming out of the hall till they had advanced
a few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm-door; but through its
cracks he heard a clear voice answer: "Mercy no!
in or to various places; first this place and then that
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
(sometimes followed by `of') having or showing knowledge or understanding or realization or perception
I put the volume into my pocket and we dropped back into our usual
silence; but as we began to crawl up the long hill from Corbury Flats to
the Starkfield ridge I became aware in the dusk that he had turned his
face to mine.
Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any
question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but
on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent.
any of numerous trees and shrubs producing a small fleshy round fruit with a single hard stone; many also produce a valuable hardwood
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
The pure air, and the
long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie,
and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew
less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on
under the burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least
imagine that peace reigned in his house.
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And the sweetness of Mattie's avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at
last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the
other vision more abhorrent, the other life more intolerable to return
to...
move downward and lower, but not necessarily all the way
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
taking a series of rhythmical steps (and movements) in time to music
The hush of midnight lay
on the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church
windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands
of yellow light.
without or seeming to be without plan or method; offhand
I simply felt that he lived in a depth of
moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that
his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic
as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the
profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather,
and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away
the dishes.
make ready or suitable or equip in advance for a particular purpose or for some use, event, etc
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a
sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a
sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old
bay's pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were
nearly an hour on the way.
a mixture of gases (especially oxygen) required for breathing; the stuff that the wind consists of
Day by day, after the
December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents
of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an
intenser glitter.
When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it.
(Old Testament) the guardian archangel of the Jews
Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's house
with the two black Norway spruces at the gate.
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
the main meal of the day served in the evening or at midday
This plan had the advantage of enabling him to
send Jotham to the Flats after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself
took the lumber down to the village.
a retail merchant who sells foodstuffs (and some household supplies)
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old
bay's pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were
nearly an hour on the way.
The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or I'd 'a' walked in to
Starkfield on my own feet, sooner'n put you out, and asked Michael Eady
to let me ride over on his wagon to the Flats, when he sends to meet the
train that brings his groceries.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
occupied with or fond of the pleasures of good company
Left alone, after
his father's accident, to carry the burden of farm and mill, he had had
no time for convivial loiterings in the village; and when his mother
fell ill the loneliness of the house grew more oppressive than that
of the fields.
(used especially of persons) having lived for a relatively long time or attained a specific age
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
taken unawares or suddenly and feeling wonder or astonishment
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
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Perhaps this
connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about
Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled
valiantly at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her
visit to Bettsbridge.
the organ of smell and entrance to the respiratory tract; the prominent part of the face of man or other mammals
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
having a back or backing, usually of a specified type
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
an interior passage or corridor onto which rooms open
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
the characteristic parts of a person's face: eyes and nose and mouth and chin
But suddenly his
wife's face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between
him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside.
a glass or plastic vessel used for storing drinks or other liquids; typically cylindrical without handles and with a narrow neck that can be plugged or capped
She
had measured out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed
and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow
flannel, had lain down with her face turned away.
Under her shapeless dress her body kept its
limp immobility, and her dark eyes had the bright witch-like stare that
disease of the spine sometimes gives.
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
floor consisting of open space at the top of a house just below roof; often used for storage
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
Farm and mill were mortgaged to the limit of their value, and even
if she found a purchaser--in itself an unlikely chance--it was doubtful if
she could clear a thousand dollars on the sale.
The entertainment of which he spoke was one of the few that they had
taken part in together: a "church picnic" which, on a long afternoon of
the preceding summer, had filled the retired place with merry-making.
By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued
to move along the crest of the slope above him.
The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other across the
narrow upper landing, and to-night it was peculiarly repugnant to him
that Mattie should see him follow Zeena.
a division of a stem, or secondary stem arising from the main stem of a plant
I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew
that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of
the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because
they were untrue--there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
from Hale--but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
excursions.
being up to particular standard or level especially in being up to date in knowledge
He had scrambled up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy
grays, when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a
vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
a visual representation (of an object or scene or person or abstraction) produced on a surface
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
the act of sexual procreation between a man and a woman; the man's penis is inserted into the woman's vagina and excited until orgasm and ejaculation occur
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
the time in the evening at which the sun begins to fall below the horizon
But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
I therefore confined myself to saying, in a
matter-of-fact tone, that I had been received with great kindness, and
that Frome had made a bed for me in a room on the ground-floor which
seemed in happier days to have been fitted up as a kind of writing-room
or study.
being of the achromatic color of maximum lightness; having little or no hue owing to reflection of almost all incident light
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
The sun slanted through the south
window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on
the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted
them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie.
She
sat opposite the window, and the pale light reflected from the banks of
snow made her face look more than usually drawn and bloodless, sharpened
the three parallel creases between ear and cheek, and drew querulous
lines from her thin nose to the corners of her mouth.
But the hired man, though seldom loth to
accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his stiff jaws to answer
slowly: "I'm obliged to you, but I guess I'll go along back."
to move in a twisting or contorted motion, (especially when struggling)
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
furnishings that make a room or other area ready for occupancy
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots,
and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
furniture in the hall.
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled
valiantly at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her
visit to Bettsbridge.
slender stem-like structure by which some twining plants attach themselves to an object for support
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
But after the trains begun running nobody ever
come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head
what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
the position of a prominent or well-known object in a particular landscape
Two or three times some ghostly landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked
back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse
began to show signs of exhaustion.
place in a line or arrange so as to be parallel or straight
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
At
his approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then
conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half-laughing "Oh!" provoked
by the discovery of his presence.
At
his approach it melted for an instant into two separate shapes and then conjoined again, and he heard a kiss, and a half-laughing "Oh!" provoked
by the discovery of his presence.
a serving of drink (usually alcoholic) drawn from a keg
One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had
heard her speak from the bed behind him.
spoken in soft hushed tones without vibrations of the vocal cords
"I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the
dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by
the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and
some day she'll lie there beside me."
a prank or trick played on a person (especially one intended to make the victim appear foolish)
The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to
know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a "cupolo" to his
house; offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.
to render motionless, as with a fixed stare or by arousing terror or awe
He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped
lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her
hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen
a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were
building.
She let Denis Eady lead out the horse, climb
into the cutter and fling back the bearskin to make room for her at his
side; then, with a swift motion of flight, she turned about and darted
up the slope toward the front of the church.
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story
Nevertheless he sat still a moment, straining his eyes down the long
hill, for it was the most confusing hour of the evening, the hour when
the last clearness from the upper sky is merged with the rising night in
a blur that disguises landmarks and falsifies distances.
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The sky was still thick, but looking straight up he saw a single star,
and tried vaguely to reckon whether it were Sirius, or--or--The effort
tired him too much, and he closed his heavy lids and thought that he
would sleep...
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
Zeena answered in her every-day tone and, warming
to the theme, regaled them with several vivid descriptions of intestinal
disturbances among her friends and relatives.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
large long-necked wading bird of marshes and plains in many parts of the world
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
a small metal cap to protect the finger while sewing; can be used as a small container
She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding
her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the
box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought to her from
Bettsbridge.
Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his.
While he was there Jotham Powell drove up with the sleigh, and when the
horses had been attended to Ethan said to him: "You might as well come back up for a bite."
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots,
and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
furniture in the hall.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
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As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
"It ain't done me a speck of good, but I guess I might as well use it
up," she remarked; adding, as she pushed the empty bottle toward Mattie:
"If you can get the taste out it'll do for pickles."
But something in his past history, or in his present
way of living, had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any
casual impulse to draw him back to his kind.
a supplementary component that improves capability
He did his best to supplement her unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to light
the kitchen fire, carrying in the wood overnight, and neglecting the
mill for the farm that he might help her about the house during the day.
a length (straight or curved) without breadth or thickness; the trace of a moving point
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to
know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a "cupolo" to his
house; offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.
as if with kid gloves; with caution or prudence or tact
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
Zeena had always been
what Starkfield called "sickly," and Frome had to admit that, if she
were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm
than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the
farm.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
the act of assuming or maintaining a seated position
He had scrambled
up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy
grays, when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a
vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
disability of walking due to crippling of the legs or feet
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
All the long misery of his
baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose
up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the
woman who at every turn had barred his way.
move so that an opening or passage is obstructed; make shut
But when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
Here, after
considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she
couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary
bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and
corset-laces.
the main stem of a tree; usually covered with bark; the bole is usually the part that is commercially useful for lumber
Then, when the loading finally
began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were
so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get
them in place on the sledge.
silky envelope spun by the larvae of many insects to protect pupas and by spiders to protect eggs
He
hurried forward to meet it, but as it drew nearer he saw that it was
driven by the carpenter's youngest boy and that the figure at his side,
looking like a large upright cocoon in spectacles, was that of Mrs.
Hale.
the space between two lines or planes that intersect; the inclination of one line to another; measured in degrees or radians
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
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form.
After the funeral,
when he saw her preparing to go away, he was seized with an unreasoning
dread of being left alone on the farm; and before he knew what he was
doing he had asked her to stay there with him.
unnatural lack of color in the skin (as from bruising or sickness or emotional distress)
She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf
wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that
Ethan stood before her without speaking.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
His unfinished studies had given form to this sensibility and even in his
unhappiest moments field and sky spoke to him with a deep and powerful
persuasion.
inclined to secrecy or reticence about divulging information
He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had
startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after
long intervals of secretive silence.
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
The sunrise burned red in a
pure sky, the shadows on the rim of the wood-lot were darkly blue, and
beyond the white and scintillating fields patches of far-off forest hung
like smoke.
It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin
Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her,
that human speech was heard again in the house.
Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his.
At
Worcester, though he had the name of keeping to himself and not being
much of a hand at a good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped
on the back and hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation
of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return to
Starkfield.
When these nightly duties were performed there was nothing left to do
but to bring in the tin candlestick from the passage, light the candle
and blow out the lamp.
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while
afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
used to wrap around pipes or boilers or laid in attics to prevent loss of heat
He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the
mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for
any farther pretence of reserve, he went on slowly: "I've always set
down the worst of mother's trouble to that.
the part of an organism (human or animal) that connects the head to the rest of the body
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
The sorrel, turning the same big ringed eye
on him, nuzzled the palm of his hand in the same way; and one by one all
the days between rose up and stood before him...
lean and wrinkled by shrinkage as from age or illness
Perhaps this
connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about
Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation
did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
uncomprehending grunt.
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
a tract of land with few or no trees in the middle of a wooded area
Then
the girl had returned to her task of clearing up the kitchen for the
night and he had taken his lantern and gone on his usual round outside
the house.
The tall woman, who had moved away from us toward the dresser, took no
notice; but the other, from her cushioned niche, answered complainingly,
in a high thin voice.
He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped
lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her
hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen
a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were
building.
inborn pattern of behavior often responsive to specific stimuli
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
(used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture
Her hair was as grey as her companion's, her face as bloodless and shrivelled, but amber-tinted, with swarthy shadows sharpening the nose
and hollowing the temples.
He had supposed her to be asleep, and the sound of her voice had
startled him, though she was given to abrupt explosions of speech after
long intervals of secretive silence.
belonging to or on behalf of a specified person (especially yourself); preceded by a possessive
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
act in unison or agreement and in secret towards a deceitful or illegal purpose
"I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the
dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by
the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and
some day she'll lie there beside me."
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
a large retail store organized into departments offering a variety of merchandise; commonly part of a retail chain
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
She drank
two cups of coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the pie-dish;
then she rose from her seat and, walking over to the window, snipped two
or three yellow leaves from the geraniums.
He had been straining for a glimpse
of the dark head under the cherry-coloured scarf and it vexed him that
another eye should have been quicker than his.
a hollow device made of metal that makes a ringing sound when struck
A moment later he heard the jingle of departing
sleigh bells and discerned a figure advancing alone toward the empty
expanse of snow before the church.
It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad
seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable
advantage in descending to the level of recrimination.
not disciplined or conditioned or made adept by training
In the only place where she was known she was surrounded
by indifference or animosity; and what chance had she, inexperienced
and untrained, among the million bread-seekers of the cities?
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
Here, after
considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she
couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary
bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and corset-laces.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
a piece of information about circumstances that exist or events that have occurred
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
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caused or enabled to go or be conveyed or transmitted
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
the linear extent in space from one end to the other; the longest dimension of something that is fixed in place
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or gratitude
at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him
turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
Did I? I was dreadfully put out when you wouldn't go to
the picnic with me; and then, when I saw you coming down the road, I
thought maybe you'd gone home that way o' purpose; and that made me
glad."
a small slender (often pointed) piece of wood or metal used to support or fasten or attach things
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in
his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that
funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never
heard her before.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
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I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway
than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that
life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married.
hasty and without attention to detail; not thorough
The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them
the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he
strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
This display of opulence
was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known
that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently
kept him what Starkfield called "behind."
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation
did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
uncomprehending grunt.
any of several small trees and shrubs native to the tropical Old World yielding coffee beans
It was a slow trudge home through the heavy fields, and when the two
men entered the kitchen Mattie was lifting the coffee from the stove and
Zeena was already at the table.
As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially: "The girl
will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she's got to have
somewheres to sleep."
She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his
arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted
butterflies.
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's house
with the two black Norway spruces at the gate.
(especially of promises or contracts) not violated or disregarded
He even noticed two or
three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him:
a way of throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her
laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
anything charmed or moved her.
something or someone seen (especially a notable or unusual sight)
There was no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice: "I went to
get those powders I'd put away in father's old spectacle-case, top of
the china-closet, where I keep the things I set store by, so's folks
shan't meddle with them--" Her voice broke, and two small tears hung
on her lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks.
(physics) a movement up and down or back and forth
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
a tall perennial woody plant having a main trunk and branches forming a distinct elevated crown; includes both gymnosperms and angiosperms
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
As if expecting a protest, she continued plaintively; "If you're too
busy with the hauling I presume you can let Jotham Powell drive me over
with the sorrel in time to ketch the train at the Flats."
The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk,
gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night
opening out below them and the air singing by like an organ.
the cardinal number that is the product of ten and five
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
To-night the
pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward
despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of
joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as
weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand
at doctoring in the county.
audacious (even arrogant) behavior that you have no right to
Denis Eady was
the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness
and effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of "smart" business
methods, and whose new brick store testified to the success of the
attempt.
When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional
evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
all its nights to revelry.
"The house was bigger in my father's time: I had to take down the 'L,'
a while back," Frome continued, checking with a twitch of the left rein
the bay's evident intention of turning in through the broken-down gate.
Nevertheless, I might have
contented myself with the story pieced together from these hints had
it not been for the provocation of Mrs. Hale's silence, and--a little
later--for the accident of personal contact with the man.
one skilled in caring for young children or the sick (usually under the supervision of a physician)
It was only when she drew toward her last illness, and his cousin
Zenobia Pierce came over from the next valley to help him nurse her,
that human speech was heard again in the house.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
not frequent; not occurring regularly or at short intervals
During the winter months
there was no stage between Starkfield and Bettsbridge, and the trains
which stopped at Corbury Flats were slow and infrequent.
To keep out of range of the revealing rays
from within he made a circuit through the untrodden snow and gradually
approached the farther angle of the basement wall.
quantifier; used with either mass nouns or plural count nouns to indicate an unspecified number or quantity
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I
grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
The fact that he had no right to show his feelings, and thus provoke the expression of hers, made him attach a fantastic importance
to every change in her look and tone.
She had not heard
Ethan's call because she was sobbing and she did not hear his step till
he stood close behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders.
Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the
pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind
while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely
farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and
of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
(physics) the tendency of a body to maintain its state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force
He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to
yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, "Thank you--I'll take it," he
answered shortly.
the physical property of being stiff and resisting bending
The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her
sitting by the window, bolt upright, and knew by the rigidity of the
outline projected against the pane that she had not taken off her
travelling dress.
When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional
evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
all its nights to revelry.
Ethan felt that if he had pleaded an urgent need Hale might have made
shift to pay him; but pride, and an instinctive prudence, kept him from
resorting to this argument.
Now and then he turned his eyes from the
girl's face to that of her partner, which, in the exhilaration of the
dance, had taken on a look of almost impudent ownership.
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
a brittle transparent solid with irregular atomic structure
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
the act of distributing or spreading or apportioning
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All the long misery of his
baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose
up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the
woman who at every turn had barred his way.
She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had
the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
having abnormal sagging of the spine (especially in horses)
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
(superlative of `near' or `close') within the shortest distance
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
Ethan's long strides grew more rapid
with the accelerated beat of his thoughts, and as he reached the foot of
School House Hill he caught sight of Hale's sleigh in the distance.
be larger in number, quantity, power, status or importance
He no
longer believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed seriousness of
her state: he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only a plot hatched
between herself and her Pierce relations to foist on him the cost of a
servant; and for the moment wrath predominated.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
structure consisting of a row of evenly spaced columns
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
the act of isolating something; setting something apart from others
I simply felt that he lived in a depth of
moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that
his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic
as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the
profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
a police investigation to determine the perpetrator
There he lit a candle-end,
opened the china-closet, and, reaching his long arm up to the highest
shelf, laid the pieces together with such accuracy of touch that a close
inspection convinced him of the impossibility of detecting from below
that the dish was broken.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
the organic phenomenon that distinguishes living organisms from nonliving ones
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
one of the portions into which something is regarded as divided and which together constitute a whole
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
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do one's shopping at; do business with; be a customer or client of
With the exception of the dark-eyed woman's chair, which looked like a
soiled relic of luxury bought at a country auction, the furniture was of
the roughest kind.
Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple
of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood
meagrely against the plaster walls.
It is powerful cold down here," Ethan assented; and with lowered head he went up in his wife's wake, and followed her across the
threshold of their room.
earn on some commercial or business transaction; earn as salary or wages
The sun slanted through the south
window on the girl's moving figure, on the cat dozing in a chair, and on
the geraniums brought in from the door-way, where Ethan had planted
them in the summer to "make a garden" for Mattie.
Her companion, who was just coming back to the table with the remains
of a cold mince-pie in a battered pie-dish, set down her unappetising
burden without appearing to hear the accusation brought against her.
air moving (sometimes with considerable force) from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
a place for the burial of a corpse (especially beneath the ground and marked by a tombstone)
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
consider again; give new consideration to; usually with a view to changing
Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was a kind-hearted
man, might be induced to reconsider his refusal and advance a small sum
on the lumber if he were told that Zeena's ill-health made it necessary
to hire a servant.
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while
afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
the extreme end of something; especially something pointed
She changed her position, leaning forward to bend her
head above her work, so that he saw only the foreshortened tip of her
nose and the streak of red in her hair; then she slipped to her feet,
saying "I can't see to sew," and went back to her chair by the lamp.
unskillfulness resulting from a lack of efficiency
His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had
grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
(used of count nouns) each and all of the members of a group considered singly and without exception
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
of or pertaining to or characteristic of a Congregational church
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
the act of applying force in order to move something away
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
Her mind was a store-house of innocuous anecdote and any
question about her acquaintances brought forth a volume of detail; but
on the subject of Ethan Frome I found her unexpectedly reticent.
If he glued it together the next morning
months might elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and
meanwhile he might after all be able to match the dish at Shadd's Falls
or Bettsbridge.
used especially of timbers or boards; bent out of shape usually by moisture
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
keep in safety and protect from harm, decay, loss, or destruction
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
a golf course that is built on sandy ground near a shore
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an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I
grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
any distracting or deceptive maneuver (as a mock attack)
The note of authority in his voice seemed to subdue her, and when he
had jumped from the sleigh she let him help her out, saying only, with a
vague feint of reluctance: "But there isn't a sled round anywheres."
a health professional trained in the art of preparing and dispensing drugs
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
Mrs. Hale glanced at me tentatively, as though
trying to see how much footing my conjectures gave her; and I guessed
that if she had kept silence till now it was because she had been
waiting, through all the years, for some one who should see what she
alone had seen.
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
something added to another thing but not an essential part of it
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
I simply felt that he lived in a depth of
moral isolation too remote for casual access, and I had the sense that
his loneliness was not merely the result of his personal plight, tragic
as I guessed that to be, but had in it, as Harmon Gow had hinted, the
profound accumulated cold of many Starkfield winters.
Mattie Silver was the daughter of
a cousin of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled
sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to
Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to
her father's thriving "drug" business.
a segment of the trunk of a tree when stripped of branches
He had scrambled
up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy
grays, when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a
vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.
On the way over
to the wood-lot one of the greys slipped on a glare of ice and cut his
knee; and when they got him up again Jotham had to go back to the barn
for a strip of rag to bind the cut.
But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
The barn was empty when the horses turned into it and, after giving them
the most perfunctory ministrations they had ever received from him, he
strode up to the house and pushed open the kitchen door.
The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their
wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more
alone.
not having or showing or requiring special skill or proficiency
He did his best to
supplement her unskilled efforts, getting up earlier than usual to light
the kitchen fire, carrying in the wood overnight, and neglecting the
mill for the farm that he might help her about the house during the day.
If he glued it together the next morning
months might elapse before his wife noticed what had happened, and
meanwhile he might after all be able to match the dish at Shadd's Falls
or Bettsbridge.
someone who plays a musical instrument (as a profession)
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
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And there were other
sensations, less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together
with a shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter
hills, the flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the
intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow.
remove something concrete, as by lifting, pushing, or taking off, or remove something abstract
Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.
a material made of cellulose pulp derived mainly from wood or rags or certain grasses
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
connect, fasten, or put together two or more pieces
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
the cognitive processes whereby past experience is remembered
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I
grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
Ethan had
an idea that if she were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant
instinct would wake, and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the
county; but domesticity in the abstract did not interest her.
When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it.
They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where,
enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles
through the snow.
Ethan sat speechless, not pretending to eat, but Mattie nibbled valiantly at her food and asked Zeena one or two questions about her
visit to Bettsbridge.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
All the long misery of his baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose
up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the
woman who at every turn had barred his way.
As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because
they were untrue--there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
from Hale--but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
excursions.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
lose interest or become bored with something or somebody
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
Mattie sat
perfectly still, but as they reached the bend at the foot of the hill,
where the big elm thrust out a deadly elbow, he fancied that she shrank
a little closer.
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
bramble with sweet edible black or dark purple berries that usually do not separate from the receptacle
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
happening at a time subsequent to a reference time
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
a drawing of the outline of an object; filled in with some uniform color
By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued
to move along the crest of the slope above him.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
It was a fact that since Mattie Silver's coming he had taken
to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be asleep when he
left her side in the winter darkness, and he had stupidly assumed that
she would not notice any change in his appearance.
an architectural partition with a height and length greater than its thickness; used to divide or enclose an area or to support another structure
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
short stiff hairs growing on a man's face when he has not shaved for a few days
And there were other
sensations, less definable but more exquisite, which drew them together
with a shock of silent joy: the cold red of sunset behind winter
hills, the flight of cloud-flocks over slopes of golden stubble, or the
intensely blue shadows of hemlocks on sunlit snow.
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
the act of compiling (as into a single book or file or list)
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the sister of your father or mother; the wife of your uncle
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
As they took wing for this it seemed to him that they were
flying indeed, flying far up into the cloudy night, with Starkfield immeasurably below them, falling away like a speck in space...
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
a container (usually in a barn or stable) from which cattle or horses feed
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
It had been one of the wonders of their intercourse that from
the first, she, the quicker, finer, more expressive, instead of crushing
him by the contrast, had given him something of her own ease and
freedom; but now he felt as heavy and loutish as in his student days,
when he had tried to "jolly" the Worcester girls at a picnic.
One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had
heard her speak from the bed behind him.
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in
his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that
funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never
heard her before.
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When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
the act of withdrawing or going backward (especially to escape something hazardous or unpleasant)
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
He was an old friend of
Ethan's family, and his house one of the few to which Zeena occasionally
went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs. Hale, in her youth, had done
more "doctoring" than any other woman in Starkfield, and was still a recognised authority on symptoms and treatment.
a representation of forms or objects on a surface by means of lines
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
Mrs. Hale's father had been the
village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's house,"
where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
mansion in the village.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was only
one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time since
Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night.
connected by a link, as railway cars or trailer trucks
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
The sled started with a bound, and they flew on through the dusk,
gathering smoothness and speed as they went, with the hollow night
opening out below them and the air singing by like an organ.
The metal reflectors of the
gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
affectionate play (or foreplay without contact with the genital organs)
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window,
holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her
things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
able to act at will; not hampered; not under compulsion or restraint
The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about
his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance
and magnified his sense of what he owed her.
He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after
the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the
churn and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.
the faculty of distinguishing sweet, sour, bitter, and salty properties in the mouth
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
And all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when
the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like
hail against the loose-hung windows!
an outline of something (especially a human face as seen from one side)
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early
morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her;
but no moments in her company were comparable to those when, her arm in
his, and her light step flying to keep time with his long stride, they
walked back through the night to the farm.
transmitting light; able to be seen through with clarity
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
To this retreat he descended as soon as the house was quiet, and Zeena's
steady breathing from the bed had assured him that there was to be
no sequel to the scene in the kitchen.
He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after
the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the
churn and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his.
Denis Eady was
the son of Michael Eady, the ambitious Irish grocer, whose suppleness
and effrontery had given Starkfield its first notion of "smart" business
methods, and whose new brick store testified to the success of the
attempt.
By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued
to move along the crest of the slope above him.
Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
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limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
a long rod or pole (especially the handle of an implement or the body of a weapon like a spear or arrow)
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
"It got about the next day," she went
on, "that Zeena Frome had sent Mattie off in a hurry because she had a
hired girl coming, and the folks here could never rightly tell what she
and Ethan were doing that night coasting, when they'd ought to have been
on their way to the Flats to ketch the train...
The kitchen was a poor place, not "spruce" and shining as his
mother had kept it in his boyhood; but it was surprising what a homelike
look the mere fact of Zeena's absence gave it.
limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
the tendency of a body to return to its original shape after it has been stretched or compressed
The pure air, and the
long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie,
and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew
less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on
under the burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least
imagine that peace reigned in his house.
a specific piece of work required to be done as a duty or for a specific fee
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
Twice or thrice before she had suddenly
packed Ethan's valise and started off to Bettsbridge, or even
Springfield, to seek the advice of some new doctor, and her husband had
grown to dread these expeditions because of their cost.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
of the color intermediate between green and violet; having a color similar to that of a clear unclouded sky
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
(quantifier used with mass nouns) great in quantity or degree or extent
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
Then the
big elm shot up ahead, lying in wait for them at the bend of the road,
and he said between his teeth: "We can fetch it; I know we can fetch
it--"
As they flew toward the tree Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and her
blood seemed to be in his veins.
"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden
drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena--ain't suited with me any
more?" she faltered.
a region of northeastern United States comprising Maine and New Hampshire and Vermont and Massachusetts and Rhode Island and Connecticut
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
I thought
it probable that my train would be delayed; but I had to be at the
power-house for an hour or two that afternoon, and I decided, if Frome
turned up, to push through to the Flats and wait there till my train
came in.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
a word or phrase that particular people use in particular situations
He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying,
the night before, that she had sat up because she felt "too mean" to
sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
she was wholly absorbed in her health.
the spatial property resulting from a relatively small distance
It was the
first time that Mattie had ever written to him, and the possession of
the paper gave him a strange new sense of her nearness; yet it deepened
his anguish by reminding him that henceforth they would have no other
way of communicating with each other.
the discipline dealing with the art or science of applying scientific knowledge to practical problems
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while
afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
He had meant to humble himself, to argue that Mattie's keep didn't cost
much, after all, that he could make out to buy a stove and fix up a
place in the attic for the hired girl--but Zeena's words revealed the
peril of such pleadings.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
He had scrambled
up on the logs, and was sitting astride of them, close over his shaggy
grays, when, coming between him and their streaming necks, he had a
vision of the warning look that Mattie had given him the night before.
A slatternly calico wrapper hung from her shoulders
and the wisps of her thin grey hair were drawn away from a high forehead
and fastened at the back by a broken comb.
a quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one)
When she spoke
it was only to complain, and to complain of things not in his power to
remedy; and to check a tendency to impatient retort he had first formed
the habit of not answering her, and finally of thinking of other things
while she talked.
resembling a fork; divided or separated into two branches
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
But after the trains begun running nobody ever
come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head
what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."
the principal activity in your life that you do to earn money
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
any tree of the genus Malus especially those bearing firm rounded edible fruits
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
a facial expression characterized by turning up the corners of the mouth; usually shows pleasure or amusement
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
Two or three times some ghostly
landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked
back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse
began to show signs of exhaustion.
It was
formed of Zeena's obstinate silence, of Mattie's sudden look of warning,
of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs as those which
told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before night there would
be rain.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
the phenomenon of a propagating wave (light or sound) being thrown back from a surface
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
When the end came
it was she who had to tell him to hitch up and go for the undertaker,
and she thought it "funny" that he had not settled beforehand who was
to have his mother's clothes and the sewing-machine.
a musical composition consisting of a series of songs or other musical pieces from various sources
Here, after
considerable search, and sympathetic questions as to what he wanted
it for, and whether ordinary flour paste wouldn't do as well if she
couldn't find it, the widow Homan finally hunted down her solitary
bottle of glue to its hiding-place in a medley of cough-lozenges and
corset-laces.
a protective covering that covers or forms the top of a building
I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew
that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of
the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill.
Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his
wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance of
amusement drew her to the village.
based primarily on surmise rather than adequate evidence
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
It was strange that the
girl did not seem aware of it: that she could lift her rapt face to her
dancer's, and drop her hands into his, without appearing to feel the
offence of his look and touch.
a support placed beneath or against something to keep it from shaking or falling
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
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He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
look angry or sullen, wrinkle one's forehead, as if to signal disapproval
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
bring back into original existence, use, function, or position
When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it.
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
Ethan's long strides grew more rapid
with the accelerated beat of his thoughts, and as he reached the foot of
School House Hill he caught sight of Hale's sleigh in the distance.
Zeena, who had at her fingers' ends the
pathological chart of the whole region, had cited many cases of the kind
while she was nursing his mother; and he himself knew of certain lonely
farm-houses in the neighbourhood where stricken creatures pined, and
of others where sudden tragedy had come of their presence.
something serving to conceal plans; a fictitious reason that is concocted in order to conceal the real reason
He knew that Zeena must be wondering why he did not offer to drive her
to the Flats and let Jotham Powell take the lumber to Starkfield, and
at first he could not think of a pretext for not doing so; then he said:
"I'd take you over myself, only I've got to collect the cash for the
lumber."
a visual attribute of things that results from the light they emit or transmit or reflect
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
a dense elaborate spider web that is more efficient than the orb web
The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp
scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which
began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.
Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
of the color intermediate between green and violet; having a color similar to that of a clear unclouded sky
Here the snow was so pure that the
tiny tracks of wood-animals had left on it intricate lace-like patterns,
and the bluish cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments of
bronze.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
call to remembrance; keep alive the memory of someone or something, as in a ceremony
Zeena always
came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last visit to
Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an
electric battery of which she had never been able to learn the use.
a gliding joint between the distal ends of the tibia and fibula and the proximal end of the talus
The pains are clear away down to my ankles now, or I'd 'a' walked in to
Starkfield on my own feet, sooner'n put you out, and asked Michael Eady
to let me ride over on his wagon to the Flats, when he sends to meet the
train that brings his groceries.
I had often walked that way on Sundays, and knew
that the solitary roof showing through bare branches near the bottom of
the hill was that of Frome's saw-mill.
Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
There was something bleak and unapproachable
in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an
old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two.
Under her shapeless dress her body kept its
limp immobility, and her dark eyes had the bright witch-like stare that
disease of the spine sometimes gives.
revolve quickly and repeatedly around one's own axis
But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw
Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded
hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain....
To keep out of range of the revealing rays
from within he made a circuit through the untrodden snow and gradually
approached the farther angle of the basement wall.
His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had
grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
hold back or set aside, especially for future use or contingency
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
a visible mass of water or ice particles suspended at a considerable altitude
But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
a heavy dull sound (as made by impact of heavy objects)
The earth
lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now and then
he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far off on the
edge of the wood-lot.
He had never been in her room except once, in the early summer, when
he had gone there to plaster up a leak in the eaves, but he remembered
exactly how everything had looked: the red-and-white quilt on her narrow
bed, the pretty pin-cushion on the chest of drawers, and over it the
enlarged photograph of her mother, in an oxydized frame, with a bunch of
dyed grasses at the back.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a volume
of popular science--I think it was on some recent discoveries in
bio-chemistry--which I had carried with me to read on the way.
the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason
She stood perfectly still, looking after him, in an attitude of tranquil
expectancy torturing to the hidden watcher.
the quality of shining with a bright reflected light
Day by day, after the
December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents
of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an
intenser glitter.
blasphemous behavior; the act of depriving something of its sacred character
"You wanted to make the supper-table pretty; and you waited till my back
was turned, and took the thing I set most store by of anything I've got,
and wouldn't never use it, not even when the minister come to dinner,
or Aunt Martha Pierce come over from Bettsbridge--" Zeena paused with a
gasp, as if terrified by her own evocation of the sacrilege.
(superlative of `good') having the most positive qualities
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
Across its frozen surface, from the
farther bank, a single hill rising against the western sun threw the
long conical shadow which gave the lake its name.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
(comparative of `fine') greater in quality or excellence
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer
sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
The hush of midnight lay
on the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church
windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands
of yellow light.
Mattie Silver was the daughter of
a cousin of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled
sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to
Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to
her father's thriving "drug" business.
impossible or difficult to perceive by the mind or senses
It was
formed of Zeena's obstinate silence, of Mattie's sudden look of warning,
of the memory of just such fleeting imperceptible signs as those which
told him, on certain stainless mornings, that before night there would
be rain.
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
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The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
He even noticed two or
three gestures which, in his fatuity, he had thought she kept for him:
a way of throwing her head back when she was amused, as if to taste her
laugh before she let it out, and a trick of sinking her lids slowly when
anything charmed or moved her.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
the general feeling that some desire will be fulfilled
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
an incident in which an infectious disease is transmitted
Mattie seemed to feel the contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
Her head
was wrapped in her shawl, and she was reading a book called "Kidney
Troubles and Their Cure" on which he had had to pay extra postage only a
few days before.
characterized by unity; being or joined into a single entity
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties.
the trait of being uncommunicative; not volunteering anything more than necessary
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it,
letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
one of the four basic taste sensations; like the taste of vinegar or lemons
It was what Jotham called a sour morning
for work, and the horses, shivering and stamping under their wet
blankets, seemed to like it as little as the men.
diurnal insect typically having a slender body with knobbed antennae and broad colorful wings
She seemed to melt against him in her terror, and he caught her in his
arms, held her fast there, felt her lashes beat his cheek like netted butterflies.
humble in spirit or manner; suggesting retiring mildness or even cowed submissiveness
She ate well, declaring that the mild weather
made her feel better, and pressed a second helping of beans on Jotham
Powell, whose wants she generally ignored.
He was aware that he was "talking big," like Denis Eady; but his
reaction of joy had unsteadied him, and the inflection with which she
had said of the engaged couple "They're so happy!" made the words sound
as if she had been thinking of herself and him.
The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to
draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their
wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more
alone.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
the act of changing location from one place to another
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
a professional person authorized to practice law; conducts lawsuits or gives legal advice
Mrs. Hale's father had been the
village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's house,"
where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
mansion in the village.
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
(medicine) bleached cotton cloth of plain weave used for bandages and dressings
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
And the sweetness of Mattie's avowal, the wild wonder of knowing at
last that all that had happened to him had happened to her too, made the
other vision more abhorrent, the other life more intolerable to return
to...
When this happened he would listen quietly, his blue eyes on the
speaker's face, and answer in so low a tone that his words never reached
me; then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather up the reins in
his left hand and drive slowly away in the direction of his farm.
someone who manipulates in a nervous or unconscious manner
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
examine so as to determine accuracy, quality, or condition
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
yellow color or pigment; the chromatic color resembling the hue of sunflowers or ripe lemons
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
After that, for a week, he
drove me over every morning to Corbury Flats, and on my return in the
afternoon met me again and carried me back through the icy night to
Starkfield.
Ethan felt confusedly that there were many things he ought
to think about, but through his tingling veins and tired brain only one
sensation throbbed: the warmth of Mattie's shoulder against his.
The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather,
and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away
the dishes.
having a face or facing especially of a specified kind or number; often used in combination
The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other across the
narrow upper landing, and to-night it was peculiarly repugnant to him
that Mattie should see him follow Zeena.
He roused the lagging bay with another twitch; then, as if the
mere sight of the house had let me too deeply into his confidence for
any farther pretence of reserve, he went on slowly: "I've always set
down the worst of mother's trouble to that.
the fluid (red in vertebrates) that is pumped through the body by the heart and contains plasma, blood cells, and platelets
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
The doors of the two bedrooms faced each other across the
narrow upper landing, and to-night it was peculiarly repugnant to him
that Mattie should see him follow Zeena.
a checkerboard game for two players who each have 12 pieces; the object is to jump over and so capture the opponent's pieces
It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging
to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of
mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
the act of enclosing something inside something else
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
But the hired man, though seldom loth to
accept a meal not included in his wages, opened his stiff jaws to answer
slowly: "I'm obliged to you, but I guess I'll go along back."
go under, "The raft sank and its occupants drowned"
After his father's death it had taken time
to get his head above water, and he did not want Andrew Hale, or any one
else in Starkfield, to think he was going under again.
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a
sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
The sweetness of the picture, and the relief of knowing that his fears
of "trouble" with Zeena were unfounded, sent up his spirits with a rush,
and he, who was usually so silent, whistled and sang aloud as he
drove through the snowy fields.
a perceptible indication of something not immediately apparent (as a visible clue that something has happened)
Two or three times some ghostly
landmark sprang up to warn us that we were astray, and then was sucked
back into the mist; and when we finally regained our road the old horse
began to show signs of exhaustion.
The black
wraith of a deciduous creeper flapped from the porch, and the thin
wooden walls, under their worn coat of paint, seemed to shiver in the
wind that had risen with the ceasing of the snow.
Day by day, after the
December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents
of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an
intenser glitter.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
As she passed down the line, her light figure swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln; used as a building or paving material
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging
to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of
mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking.
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation
did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
uncomprehending grunt.
having or proceeding from an innately kind disposition
Suddenly it occurred to him that Andrew Hale, who was a kind-hearted
man, might be induced to reconsider his refusal and advance a small sum
on the lumber if he were told that Zeena's ill-health made it necessary
to hire a servant.
Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast,
while the other held a lamp.
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a
technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
Another day, on getting into my train at the Flats, I missed a volume
of popular science--I think it was on some recent discoveries in
bio-chemistry--which I had carried with me to read on the way.
On my arrival at Starkfield, Denis Eady, the rich Irish grocer, who was
the proprietor of Starkfield's nearest approach to a livery stable, had
entered into an agreement to send me over daily to Corbury Flats, where
I had to pick up my train for the Junction.
She
had measured out some drops from a medicine-bottle on a chair by the bed
and, after swallowing them, and wrapping her head in a piece of yellow
flannel, had lain down with her face turned away.
a melon vine of the genus Cucumis; cultivated from earliest times for its cylindrical green fruit
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
at or toward an end or late period or stage of development
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner
rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
Day by day, after the
December snows were over, a blazing blue sky poured down torrents
of light and air on the white landscape, which gave them back in an
intenser glitter.
The earth
lay dark under a muffled sky and the air was so still that now and then
he heard a lump of snow come thumping down from a tree far off on the
edge of the wood-lot.
pronouns and verbs used to refer to the speaker or writer of the language in which they occur
Perhaps Zeena had failed to see the new
doctor or had not liked his counsels: Ethan knew that in such cases
the first person she met was likely to be held responsible for her
grievance.
the outer boundary of an artifact or a material layer constituting or resembling such a boundary
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional
evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
all its nights to revelry.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
a structure composed of a series of arches supported by columns
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
(comparative of `near' or `close') within a shorter distance
Zeena's native village was slightly larger and nearer to the railway
than Starkfield, and she had let her husband see from the first that
life on an isolated farm was not what she had expected when she married.
Ethan had
an idea that if she were to marry a man she was fond of the dormant
instinct would wake, and her pies and biscuits become the pride of the
county; but domesticity in the abstract did not interest her.
after a negative statement used as an intensive meaning something like `likewise' or `also'
I was getting to know him too well to express either wonder or gratitude
at his keeping his appointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him
turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
having great spatial extension or penetration downward or inward from an outer surface or backward or laterally or outward from a center; sometimes used in combination
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
A slatternly calico wrapper hung from her shoulders
and the wisps of her thin grey hair were drawn away from a high forehead
and fastened at the back by a broken comb.
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
She was no longer the listless
creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption,
but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long
years of silent brooding.
slanting or inclined in direction or course or position--neither parallel nor perpendicular nor right-angled
His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had
grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency.
an account of an amusing incident (usually with a punch line)
For the first time they would be alone together indoors, and they would
sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple, he in
his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny way she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never
heard her before.
the production of malt beverages (as beer or ale) from malt and hops by grinding and boiling them and fermenting the result with yeast
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
His
father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature
end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be
of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge
cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.
the cardinal number that is the sum of nineteen and one
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
If you
know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop
the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick
pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly
twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away
from him.
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He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying,
the night before, that she had sat up because she felt "too mean" to
sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
she was wholly absorbed in her health.
beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment
The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep
up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their
mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window
that the reel would never end.
But the old horse was there alone, mumbling his crib with
toothless jaws, and Ethan whistled cheerfully while he bedded down the
grays and shook an extra measure of oats into their mangers.
precipitation of ice pellets when there are strong rising air currents
And all the first winter, how she had shivered with cold when
the northerly gales shook the thin clapboards and the snow beat like hail against the loose-hung windows!
the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
a performance using gestures and body movements without words
By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued
to move along the crest of the slope above him.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
He no
longer believed what Zeena had told him of the supposed seriousness of
her state: he saw in her expedition to Bettsbridge only a plot hatched
between herself and her Pierce relations to foist on him the cost of a
servant; and for the moment wrath predominated.
a language unit by which a person or thing is known
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
garden consisting of a small cultivated wood without undergrowth
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
Andrew Hale was a ruddy man with a big gray moustache and a stubbly
double-chin unconstrained by a collar; but his scrupulously clean shirt
was always fastened by a small diamond stud.
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
When she said to him
once: "It looks just as if it was painted!" it seemed to Ethan that the
art of definition could go no farther, and that words had at last been
found to utter his secret soul....
an open recess in a wall at the base of a chimney where a fire can be built
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
having or revealing little emotion or sensibility; not easily aroused or excited
To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of
free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to
nerve Jotham to such stoicism.
The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her
sitting by the window, bolt upright, and knew by the rigidity of the
outline projected against the pane that she had not taken off her
travelling dress.
a gruff or angry utterance (suggestive of the growling of an animal)
VI
The next morning at breakfast Jotham Powell was between them, and Ethan
tried to hide his joy under an air of exaggerated indifference, lounging
back in his chair to throw scraps to the cat, growling at the weather,
and not so much as offering to help Mattie when she rose to clear away
the dishes.
occupied or in the control of; often used in combination
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
of or relating to a practical subject that is organized according to scientific principles
Four or five years earlier he had taken a year's course at a technological college at Worcester, and dabbled in the laboratory with
a friendly professor of physics; and the images supplied by that
experience still cropped up, at unexpected moments, through the totally
different associations of thought in which he had since been living.
Having satisfied himself that there was no risk of
immediate discovery he went back to the kitchen with a lighter step, and
found Mattie disconsolately removing the last scraps of pickle from the
floor.
used of the older of two persons of the same name especially used to distinguish a father from his son
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
the atmospheric conditions that comprise the state of the atmosphere in terms of temperature and wind and clouds and precipitation
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
It was strange that the
girl did not seem aware of it: that she could lift her rapt face to her
dancer's, and drop her hands into his, without appearing to feel the
offence of his look and touch.
the process of shedding tears (usually accompanied by sobs or other inarticulate sounds)
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
large or relatively large in number or amount or extent or degree
Mrs. Hale's father had been the
village lawyer of the previous generation, and "lawyer Varnum's house,"
where my landlady still lived with her mother, was the most considerable
mansion in the village.
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with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder.
Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then
he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light
slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
It was the first scene of open anger between the couple in their sad
seven years together, and Ethan felt as if he had lost an irretrievable
advantage in descending to the level of recrimination.
She had plunged the breakfast
dishes into a tin dish-pan and was bending above it with her slim arms
bared to the elbow, the steam from the hot water beading her forehead
and tightening her rough hair into little brown rings like the tendrils
on the traveller's joy.
It's the way your father
begun, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my
things where you couldn't get at 'em--and now you've took from me the one
I cared for most of all--" She broke off in a short spasm of sobs that
passed and left her more than ever like a shape of stone.
distorted and unnatural in shape or size; abnormal and hideous
But suddenly his
wife's face, with twisted monstrous lineaments, thrust itself between
him and his goal, and he made an instinctive movement to brush it aside.
a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals and used as food by human beings
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
He drew up to the table again and she sewed on in silence, with dropped
lashes, while he sat in fascinated contemplation of the way in which her
hands went up and down above the strip of stuff, just as he had seen
a pair of birds make short perpendicular flights over a nest they were
building.
tending to increase knowledge or dissipate ignorance
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars, illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
the act of taking something from someone unlawfully
He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to
yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, "Thank you--I'll take it," he
answered shortly.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
an individual 3-dimensional object that has mass and that is distinguishable from other objects
Perhaps this
connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about
Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
Every yard of the road was alive with
Mattie's presence, and there was hardly a branch against the sky or a
tangle of brambles on the bank in which some bright shred of memory was
not caught.
covered with a roof; having a roof as specified (often used in combination)
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
"He's looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that's
twenty-four years ago come next February," Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.
The pure air, and the
long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie,
and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew
less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on
under the burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least
imagine that peace reigned in his house.
the sill of a door; a horizontal piece of wood or stone that forms the bottom of a doorway and offers support when passing through a doorway
Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then
he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light
slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
the ultimate agency regarded as predetermining the course of events (often personified as a woman)
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
Zenobia, though doubtful
of the girl's efficiency, was tempted by the freedom to find fault
without much risk of losing her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield.
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young manhood.
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
the course along which a person has walked or is walking in
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
make complaining remarks or noises under one's breath
His wife had never shown any jealousy of Mattie, but of late she had grumbled increasingly over the house-work and found oblique ways of
attracting attention to the girl's inefficiency.
In the summertime, on pleasant days, they move Mattie into
the parlour, or out in the door-yard, and that makes it easier... but
winters there's the fires to be thought of; and there ain't a dime to
spare up at the Fromes.'"
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
She gave him a last nod of sympathy while her son chirped to the horse;
and Ethan, as she drove off, stood in the middle of the road and stared
after the retreating sleigh.
She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had
the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
The height of
the white waves massed against the garden-fence and along the wall of
the church showed that the storm must have been going on all night,
and that the drifts were likely to be heavy in the open.
to declare or affirm solemnly and formally as true
Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what
Eady's store could not produce would never be found at the widow
Homan's; but Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to
the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment.
leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch
Young Ethan Frome walked at a quick pace along the deserted street, past
the bank and Michael Eady's new brick store and Lawyer Varnum's house
with the two black Norway spruces at the gate.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
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an accusation that you are responsible for some lapse or misdeed
I felt myself to blame for having
accepted Frome's offer, and after a short discussion I persuaded him
to let me get out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the
bay's side.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
touch or stroke lightly in a loving or endearing manner
Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted
pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only
a mere touch on her hand.
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
the kind and number and arrangement of teeth (collectively) in a person or animal
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
Her "good" dress
had been replaced by the black calico and brown knitted shawl which
formed her daily wear, and with them she had put on her usual face and
manner.
Her hair was as grey as her companion's, her face as bloodless and
shrivelled, but amber-tinted, with swarthy shadows sharpening the nose
and hollowing the temples.
Zeena, after feeding the cat,
had returned to her rocking-chair by the stove, and Jotham Powell, who
always lingered last, reluctantly pushed back his chair and moved toward
the door.
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
the act of putting something in working order again
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing unfriendly in his silence.
lower and raise the head, as to indicate assent or agreement or confirmation
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
It looked exanimate enough, with
its idle wheel looming above the black stream dashed with yellow-white
spume, and its cluster of sheds sagging under their white load.
And I say, if she'd ha' died, Ethan might ha'
lived; and the way they are now, I don't see's there's much difference
between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard;
'cept that down there they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold
their tongues."
The builder refused genially, as he did everything else: he treated the
matter as something in the nature of a practical joke, and wanted to
know if Ethan meditated buying a grand piano or adding a "cupolo" to his
house; offering, in the latter case, to give his services free of cost.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put
without a glance into his sagging pocket.
fail to perceive or to catch with the senses or the mind
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
Once or twice in the
past he had been faintly disquieted by Zenobia's way of letting things
happen without seeming to remark them, and then, weeks afterward, in
a casual phrase, revealing that she had all along taken her notes and
drawn her inferences.
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it,
letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
As her young brown head detached itself
against the patch-work cushion that habitually framed his wife's gaunt
countenance, Ethan had a momentary shock.
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
moving in a twisting or snake-like or wormlike fashion
About a mile farther, on a road I had never
travelled, we came to an orchard of starved apple-trees writhing over
a hillside among outcroppings of slate that nuzzled up through the snow
like animals pushing out their noses to breathe.
The villagers, being afoot, were
the first to climb the slope to the main street, while the country
neighbours packed themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the
shed.
As we turned into the Corbury road the snow began to fall again, cutting
off our last glimpse of the house; and Frome's silence fell with it, letting down between us the old veil of reticence.
To-night the
pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward
despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of
joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.
As she passed down the line, her light figure swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
Her hair was as grey as her companion's, her face as bloodless and shrivelled, but amber-tinted, with swarthy shadows sharpening the nose
and hollowing the temples.
As the dancers poured out of the hall Frome, drawing back behind the
projecting storm-door, watched the segregation of the grotesquely
muffled groups, in which a moving lantern ray now and then lit up a
face flushed with food and dancing.
They went back to the kitchen, and he fetched the coal and kindlings
and cleared out the stove for her, while she brought in the milk and
the cold remains of the meat-pie.
"I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the
dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by
the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and
some day she'll lie there beside me."
Zeena always
came back laden with expensive remedies, and her last visit to
Springfield had been commemorated by her paying twenty dollars for an
electric battery of which she had never been able to learn the use.
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer
sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
the opening through which food is taken in and vocalizations emerge
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite
thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
Ethan made a pretext of getting up to replenish the stove, and when he
returned to his seat he pushed it sideways that he might get a view of
her profile and of the lamplight falling on her hands.
a man's courting of a woman; seeking the affections of a woman (usually with the hope of marriage)
They had never before avowed their inclination so openly, and Ethan, for
a moment, had the illusion that he was a free man, wooing the girl he
meant to marry.
a formal contest in which two or more persons or teams compete
Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then
he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light
slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
a gymnast who performs rolls and somersaults and twists etc.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
a storm with widespread snowfall accompanied by strong winds
Great was her amazement, and that of old Mrs. Varnum, on learning that
Ethan Frome's old horse had carried me to and from Corbury Junction
through the worst blizzard of the winter; greater still their surprise
when they heard that his master had taken me in for the night.
Perhaps this
connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about
Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
The mere fact of obeying her orders, of feeling free to go about
his business again and talk with other men, restored his shaken balance
and magnified his sense of what he owed her.
(comparative of `good') superior to another (of the same class or set or kind) in excellence or quality or desirability or suitability; more highly skilled than another
At first
she was so awkward that he could not help laughing at her; but she
laughed with him and that made them better friends.
Again he listened, fancying he heard a distant sound in the house; then
he felt in his pocket for a match, and kneeling down, passed its light
slowly over the rough edges of snow about the doorstep.
The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan
an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion
could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that
they had always spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing
so...
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16th President of the United States; saved the Union during the American Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
applying the mind to learning and understanding a subject (especially by reading)
His
father's death, and the misfortunes following it, had put a premature
end to Ethan's studies; but though they had not gone far enough to be
of much practical use they had fed his fancy and made him aware of huge
cloudy meanings behind the daily face of things.
a joint between the distal end of the radius and the proximal row of carpal bones
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and
prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge
to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
He remembered the shyness he had felt at approaching her in his uncouth clothes, and then the lighting up of her face, and the way she
had broken through the group to come to him with a cup in her hand.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane
to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
weight of the snow.
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
perfect and complete in every respect; having all necessary qualities
The effect produced on Frome was rather of
a complete absence of atmosphere, as though nothing less tenuous than
ether intervened between the white earth under his feet and the metallic
dome overhead.
The pitch of
the Corbury road, below lawyer Varnum's spruces, was the favourite
coasting-ground of Starkfield, and on clear evenings the church corner rang till late with the shouts of the coasters; but to-night not a sled
darkened the whiteness of the long declivity.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying,
the night before, that she had sat up because she felt "too mean" to
sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
she was wholly absorbed in her health.
a quantifier that can be used with count nouns and is often preceded by `a'; a small but indefinite number
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
The cat, unnoticed, had crept up on muffled paws from Zeena's seat to
the table, and was stealthily elongating its body in the direction
of the milk-jug, which stood between Ethan and Mattie.
an alloy of copper and tin and sometimes other elements; also any copper-base alloy containing other elements in place of tin
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the bronze image of a hero.
reestablish on a new, usually improved, basis or make new or like new
But when winter
shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
made or consisting of (entirely or in part) or employing wood
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
give a promotion to or assign to a higher position
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She clung to him without answering, and he laid his lips on her hair,
which was soft yet springy, like certain mosses on warm slopes, and had
the faint woody fragrance of fresh sawdust in the sun.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and
warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
move about aimlessly or without any destination, often in search of food or employment
Perhaps this
connection of ideas, which had often occurred to me in my rambles about
Starkfield, caused me to hear a wistful note in Frome's words, and to
see in the diminished dwelling the image of his own shrunken body.
She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding
her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the
box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought to her from
Bettsbridge.
pause or hold back in uncertainty or unwillingness
He hesitated, and I had the impression that he felt himself about to
yield to a stealing tide of inertia; then, "Thank you--I'll take it," he
answered shortly.
Frome was in the habit of walking into Starkfield to fetch home his
wife's cousin, Mattie Silver, on the rare evenings when some chance of
amusement drew her to the village.
It's the way your father
begun, and I was warned of it when I took you, and I tried to keep my
things where you couldn't get at 'em--and now you've took from me the one
I cared for most of all--" She broke off in a short spasm of sobs that
passed and left her more than ever like a shape of stone.
The clumps of trees in the snow seemed to
draw together in ruffled lumps, like birds with their heads under their
wings; and the sky, as it paled, rose higher, leaving the earth more
alone.
She set the lamp on the table,
and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries and his favourite pickles in a dish of gay red glass.
a solid formed by the solidification of a chemical and having a highly regular atomic structure
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
Frome stamped on the worn oil-cloth to shake the snow from his boots,
and set down his lantern on a kitchen chair which was the only piece of
furniture in the hall.
the act of starting something for the first time; introducing something new
So marked was the change in her manner, such depths of sad initiation
did it imply, that, with some doubts as to my delicacy, I put the case
anew to my village oracle, Harmon Gow; but got for my pains only an
uncomprehending grunt.
In another
moment she would step forth into the night, and his eyes, accustomed
to the obscurity, would discern her as clearly as though she stood in
daylight.
a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems
Once I
happened to speak of an engineering job I had been on the previous year
in Florida, and of the contrast between the winter landscape about us
and that in which I had found myself the year before; and to my surprise
Frome said suddenly: "Yes: I was down there once, and for a good while
afterward I could call up the sight of it in winter.
any painful disorder of the joints or muscles or connective tissues
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
Hale sat with his feet up on the stove, his back propped against
a battered desk strewn with papers: the place, like the man, was warm,
genial and untidy.
The only drawback to his
complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where
he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said:
"Come over here and sit by the stove."
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
wash consisting of lime and size in water; used for whitening walls and other surfaces
The metal reflectors of the
gas-jets sent crude waves of light against the whitewashed walls, and
the iron flanks of the stove at the end of the hall looked as though
they were heaving with volcanic fires.
the process of becoming cooler; a falling temperature
To-night the
pressure of accumulated misgivings sent the scale drooping toward
despair, and her indifference was the more chilling after the flush of
joy into which she had plunged him by dismissing Denis Eady.
designed to deceive or mislead either deliberately or inadvertently
This display of opulence
was misleading, for though he did a fairly good business it was known
that his easygoing habits and the demands of his large family frequently
kept him what Starkfield called "behind."
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
having lost your bearings; confused as to time or place or personal identity
Beyond the orchard
lay a field or two, their boundaries lost under drifts; and above the
fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of
those lonely New England farm-houses that make the landscape lonelier.
She looked so small and pinched, in her poor dress, with the red scarf
wound about her, and the cold light turning her paleness sallow, that
Ethan stood before her without speaking.
Then, when the loading finally
began, a sleety rain was coming down once more, and the tree trunks were
so slippery that it took twice as long as usual to lift them and get
them in place on the sledge.
a miniature whirlpool or whirlwind resulting when the current of a fluid doubles back on itself
But at sunset the clouds
gathered again, bringing an earlier night, and the snow began to fall
straight and steadily from a sky without wind, in a soft universal
diffusion more confusing than the gusts and eddies of the morning.
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
Zeena, apparently accepting this as final, lay watching him in silence
while he pulled his suspenders over his shoulders and jerked his arms
into his coat; but as he went toward the door she said, suddenly and
incisively: "I guess you're always late, now you shave every morning."
Then his mother got queer and dragged along for years as weak as a baby; and his wife Zeena, she's always been the greatest hand
at doctoring in the county.
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
Zenobia, though doubtful
of the girl's efficiency, was tempted by the freedom to find fault
without much risk of losing her; and so Mattie came to Starkfield.
the property created by the space between two objects or points
It was not that Mrs. Ned Hale felt, or affected, any social superiority
to the people about her; it was only that the accident of a finer
sensibility and a little more education had put just enough distance
between herself and her neighbours to enable her to judge them with
detachment.
The next morning, when I looked out, I saw the hollow-backed bay between
the Varnum spruces, and Ethan Frome, throwing back his worn bearskin,
made room for me in the sleigh at his side.
The cat, who
had been a puzzled observer of these unusual movements, jumped up into
Zeena's chair, rolled itself into a ball, and lay watching them with narrowed eyes.
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
the trace of a point whose direction of motion changes
Then, striking upward, it
threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade,
and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of her brows.
The guests were preparing to leave, and the tide had already set toward
the passage where coats and wraps were hung, when a young man with a
sprightly foot and a shock of black hair shot into the middle of
the floor and clapped his hands.
a farm building for housing horses or other livestock
As the two men were clearing out the stalls Jotham rested on his
pitch-fork to say: "Dan'l Byrne's goin' over to the Flats to-day noon,
an' he c'd take Mattie's trunk along, and make it easier ridin' when I
take her over in the sleigh."
"She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with
smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
He had hardly spoken when
he remembered the excuse he had made for not accompanying his wife to
the station the day before; and the blood rose to his frowning brows.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
hard bonelike structures in the jaws of vertebrates; used for biting and chewing or for attack and defense
A dead cucumber-vine dangled
from the porch like the crape streamer tied to the door for a death, and
the thought flashed through Ethan's brain: "If it was there for Zeena--"
Then he had a distinct sight of his wife lying in their bedroom asleep,
her mouth slightly open, her false teeth in a tumbler by the bed...
He foresaw so clearly the consequences
of this imprudence that with considerable reluctance he decided to ask
Andrew Hale for a small advance on his load.
She fastened it with a pin, and then, finding
her thimble and scissors, put them with the roll of stuff into the
box covered with fancy paper which he had once brought to her from
Bettsbridge.
"She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with
smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the
grating.
a friend who is frequently in the company of another
It was in the early morning stillness, when his muscles were swinging
to their familiar task and his lungs expanding with long draughts of
mountain air, that Ethan did his clearest thinking.
the top or extreme point of something (usually a mountain or hill)
By this time they had passed beyond Frome's earshot and he could only
follow the shadowy pantomime of their silhouettes as they continued
to move along the crest of the slope above him.
Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple
of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood
meagrely against the plaster walls.
One of them, on my appearing, raised her tall bony figure from her seat,
not as if to welcome me--for she threw me no more than a brief glance
of surprise--but simply to set about preparing the meal which Frome's
absence had delayed.
One cold winter morning, as he dressed in the dark,
his candle flickering in the draught of the ill-fitting window, he had
heard her speak from the bed behind him.
living in or characteristic of farming or country life
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
As soon as the words were spoken he regretted them, not only because
they were untrue--there being no prospect of his receiving cash payment
from Hale--but also because he knew from experience the imprudence of
letting Zeena think he was in funds on the eve of one of her therapeutic
excursions.
metal device shaped in such a way that when it is inserted into the appropriate lock the lock's mechanism can be rotated
She was not unwilling to exercise this faculty, and I had
great hopes of getting from her the missing facts of Ethan Frome's
story, or rather such a key to his character as should co-ordinate the
facts I knew.
an implement that has hairs or bristles firmly set into a handle
"I guess we'll never let you go, Matt," he whispered, as though even the
dead, lovers once, must conspire with him to keep her; and brushing by
the graves, he thought: "We'll always go on living here together, and
some day she'll lie there beside me."
Frome turned away again, and taking up his razor stooped to catch the
reflection of his stretched cheek in the blotched looking-glass above
the wash-stand.
the trees and other plants in a large densely wooded area
The crash of a loaded branch
falling far off in the woods reverberated like a musket-shot, and once a
fox barked, and Mattie shrank closer to Ethan, and quickened her steps.
a large retail store organized into departments offering a variety of merchandise; commonly part of a retail chain
When she tried to extend the
field of her activities in the direction of stenography and book-keeping
her health broke down, and six months on her feet behind the counter of
a department store did not tend to restore it.
a porch or entrance to a building consisting of a covered and often columned area
It stood at one end of the main street, its
classic portico and small-paned windows looking down a flagged path
between Norway spruces to the slim white steeple of the Congregational
church.
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- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License.
the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc.
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
Twenty years earlier the means of resistance must have been far fewer,
and the enemy in command of almost all the lines of access between the
beleaguered villages; and, considering these things, I felt the sinister
force of Harmon's phrase: "Most of the smart ones get away."
The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp
scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which
began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish
cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.
become settled or established and stable in one's residence or life style
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune
He looked out at the
slopes bathed in lustre, the silver-edged darkness of the woods, the
spectral purple of the hills against the sky, and it seemed as
though all the beauty of the night had been poured out to mock his wretchedness...
He used to drive in
from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for
fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him
while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating.
She broke in: "You're neglecting the farm enough already," and this
being true, he found no answer, and left her time to add ironically:
"Better send me over to the almshouse and done with it...
Mattie Silver was the daughter of
a cousin of Zenobia Frome's, who had inflamed his clan with mingled
sentiments of envy and admiration by descending from the hills to
Connecticut, where he had married a Stamford girl and succeeded to
her father's thriving "drug" business.
that which is perceived or known or inferred to have its own distinct existence (living or nonliving)
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Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
having a nose (either literal or metaphoric) especially of a specified kind
Three coarse china plates and a broken-nosed milk-jug
had been set on a greasy table scored with knife-cuts, and a couple
of straw-bottomed chairs and a kitchen dresser of unpainted pine stood
meagrely against the plaster walls.
With the exception of the dark-eyed woman's chair, which looked like a soiled relic of luxury bought at a country auction, the furniture was of
the roughest kind.
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
either of two soft fleshy milk-secreting glandular organs on the chest of a woman
Against the dark background of the kitchen she stood up tall and
angular, one hand drawing a quilted counterpane to her flat breast,
while the other held a lamp.
But now, as he stood outside the church, and saw
Mattie spinning down the floor with Denis Eady, a throng of disregarded
hints and menaces wove their cloud about his brain....
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
I had been told that Frome was poor, and that the saw-mill and the arid
acres of his farm yielded scarcely enough to keep his household through
the winter; but I had not supposed him to be in such want as Harmon's
words implied, and I expressed my wonder.
intrude in other people's affairs or business; interfere unwantedly
There was no answer, and she continued in a trembling voice: "I went to
get those powders I'd put away in father's old spectacle-case, top of
the china-closet, where I keep the things I set store by, so's folks
shan't meddle with them--" Her voice broke, and two small tears hung
on her lashless lids and ran slowly down her cheeks.
the repetition of a sound resulting from reflection of the sound waves
She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her
things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
Instead of her usual calico wrapper and knitted shawl she wore her
best dress of brown merino, and above her thin strands of hair, which
still preserved the tight undulations of the crimping-pins, rose a hard
perpendicular bonnet, as to which Ethan's clearest notion was that he
had to pay five dollars for it at the Bettsbridge Emporium.
He was an old friend of
Ethan's family, and his house one of the few to which Zeena occasionally
went, drawn there by the fact that Mrs. Hale, in her youth, had done
more "doctoring" than any other woman in Starkfield, and was still a recognised authority on symptoms and treatment.
a thin fragment or slice (especially of wood) that has been shaved from something
It was a fact that since Mattie Silver's coming he had taken
to shaving every day; but his wife always seemed to be asleep when he
left her side in the winter darkness, and he had stupidly assumed that
she would not notice any change in his appearance.
He turned and looked at her where she lay indistinctly outlined under
the dark calico quilt, her high-boned face taking a grayish tinge from
the whiteness of the pillow.
not moving quickly; taking a comparatively long time
The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old
bay's pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were
nearly an hour on the way.
Then the
big elm shot up ahead, lying in wait for them at the bend of the road,
and he said between his teeth: "We can fetch it; I know we can fetch
it--"
As they flew toward the tree Mattie pressed her arms tighter, and her
blood seemed to be in his veins.
the property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration
When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this
phase of crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold;
when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the
devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to
their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its
six months' siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.
a small shallow dish for holding a cup at the table
By this time
the music had stopped, and the musicians--a fiddler, and the young lady
who played the harmonium on Sundays--were hastily refreshing themselves
at one corner of the supper-table which aligned its devastated
pie-dishes and ice-cream saucers on the platform at the end of the hall.
When Ethan could sweat over 'em both from sunup to dark he kinder choked
a living out of 'em; but his folks ate up most everything, even then,
and I don't see how he makes out now.
a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune
All the long misery of his
baffled past, of his youth of failure, hardship and vain effort, rose
up in his soul in bitterness and seemed to take shape before him in the
woman who at every turn had barred his way.
This plan had the advantage of enabling him to
send Jotham to the Flats after dinner to meet Zenobia, while he himself
took the lumber down to the village.
Denis's commercial instinct compelled him to aver on oath that what
Eady's store could not produce would never be found at the widow
Homan's; but Ethan, heedless of this boast, had already climbed to
the sledge and was driving on to the rival establishment.
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
wood of any of various mahogany trees; much used for cabinetwork and furniture
In the "best parlour," with its black horse-hair and mahogany weakly
illuminated by a gurgling Carcel lamp, I listened every evening to
another and more delicately shaded version of the Starkfield chronicle.
(chemistry) a process in which one substance permeates another; a fluid permeates or is dissolved by a liquid or solid
She was no longer the listless
creature who had lived at his side in a state of sullen self-absorption,
but a mysterious alien presence, an evil energy secreted from the long
years of silent brooding.
I questioned Harmon, looking after
Frome's retreating figure, and thinking how gallantly his lean brown
head, with its shock of light hair, must have sat on his strong
shoulders before they were bent out of shape.
"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden
drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena--ain't suited with me any
more?" she faltered.
Ethan, consumed with the longing for a last moment alone with
Mattie, hung about impatiently while Denis made an ineffectual search in
the obscurer corners of the store.
I understood that he was offering me a night's shelter at the farm, and
without answering I turned into the gate at his side, and followed him
to the barn, where I helped him to unharness and bed down the tired
horse.
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
to the greatest degree or extent; completely or entirely; (`full' in this sense is used as a combining form)
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At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
It was not so much
his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled
out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the
careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step
like the jerk of a chain.
When his wife first proposed that they should give Mattie an occasional
evening out he had inwardly demurred at having to do the extra two miles
to the village and back after his hard day on the farm; but not long
afterward he had reached the point of wishing that Starkfield might give
all its nights to revelry.
Ethan was aware that, in regard to the important question of surgical
intervention, the female opinion of the neighbourhood was divided, some
glorying in the prestige conferred by operations while others shunned
them as indelicate.
The only drawback to his
complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where
he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said:
"Come over here and sit by the stove."
At intervals, however, the
post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia--or Mrs.
Zeena-Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name
of his specific.
He had now no doubt that Zeena had spoken the truth in saying,
the night before, that she had sat up because she felt "too mean" to
sleep: her abrupt resolve to seek medical advice showed that, as usual,
she was wholly absorbed in her health.
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
an inclination to withhold approval from some person or group
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
Mattie seemed to feel the
contagion of his embarrassment, and sat with downcast lids, sipping her
tea, while he feigned an insatiable appetite for dough-nuts and sweet
pickles.
The commonplace nature of what they said produced in Ethan
an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion
could have given, and he set his imagination adrift on the fiction that
they had always spent their evenings thus and would always go on doing
so...
Her nearest relations had
been induced to place their savings in her father's hands, and though,
after his death, they ungrudgingly acquitted themselves of the Christian
duty of returning good for evil by giving his daughter all the advice
at their disposal, they could hardly be expected to supplement it by
material aid.
When she got the rheumatism
so bad she couldn't move around she used to sit up there and watch the
road by the hour; and one year, when they was six months mending the
Bettsbridge pike after the floods, and Harmon Gow had to bring his stage
round this way, she picked up so that she used to get down to the gate
most days to see him.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
They gave her things to quiet
her, and she didn't know much till to'rd morning, and then all of a
sudden she woke up just like herself, and looked straight at me out
of her big eyes, and said...
a Swiss patriot who lived in the early 14th century and who was renowned for his skill as an archer; according to legend an Austrian governor compelled him to shoot an apple from his son's head with his crossbow (which he did successfully without mishap)
From where he stood he
could not see the persons coming out of the hall till they had advanced a few steps beyond the wooden sides of the storm-door; but through its
cracks he heard a clear voice answer: "Mercy no!
He would hide his valise under the seat of the
sleigh, and Zeena would suspect nothing till she went upstairs for her
afternoon nap and found a letter on the bed...
Zeena had always been
what Starkfield called "sickly," and Frome had to admit that, if she
were as ailing as she believed, she needed the help of a stronger arm
than the one which lay so lightly in his during the night walks to the
farm.
female of domestic cattle: "`moo-cow' is a child's term"
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
The hush of midnight lay
on the village, and all its waking life was gathered behind the church
windows, from which strains of dance-music flowed with the broad bands
of yellow light.
It pleased Ethan
to have surprised a pair of lovers on the spot where he and Mattie had
stood with such a thirst for each other in their hearts; but he felt a
pang at the thought that these two need not hide their happiness.
a low woody perennial plant usually having several major stems
The moon had set, but the night was
so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray
against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the
basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across
the endless undulations.
"Is that what they say?" she mocked back at him; then, with a sudden
drop of her sweet treble: "You mean that Zeena--ain't suited with me any
more?" she faltered.
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The room was almost dark, but in the obscurity he saw her
sitting by the window, bolt upright, and knew by the rigidity of the
outline projected against the pane that she had not taken off her
travelling dress.
moving rapidly or performed quickly or in great haste
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
rejection by means of an act of banishing or proscribing someone
That which had
seemed incredible in the sober light of day had really come to pass,
and he was to assist as a helpless spectator at Mattie's banishment.
a vessel in which cream is agitated to separate butterfat from buttermilk
He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after
the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the churn and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.
a laborer who moves from place to place as demanded by employment
Then, toward
sunset, coming down from the mountain where he had been felling timber,
he had been caught by some strayed revellers and drawn into the group by
the lake, where Mattie, encircled by facetious youths, and bright as
a blackberry under her spreading hat, was brewing coffee over a gipsy
fire.
the 90 degree angle between two perpendicular lines
I saw then that the unusually forlorn and stunted look of the house was
partly due to the loss of what is known in New England as the "L":
that long deep-roofed adjunct usually built at right angles to the main
house, and connecting it, by way of storerooms and tool-house, with the
wood-shed and cow-barn.
an unknown and unpredictable phenomenon that causes an event to result one way rather than another
When they married it was agreed that, as soon as he could straighten out
the difficulties resulting from Mrs. Frome's long illness, they would
sell the farm and saw-mill and try their luck in a large town.
He had taken to the girl from
the first day, when he had driven over to the Flats to meet her, and
she had smiled and waved to him from the train, crying out, "You must be
Ethan!" as she jumped down with her bundles, while he reflected, looking
over her slight person: "She don't look much on housework, but she ain't
a fretter, anyhow."
"Yes, but, you see, she never meant it
should be used, not even when there was company; and I had to get up on
the step-ladder to reach it down from the top shelf of the china-closet,
where she keeps it with all her best things, and of course she'll want
to know why I did it--"
The case was so serious that it called forth all of Ethan's latent
resolution.
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
a small number (of something) dispersed haphazardly
As they drew near the end of the village the cries of children reached
them, and they saw a knot of boys, with sleds behind them, scattering
across the open space before the church.
acting or moving or capable of acting or moving quickly
He seemed a part of the mute melancholy
landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm
and sentient in him fast bound below the surface; but there was nothing
unfriendly in his silence.
queen of the Olympian gods in ancient Greek mythology; sister and wife of Zeus remembered for her jealously of the many mortal women Zeus fell in love with; identified with Roman Juno
Here and there a farmhouse stood far back among the fields, mute
and cold as a grave-stone.
But something in his past history, or in his present
way of living, had apparently driven him too deeply into himself for any
casual impulse to draw him back to his kind.
move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground
He even crept down on Saturday nights to scrub the kitchen floor after
the women had gone to bed; and Zeena, one day, had surprised him at the
churn and had turned away silently, with one of her queer looks.
Ethan tried to say something befitting the occasion, but there was only
one thought in his mind: the fact that, for the first time since
Mattie had come to live with them, Zeena was to be away for a night.
any number of entities (members) considered as a unit
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
But when winter shut down on Starkfield and the village lay under a sheet of snow
perpetually renewed from the pale skies, I began to see what life
there--or rather its negation--must have been in Ethan Frome's young
manhood.
At
Worcester, though he had the name of keeping to himself and not being
much of a hand at a good time, he had secretly gloried in being clapped
on the back and hailed as "Old Ethe" or "Old Stiff"; and the cessation
of such familiarities had increased the chill of his return to
Starkfield.
(usually followed by `to') determined by tragic fate
At our next meeting he made
no allusion to the book, and our intercourse seemed fated to remain as
negative and one-sided as if there had been no break in his reserve.
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
She drank
two cups of coffee and fed the cat with the scraps left in the pie-dish;
then she rose from her seat and, walking over to the window, snipped two
or three yellow leaves from the geraniums.
a person whose behavior deviates from what is acceptable especially in sexual behavior
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
Though Harmon Gow developed the tale as far as his mental and moral
reach permitted there were perceptible gaps between his facts, and I had
the sense that the deeper meaning of the story was in the gaps.
Now and then he turned his eyes from the
girl's face to that of her partner, which, in the exhilaration of the
dance, had taken on a look of almost impudent ownership.
By the time she had discovered his whereabouts, and brought
suit for divorce, he would probably--wherever he was--be earning enough to
pay her a sufficient alimony.
At the moment Ethan Frome, after climbing to
his seat, had leaned over to assure himself of the security of a wooden
box--also with a druggist's label on it--which he had placed in the back
of the buggy, and I saw his face as it probably looked when he thought
himself alone.
"I've got my shooting pains so bad that I'm going over to Bettsbridge
to spend the night with Aunt Martha Pierce and see that new doctor," she
answered in a matter-of-fact tone, as if she had said she was going into
the store-room to take a look at the preserves, or up to the attic to go
over the blankets.
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She broke in: "You're neglecting the farm enough already," and this
being true, he found no answer, and left her time to add ironically:
"Better send me over to the almshouse and done with it...
The pure air, and the
long summer hours in the open, gave back life and elasticity to Mattie,
and Zeena, with more leisure to devote to her complex ailments, grew
less watchful of the girl's omissions; so that Ethan, struggling on
under the burden of his barren farm and failing saw-mill, could at least
imagine that peace reigned in his house.
But when Zenobia's doctor recommended her looking about
for some one to help her with the house-work the clan instantly saw the
chance of exacting a compensation from Mattie.
a land mass that projects well above its surroundings; higher than a hill
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
He was not the kind of man to be
turned from his business by any commotion of the elements; and at
the appointed hour his sleigh glided up through the snow like a
stage-apparition behind thickening veils of gauze.
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
move fast by using one's feet, with one foot off the ground at any given time
But after the trains begun running nobody ever
come by here to speak of, and mother never could get it through her head
what had happened, and it preyed on her right along till she died."
Once or twice, hearing
sleigh-bells, Ethan turned his head, fancying that Zeena and Jotham
might overtake him; but the old sorrel was not in sight, and he set his
face against the rain and urged on his ponderous pair.
the process of taking in and expelling air during breathing
The hired man was still drying his
wet feet at the stove, and Ethan could only give Mattie a quick look as
he said beneath his breath: "I'll be back early."
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
(usually plural) an acknowledgment or expression of good will (especially on meeting)
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
a state in which you want to learn more about something
There
was no hint of disapproval in her reserve; I merely felt in her an
insurmountable reluctance to speak of him or his affairs, a low "Yes, I
knew them both... it was awful..." seeming to be the utmost concession
that her distress could make to my curiosity.
forming an end or termination; especially putting an end to doubt or question
Zeena took the
view that Mattie was bound to make the best of Starkfield since she
hadn't any other place to go to; but this did not strike Ethan as conclusive.
In this way we struggled on for another mile or two, and at last reached a point where Frome, peering into what seemed to me
formless night, said: "That's my gate down yonder."
determine the measurements of something or somebody, take measurements of
All the dwellers in Starkfield, as in more notable communities, had had
troubles enough of their own to make them comparatively indifferent to
those of their neighbours; and though all conceded that Ethan Frome's
had been beyond the common measure, no one gave me an explanation of the
look in his face which, as I persisted in thinking, neither poverty
nor physical suffering could have put there.
the state of being prominent: widely known or eminent
The light, on a level with her chin, drew
out of the darkness her puckered throat and the projecting wrist of the
hand that clutched the quilt, and deepened fantastically the hollows and prominences of her high-boned face under its ring of crimping-pins.
As if trying to make him see reason she replied impartially: "The girl
will be over from Bettsbridge to-morrow, and I presume she's got to have somewheres to sleep."
the cardinal number that is the sum of one and one and one
The distance each way was barely three miles, but the old
bay's pace was slow, and even with firm snow under the runners we were
nearly an hour on the way.
(used of color) artificially produced; not natural
He had never been in her room except once, in the early summer, when
he had gone there to plaster up a leak in the eaves, but he remembered
exactly how everything had looked: the red-and-white quilt on her narrow
bed, the pretty pin-cushion on the chest of drawers, and over it the
enlarged photograph of her mother, in an oxydized frame, with a bunch of dyed grasses at the back.
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting tempered to
his own grave mien; but his taciturnity was respected and it was only on
rare occasions that one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word.
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your equipment.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
marked by order and cleanliness in appearance or habits
He would have liked to
linger on, watching her tidy up and then settle down to her sewing; but
he wanted still more to get the hauling done and be back at the farm
before night.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
The musicians hurried to their instruments, the dancers--some already
half-muffled for departure--fell into line down each side of the room,
the older spectators slipped back to their chairs, and the lively young
man, after diving about here and there in the throng, drew forth a girl
who had already wound a cherry-coloured "fascinator" about her head,
and, leading her up to the end of the floor, whirled her down its length
to the bounding tune of a Virginia reel.
It was clear that the Varnum fortunes were at the ebb, but the
two women did what they could to preserve a decent dignity; and Mrs.
Hale, in particular, had a certain wan refinement not out of keeping
with her pale old-fashioned house.
Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly
twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away
from him.
The only drawback to his
complete well-being was the fact that he could not see Mattie from where
he sat; but he was too indolent to move and after a moment he said:
"Come over here and sit by the stove."
prevent from being included or considered or accepted
One would have supposed that such an atmosphere must
quicken the emotions as well as the blood; but it seemed to produce
no change except that of retarding still more the sluggish pulse of
Starkfield.
Whether because of its symbolic sense, the image
it presents of a life linked with the soil, and enclosing in itself the
chief sources of warmth and nourishment, or whether merely because
of the consolatory thought that it enables the dwellers in that harsh
climate to get to their morning's work without facing the weather, it
is certain that the "L" rather than the house itself seems to be the
centre, the actual hearth-stone of the New England farm.
The dancers were going faster and faster, and the musicians, to keep
up with them, belaboured their instruments like jockeys lashing their
mounts on the home-stretch; yet it seemed to the young man at the window
that the reel would never end.
having a surface free from roughness or bumps or ridges or irregularities
"She's up in her room," he said to himself, "fixing
herself up for supper"; and he remembered Zeena's sarcastic stare when
Mattie, on the evening of her arrival, had come down to supper with smoothed hair and a ribbon at her neck.
As the young man walked
toward it the upper windows drew a black arcade along the side wall of
the building, but from the lower openings, on the side where the ground
sloped steeply down to the Corbury road, the light shot its long bars,
illuminating many fresh furrows in the track leading to the basement
door, and showing, under an adjoining shed, a line of sleighs with
heavily blanketed horses.
I had been sent up by my employers on a job connected with the big
power-house at Corbury Junction, and a long-drawn carpenters' strike
had so delayed the work that I found myself anchored at Starkfield--the
nearest habitable spot--for the best part of the winter.
do something that one considers to be below one's dignity
Eady and his assistant were both "down street," and young Denis,
who seldom deigned to take their place, was lounging by the stove with
a knot of the golden youth of Starkfield.
These documents my neighbour would also pocket without
a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and
variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
Most people were either indifferent to his troubles, or disposed
to think it natural that a young fellow of his age should have carried
without repining the burden of three crippled lives.
Thence, still hugging
the shadow, he edged his way cautiously forward to the nearest window, holding back his straight spare body and craning his neck till he got a
glimpse of the room.
a large thick pad filled with resilient material and often incorporating coiled springs, used as a bed or part of a bed
Here he had nailed up shelves for his books, built
himself a box-sofa out of boards and a mattress, laid out his papers on
a kitchen-table, hung on the rough plaster wall an engraving of Abraham
Lincoln and a calendar with "Thoughts from the Poets," and tried, with
these meagre properties, to produce some likeness to the study of a
"minister" who had been kind to him and lent him books when he was at
Worcester.
The "smash-up" it was--I gathered from the same informant--which, besides
drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome's forehead, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few
steps from his buggy to the post-office window.
Then he learned that
one other spirit had trembled with the same touch of wonder: that at his
side, living under his roof and eating his bread, was a creature to whom
he could say: "That's Orion down yonder; the big fellow to the right is
Aldebaran, and the bunch of little ones--like bees swarming--they're the
Pleiades..." or whom he could hold entranced before a ledge of granite thrusting up through the fern while he unrolled the huge panorama of the
ice age, and the long dim stretch...
to cause to separate and go in different directions
Yet I had come in the degenerate day of trolley, bicycle and rural
delivery, when communication was easy between the scattered mountain
villages, and the bigger towns in the valleys, such as Bettsbridge and
Shadd's Falls, had libraries, theatres and Y. M. C. A. halls to which
the youth of the hills could descend for recreation.
Mattie Silver had lived under his roof for a year, and from early
morning till they met at supper he had frequent chances of seeing her;
but no moments in her company were comparable to those when, her arm in
his, and her light step flying to keep time with his long stride, they
walked back through the night to the farm.
The villagers, being afoot, were
the first to climb the slope to the main street, while the country
neighbours packed themselves more slowly into the sleighs under the
shed.
(medicine) any sensation or change in bodily function that is experienced by a patient and is associated with a particular disease
When she came to take care of his mother she had seemed to Ethan like
the very genius of health, but he soon saw that her skill as a nurse had
been acquired by the absorbed observation of her own symptoms.
The small ray of Frome's lantern was soon lost in this smothering
medium, in which even his sense of direction, and the bay's homing
instinct, finally ceased to serve us.
a part of the cell containing DNA and RNA and responsible for growth and reproduction
But
one phrase stuck in my memory and served as the nucleus about which I
grouped my subsequent inferences: "Guess he's been in Starkfield too
many winters."
She had an eye to see and an ear to hear: he could show her
things and tell her things, and taste the bliss of feeling that all he
imparted left long reverberations and echoes he could wake at will.
As she passed down the line, her light figure
swinging from hand to hand in circles of increasing swiftness, the scarf
flew off her head and stood out behind her shoulders, and Frome, at each
turn, caught sight of her laughing panting lips, the cloud of dark hair
about her forehead, and the dark eyes which seemed the only fixed points
in a maze of flying lines.
an extended communication (often interactive) dealing with some particular topic
I felt myself to blame for having
accepted Frome's offer, and after a short discussion I persuaded him
to let me get out of the sleigh and walk along through the snow at the
bay's side.
sloping land (especially the slope beside a body of water)
Ethan Frome drove in silence, the reins
loosely held in his left hand, his brown seamed profile, under the
helmet-like peak of the cap, relieved against the banks of snow like the
bronze image of a hero.
The clock ticked above the dresser, a piece
of charred wood fell now and then in the stove, and the faint sharp scent of the geraniums mingled with the odour of Ethan's smoke, which
began to throw a blue haze about the lamp and to hang its greyish
cobwebs in the shadowy corners of the room.
Such tastes and acquirements in a man of his condition made the contrast
more poignant between his outer situation and his inner needs, and I
hoped that the chance of giving expression to the latter might at least
unseal his lips.
project
