chapter 8


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." 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. 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.

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. After Zeena's departure he and
Mattie had stood speechless, neither seeking to approach the other. 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 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."

Going into his cold dark "study" he placed the lantern on the table
and, stooping to its light, read the message again and again. 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. For the life of her smile, the
warmth of her voice, only cold paper and dead words!

Confused motions of rebellion stormed in him. He was too young, too
strong, too full of the sap of living, to submit so easily to the
destruction of his hopes. Must he wear out all his years at the side
of a bitter querulous woman? Other possibilities had been in him,
possibilities sacrificed, one by one, to Zeena's narrow-mindedness
and ignorance. And what good had come of it? She was a hundred times
bitterer and more discontented than when he had married her: the one
pleasure left her was to inflict pain on him. All the healthy instincts
of self-defence rose up in him against such waste...

He bundled himself into his old coon-skin coat and lay down on the
box-sofa to think. Under his cheek he felt a hard object with strange
protuberances. It was a cushion which Zeena had made for him when they
were engaged--the only piece of needlework he had ever seen her do. He
flung it across the floor and propped his head against the wall...

He knew a case of a man over the mountain--a young fellow of about his
own age--who had escaped from just such a life of misery by going West
with the girl he cared for. His wife had divorced him, and he had
married the girl and prospered. Ethan had seen the couple the summer
before at Shadd's Falls, where they had come to visit relatives. They
had a little girl with fair curls, who wore a gold locket and was
dressed like a princess. The deserted wife had not done badly either.
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. Ethan was fired by the
thought. Why should he not leave with Mattie the next day, instead of
letting her go alone? 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...

His impulses were still near the surface, and he sprang up, re-lit the
lantern, and sat down at the table. He rummaged in the drawer for a
sheet of paper, found one, and began to write.

"Zeena, I've done all I could for you, and I don't see as it's been any
use. I don't blame you, nor I don't blame myself. Maybe both of us will
do better separate. I'm going to try my luck West, and you can sell the
farm and mill, and keep the money--"

His pen paused on the word, which brought home to him the relentless
conditions of his lot. If he gave the farm and mill to Zeena what would
be left him to start his own life with? Once in the West he was sure of
picking up work--he would not have feared to try his chance alone. But
with Mattie depending on him the case was different. And what of Zeena's
fate? 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. Meanwhile, how could
she keep the farm going? It was only by incessant labour and personal
supervision that Ethan drew a meagre living from his land, and his wife,
even if she were in better health than she imagined, could never carry
such a burden alone.

Well, she could go back to her people, then, and see what they would do
for her. It was the fate she was forcing on Mattie--why not let her try
it herself? 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. And the alternative was to let Mattie go
forth alone, with far less hope of ultimate provision...

He had scattered the contents of the table-drawer in his search for a
sheet of paper, and as he took up his pen his eye fell on an old copy of
the Bettsbridge Eagle. The advertising sheet was folded uppermost, and
he read the seductive words: "Trips to the West: Reduced Rates."

He drew the lantern nearer and eagerly scanned the fares; then the paper
fell from his hand and he pushed aside his unfinished letter. A moment
ago he had wondered what he and Mattie were to live on when they reached
the West; now he saw that he had not even the money to take her there.
Borrowing was out of the question: six months before he had given his
only security to raise funds for necessary repairs to the mill, and
he knew that without security no one at Starkfield would lend him ten
dollars. The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders
handcuffing a convict. There was no way out--none. He was a prisoner for
life, and now his one ray of light was to be extinguished.

He crept back heavily to the sofa, stretching himself out with limbs so
leaden that he felt as if they would never move again. Tears rose in his
throat and slowly burned their way to his lids.

As he lay there, the window-pane that faced him, growing gradually
lighter, inlaid upon the darkness a square of moon-suffused sky. A
crooked tree-branch crossed it, a branch of the apple-tree under which,
on summer evenings, he had sometimes found Mattie sitting when he came
up from the mill. Slowly the rim of the rainy vapours caught fire and
burnt away, and a pure moon swung into the blue. Ethan, rising on his
elbow, watched the landscape whiten and shape itself under the sculpture
of the moon. This was the night on which he was to have taken Mattie
coasting, and there hung the lamp to light them! 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 fell asleep, and when he woke the chill of the winter dawn was in the
room. He felt cold and stiff and hungry, and ashamed of being hungry.
He rubbed his eyes and went to the window. A red sun stood over the grey
rim of the fields, behind trees that looked black and brittle. He said
to himself: "This is Matt's last day," and tried to think what the place
would be without her.

As he stood there he heard a step behind him and she entered.

"Oh, Ethan--were you here all night?"

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.

"You must be frozen," she went on, fixing lustreless eyes on him.

He drew a step nearer. "How did you know I was here?"

"Because I heard you go down stairs again after I went to bed, and I
listened all night, and you didn't come up."

All his tenderness rushed to his lips. He looked at her and said: "I'll
come right along and make up the kitchen fire."

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. When warmth began to radiate from the
stove, and the first ray of sunlight lay on the kitchen floor, Ethan's
dark thoughts melted in the mellower air. The sight of Mattie going
about her work as he had seen her on so many mornings made it seem
impossible that she should ever cease to be a part of the scene. He said
to himself that he had doubtless exaggerated the significance of Zeena's
threats, and that she too, with the return of daylight, would come to a
saner mood.

He went up to Mattie as she bent above the stove, and laid his hand on
her arm. "I don't want you should trouble either," he said, looking down
into her eyes with a smile.

She flushed up warmly and whispered back: "No, Ethan, I ain't going to
trouble."

"I guess things'll straighten out," he added.

There was no answer but a quick throb of her lids, and he went on: "She
ain't said anything this morning?"

"No. I haven't seen her yet."

"Don't you take any notice when you do."

With this injunction he left her and went out to the cow-barn. He saw
Jotham Powell walking up the hill through the morning mist, and the
familiar sight added to his growing conviction of security.

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."

Ethan looked at him blankly, and he continued: "Mis' Frome said the new
girl'd be at the Flats at five, and I was to take Mattie then, so's 't
she could ketch the six o'clock train for Stamford."

Ethan felt the blood drumming in his temples. He had to wait a moment
before he could find voice to say: "Oh, it ain't so sure about Mattie's
going--"

"That so?" said Jotham indifferently; and they went on with their work.

When they returned to the kitchen the two women were already at
breakfast. Zeena had an air of unusual alertness and activity. 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. "Aunt Martha's ain't got a
faded leaf on 'em; but they pine away when they ain't cared for," she
said reflectively. Then she turned to Jotham and asked: "What time'd you
say Dan'l Byrne'd be along?"

The hired man threw a hesitating glance at Ethan. "Round about noon," he
said.

Zeena turned to Mattie. "That trunk of yours is too heavy for the
sleigh, and Dan'l Byrne'll be round to take it over to the Flats," she
said.

"I'm much obliged to you, Zeena," said Mattie.

"I'd like to go over things with you first," Zeena continued in an
unperturbed voice. "I know there's a huckabuck towel missing; and I
can't make out what you done with that match-safe 't used to stand
behind the stuffed owl in the parlour."

She went out, followed by Mattie, and when the men were alone Jotham
said to his employer: "I guess I better let Dan'l come round, then."

Ethan finished his usual morning tasks about the house and barn; then
he said to Jotham: "I'm going down to Starkfield. Tell them not to wait
dinner."

The passion of rebellion had broken out in him again. 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.
His manhood was humbled by the part he was compelled to play and by the
thought of what Mattie must think of him. Confused impulses struggled
in him as he strode along to the village. He had made up his mind to do
something, but he did not know what it would be.

The early mist had vanished and the fields lay like a silver shield
under the sun. It was one of the days when the glitter of winter shines
through a pale haze of spring. 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. 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.

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. 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?

The more he considered his plan the more hopeful it seemed. If he could
get Mrs. Hale's ear he felt certain of success, and with fifty dollars
in his pocket nothing could keep him from Mattie...

His first object was to reach Starkfield before Hale had started for
his work; he knew the carpenter had a job down the Corbury road and was
likely to leave his house early. 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. 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. Ethan signed to them to stop, and Mrs. Hale leaned forward, her
pink wrinkles twinkling with benevolence.

"Mr. Hale? Why, yes, you'll find him down home now. He ain't going to
his work this forenoon. 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."

Beaming maternally on Ethan, she bent over to add: "I on'y just heard
from Mr. Hale 'bout Zeena's going over to Bettsbridge to see that new
doctor. I'm real sorry she's feeling so bad again! I hope he thinks he
can do something for her. I don't know anybody round here's had more
sickness than Zeena. I always tell Mr. Hale I don't know what she'd 'a'
done if she hadn't 'a' had you to look after her; and I used to say
the same thing 'bout your mother. You've had an awful mean time, Ethan
Frome."

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.

It was a long time since any one had spoken to him as kindly as Mrs.
Hale. 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. But Mrs. Hale had
said, "You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome," and he felt less
alone with his misery. If the Hales were sorry for him they would surely
respond to his appeal...

He started down the road toward their house, but at the end of a few
yards he pulled up sharply, the blood in his face. For the first time,
in the light of the words he had just heard, he saw what he was about to
do. He was planning to take advantage of the Hales' sympathy to obtain
money from them on false pretences. That was a plain statement of the
cloudy purpose which had driven him in headlong to Starkfield.

With the sudden perception of the point to which his madness had carried
him, the madness fell and he saw his life before him as it was. He was a
poor man, the husband of a sickly woman, whom his desertion would leave
alone and destitute; and even if he had had the heart to desert her he
could have done so only by deceiving two kindly people who had pitied
him.

He turned and walked slowly back to the farm.




gradesaver
Ethan has a tiny study on the first floor, done up in humble imitation of the study of a minister who was kind to him in Worcester. Since Mattie came and he moved the stove up to her room, it has been uninhabitable during the winter. But he goes there now, trying to figure out a way to take his life back. He carries with him a tiny note written by Mattie and left for him on the kitchen table: "Don't trouble, Ethan". He remembers meeting a couple who had faced a similar situation. The man had divorced his wife and fled west with his new girl, and everyone had prospered. The ex-wife sold the farm and started her own business, and the man and his new wife fared well out west. He begins a farewell letter to Zeena. But as he tries to plan a course of action for himself, he realizes that escape is impossible. Zeena will not be able to sell the farm for any considerable sum, and she has no means to survive in the mean time. And as for him and Mattie, they don't even have enough money to get out West. Ethan falls asleep in the study despite the cold. The next morning, Jotham Powell is there. A coach is going to come later in the day to pick up Mattie's heavy trunk, and Jotham is going to take Mattie to the station when he goes to pick up the new hired girl. Ethan heads toward town, humiliated by his own powerlessness. He suddenly considers a new plan: if he tells Andrew Hale that he needs money to hire a girl to help Zeena, he could use the cash advance to flee west with Mattie. He goes to the Hale mill, running into their sleigh on the weigh. Mrs. Hale is the rider, and she talks to Ethan sympathetically about Zeena's latest health problems. She admires Ethan for taking care of Zeena and before her, his mother. The sleigh takes off, and Ethan keeps on toward the Hales': if they feel sorry for him, they're sure to loan him the money. But then Ethan realizes that he is planning to use the compassion of the Hales' to get money dishonestly. He realizes the truth of his situation: Zeena cannot fend for herself, and Ethan's flight with Mattie would depend on deceiving the Hales. He turns and goes back to his own farm.
Ethan is completely boxed in, and Wharton's determinism becomes oppressive. He has no options: as he sits in his study planning an escape, he realizes that what worked for another man will not work for him. He simply does not have the resources. The reality of his situation continues to torment him. Ethan can't find an honorable way to save his happiness. And he is, whether he likes it or not, an honorable man. He does not have it in him to abandon Zeena, or deceive the Hales. His choice to live honestly rather than pursue his passion for Mattie is admirable, but it should not be taken as evidence of human agency. Ethan's decency is part of what makes him so sympathetic, but in Wharton's universe goodness and morals limit options rather than multiply them. His decision to remain honest is one of the few choices he is allowed in the novel, and it lends his character tragic dignity. It is not a sign of man's power over his own life; rather, it is an example of a man behaving honorably within the constraints that life has given him
shmoop
Ethan has a little make-shift study that he hadn't used in a while be because the heater that previously heated it was given to Mattie for her room. When Zeena was safely sleeping, Ethan headed to that room. He and Mattie hadn't talked after the scene, but when he'd come in from doing his final chores he found a note left by Mattie before she went to bed. It said, "Don't trouble, Ethan." This was his first note ever from Mattie. The note makes him feel closer to her. Wrestling with his mind, Ethan decides he can have happiness. He doesn't have to live this way. There was this guy who left his wife for a younger woman. By leaving her the farm, the man had made sure the left wife would have something to live on, and moved West. Ethan had met the couple and seen their cute little baby. He decides to write Zeena a letter and then leave with Mattie the next day. As he writes he begins to have doubts. The farm isn't worth anything to sell, and there is no way Zeena could do any of the work on it. Oh well, he thinks. She can go live with her relatives and he will eventually pay her alimony. He finds a newspaper so he can look at the cost of a trip West. Crushed, Ethan learns that he can't even afford the cheapest ticket, and nobody would loan him any money. He cries and falls asleep thinking of how he and Mattie were supposed to sled tonight. When he wakes up, he realizes it's Mattie's final day on the farm. Mattie is waiting for him. She'd heard him leave the house last night and had not heard him return. They move to the kitchen. Ethan touches Mattie and says, "I don't want you should trouble either" . She agrees not to. Ethan warns her not to let Zeena get to her today. When Jotham comes in he tells Ethan that Zeena asked him to drive Mattie away. Ethan says that he will be the one to drive Mattie. When Zeena comes in she tells Mattie she's arranged for her trunk to be transported. Mattie thanks her. Determined to give it another shot, Ethan decides to use Zeena's illness as an excuse to get Andrew Hale to loan him some money. Mrs. Hale is very sweet to him, and tells him she feels bad that he's had such a hard life. He hadn't experienced that level of kindness in some time. This increased his confidence in getting the loan. But he can't go through with it. He sees himself as a man about to swindle two elderly people who believe in him, and then abandon a sick woman. Ethan walks back home.
pinkmonkey
After Ethan's father died and Ethan returned to the farm from school, his mother gave him a room at the back of the house to serve as his "study," a place for his desk and books. He has always taken refuge there; now that he has given Mattie the stove from the room, it is uninhabitable for most of the year. After everyone has gone to bed, Ethan goes to his study. Just before he himself goes to bed, he finds a note from Mattie on the kitchen table. It simply says, "Don't trouble, Ethan;" but it is the first time she has ever written anything to him. He rereads the note and thinks that such a cold, dead piece of paper represents his future with Mattie. He despises the thought of living out his years with Zeena. He goes to lie down on his couch, and throws away a cushion that Zeena made for him when they were engaged. Even the cushion is hard and uncomfortable. Ethan remembers the story of a man, a young fellow his own age, who ran away from a life of misery by going west with another young woman. The wife divorced him, he prospered, and the couple came back to visit. The deserted wife had done well too, running a successful restaurant in town. Ethan springs up and goes to his desk to start a letter to Zeena. He tells her she can sell the farm and keep the money. Here he stops, for he remembers that the farm and mill are mortgaged. Even if there were not, Zeena could never run the place. She would have to go back to her people, the same fate Zeena was forcing on Mattie. In addition, he would have trouble supporting Mattie. He looks at a newspaper sitting nearby with trips to the west advertised. Ethan knows he does not have the money to pay for he and Mattie to go. He feels he is a prisoner for life. Ethan returns to the sofa, and tears well up in him. He watches the moon dawn on the landscape and contemplates everything in life in terms of Mattie. He remembers that they were supposed to go coasting tonight; now they will probably never be able to go. As he nurses his misery, the beauty of the landscape mocks him until he falls asleep. Ethan wakes with the realization it will be Mattie's last day with him. She appears in the room and knows he has been there all night. She looks lusterless, even with the red scarf wound around her. Ethan stirs, and they go together to start the kitchen fire. As the sun comes up and Mattie goes about her work, Ethan feels better. He feels that with the return of daylight, Zeena, too, will see that it is insane to let Mattie go. Ethan and Mattie try to reassure each other, but they are not bolstered. Ethan goes out to the barn to clean stalls with Jotham. The hired hand says that he knows a fellow, Daniel Byrne, who can take Mattie's trunk over to the train station. Ethan is floored and wonders how Jotham knows about Mattie's leaving. Ethan says he is not sure Mattie is going. The blood pounds in his temples. The two men go into breakfast. Zeena, alert and active, remarks that the geraniums have been neglected. She then turns to Jotham and asks when Mattie's trunk will be picked up. Jotham glances at Ethan and says "about noon." Zeena says that she would like to go over the contents with Mattie before the trunk is picked up, implying that Mattie has stolen something. The two women leave the kitchen, and Jotham remarks that he guesses he better tell Daniel to come around after all. Ethan feels rebellious and walks into town for no purpose. Everything he sees reminds him of Mattie, and he decides he must do something to prevent her from leaving. He decides to again ask Hale for some cash and proceeds towards his house. He meets Mrs. Hale on the road, and she says that Mr. Hale is home sick. She adds that she has heard of Zeena's recent trip to the new doctor and sympathizes with Ethan about all the trouble he has had in his life. Although he is grateful for her rare understanding of his problems, he is more concerned about gaining Mr. Hale's sympathy in order to obtain money. Then he suddenly sees himself as he is -- a poor man and the husband of a sickly woman. He decides he has no right to ask the Hales for money to serve his selfish purposes. Ethan walks back to his farm without seeing Hale.
Notes The rather deserted study at the start of the chapter represents an abandoned part of Ethan's life when he was active and challenged by learning. Now the room is cold, just like his own life; and Ethan knows without Mattie it will grow colder and more lifeless. Mattie's note only makes things worse, and he begins to grasp at straws as he tries to plan an escape. At first, Ethan fantasizes about going to the west with Mattie, but he knows that the west is too far and too expensive. He cannot go there because he is too poor, and Zeena is too sickly to abandon. Ethan's imagination can no longer carry him out of his predicament. By the end of the chapter, Ethan is totally despondent, for he sees his life as it really is. When Ethan wakes he tries to ignore all of what he has heard and thought the night before. Then Jotham tells him that Daniel Bryne can deliver Mattie's trunk to the train, and he is brought back to the reality of the situation. His refusal to accept that Mattie is really going to leave shows Ethan at his most pathetic. Again, as Ethan walks confusedly towards the Hale's house, he is a pathetic picture. Mrs. Hale's pity is attractive to Ethan, and he feels "less alone with his misery" after his conversation with her. But her pity takes away all his resolve. He suddenly feels poor and selfish; as a result, Ethan returns home without asking Hale for the money. Although Ethan Frome is not a "psychological novel" per se, Edith Wharton effectively charts the wanderings of Ethan's mind throughout the book. In this chapter, she successfully captures his mental frustrations. Ethan desperately wants to act, but he cannot seem focus on an appropriate action due to Mattie's impending departure from the farm. He is emotionally crippled by the thought of having to spend the rest of his life in silence, with no relief from his hard and cold wife.
novelguide
After Zeena retires upstairs, Mattie clears up the kitchen and Ethan makes his usual rounds outside. The kitchen is empty when he gets back, but Mattie has left a note for him, saying, "Don't trouble, Ethan. " Ethan feels he cannot give up the "life" and "warmth" that Mattie gives him. A storm of rebellion rises within him: why should he waste his life in service of the bitter, querulous Zeena, wose only pleasure is to inflict pain on him? He flings aside a cushion that Zeena had made and reflects on the case of a local man who had escaped from a similar life of misery by going West with the girl he loved. They had a child and prospered, and even the deserted wife had done well. Encouraged by this example, Ethan decides to go West with Mattie, leaving a note for Zeena. He plans to leave her the farm and mill so that she can sell it and live off the money. Then Ethan begins to reflect. He was sure of finding work and could manage if he were alone, but with Mattie depending on him, the case was different. And the farm and mill were mortgaged to the hilt; Zeena would only clear a thousand dollars on the sale. She could return to her family, the fate she was forcing on Mattie. But then he notices an advertisement in the paper offering trips West, and realizes he cannot even afford the reduced rate. He cannot borrow money, as he has no security. He is "a prisoner for life," he decides, and will lose his "one ray of light," Mattie. He collapses on the sofa in tears. Then he notices that the moon is up, and remembers his promise to take Mattie sledding that evening. He falls asleep. Ethan wakes cold, stiff and hungry, and recalls that it is Mattie's last day. Mattie comes in, aware that he has not been to bed, since she was listening all night for him to come upstairs. He is touched by her concern and makes up the fire for her. He comforts himself that Zeena may relent and allow Mattie to stay. When he goes out to the cow-barn he meets Jotham, who tells Ethan of the arrangements that Zeena has already made with him to take Mattie and her trunk to the station. Ethan replies that the question of Mattie's leaving is not settled. The two men go into the house to join the women for breakfast. Zeena is unusually alert and is feeding the cat. She asks Jotham about the travel arrangements for Mattie. Then she says that there are some things she wants to clear up with Mattie before she leaves - namely, she believes that certain household items are missing. She and Mattie leave the room, and Jotham tells Ethan that he will go ahead with the travel arrangements. Ethan views these proceedings without a word. After Ethan finishes his morning tasks, he becomes fired with rebellion once more. He feels appalled that he has assisted "as a helpless spectator at Mattie's banishment." He makes up his mind to do something, but he does not know what. The sun has come out and a "pale haze" of spring can be seen. Mattie's presence seems to infuse the entire scene. He thinks of an idea. He will ask Andrew Hale once more to advance him a payment on the wood, using the excuse that Zeena's ill health makes it necessary to hire a servant. Catching sight of Hale's sleigh, he hurries to meet it, but sees it is Mrs Hale in the sleigh. Mrs Hale tells him that she has heard about Zeena's going to see the new doctor. She expresses regret that Zeena is not feeling well and says that she does not know what she would have done if Ethan had not been around to take care of her. She commiserates with Ethan: "You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome." . Ethan is moved by Mrs Hale's kindness and at first is strengthened in his purpose, thinking that the Hales may look sympathetically on his request for payment. He begins to walk to their house to see Mr Hale, but draws up short at the realization that he is about to take advantage of their sympathy to obtain money on false pretences. He cannot find the heart to leave Zeena alone and destitute, particularly if it means deceiving two kind people.
. This chapter begins with Ethan forging a plan to leave Zeena and go West with Mattie - and then the plan collapsing as Ethan considers the practicalities and rejects them as unfeasible. Imagery of prisons is used to express the seeming impossibility of escape: "The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders handcuffing a convict." . The emotion that governs Ethan in this chapter is inaction. He looks on wordlessly as Zeena efficiently arranges Mattie's departure. After he does his morning's work, he becomes fired with rebellion once more and makes up his mind to do something, though "he did not know what it would be. " His positive mood is reflected in the first glimmer of spring shining through. Once again, Mattie is linked with warmth and life, as contrasted with Zeena's winter: "Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie's presence. " When he hears a bird call, it sounds like her laughter - one of several instances in which Mattie is likened to a bird. He comes up with a plan that seems to have a strong chance of succeeding. He will ask Andrew Hale again to advance him part of the payment he is owed for the wood, telling him  that Zeena's ill health makes it necessary to hire a servant. Then by chance, he meets Mrs Hale, and her kindness and sympathy at first give him hope that his plan will work, but subsequently overcome him with moral paralysis. He decides that he must not fulfil his plan by deceiving two kind people, leaving Zeena destitute into the bargain. Wharton makes it clear that there are two possible and opposite responses to Mrs Hale's kindness, by showing us Ethan progressing through both in succession. There is the one dictated by love: get the money he is owed by telling a lie, and escape with Mattie; and there is the one dictated by the moral high ground: accept that he should not lie or take advantage of the Hales' goodwill, even to get money that he is owed, and resign himself to his fate on the farm with Zeena. Ethan chooses the second. However, while Ethan undoubtedly has a strong sense of ethics and duty, he also has a decided tendency to inaction in favor of dreams. This is the man who prefers not to touch Mattie on their evening alone together so that he can retain intact his vision of what it could be like to be with her. It so happens that the moral decision coincides with the path of least action: it gives him a convenient reason to stay with the familiar and not to pursue the unknown path of a life with Mattie. Some critics have noted Ethan's moral absolutism. In reality, there are many shades of grey to be explored among the options of staying with Zeena or going with Mattie, but he sees only moral black  or white . A modern reader will think of other possibilities, and it is hard to believe that Wharton, with her complex marital history, did not think of them too. For example, Ethan could attempt a rational discussion with Zeena and her family about what she really wanted. He could be firm with the Hales and demand full payment for the wood, giving him more options. He could be firm with Zeena and insist that Mattie stay at the farm. He could leave with Mattie and ensure that between them, they earn enough money to help out Zeena. But he only sees two options: one seems impossible and the other intolerable. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Ethan has become as frozen, sterile and rigid as the Starkfield winter landscape.