chapter viii


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.




sparknotes
Directly following her outburst over the broken dish, Zeena retires upstairs to bed, and a shaken Mattie continues to clear up the kitchen. Ethan makes his usual rounds outside the house and returns to find the kitchen empty. His tobacco pouch and pipe have been laid out on the table next to a brief note in Mattie's handwriting telling him not to worry. Retreating into his makeshift study, Ethan contemplates the note over and over again, pondering a way out of his unbearable situation. Flinging aside in disgust a handmade cushion of Zeena's, Ethan mentally reviews the case of a local man who had deserted his wife in favor of the woman he loved. Encouraged by this precedent, Ethan resolves to run away with Mattie, and he prepares to write a letter of farewell to Zeena, leaving her the farm and the mill. But Ethan pauses at the prospect of starting over without any money, and he pictures the grim situation in which Zeena will be left. Slowly, he comes to the bitter recognition of his plan's impracticality, and he crumples back to the sofa in tears, falling asleep beneath the light of a large moon in the beautiful winter night sky. Ethan wakes up cold, stiff, and hungry, and rises in the knowledge that this will be Mattie's last day beneath his roof. As he stands alone in his study, he hears a step behind him and turns around to see Mattie, full of concern for his well-being after having listened all night for his return upstairs. Ethan, overwhelmed by her show of caring, lights the kitchen fire for her, and, as they sit down to a breakfast of leftovers, they decide not to worry about Zeena's threats. Ethan heads out to the cow barn, where he encounters Powell. When Powell presses to secure the details for the new hired girl's arrival and Mattie's departure, Ethan responds by saying that the matter of Mattie's dismissal is itself still unresolved. Powell reacts indifferently to this piece of news. Back in the kitchen, the men enter to find Mattie and Zeena seated at a full breakfast table. Zeena eats heartily, feeds scraps to the cat, and discusses departure and arrival times with Powell. She then endeavors to settle a few final matters with Mattie, as Ethan looks on wordlessly. After finishing his morning tasks, Ethan tells Powell that he is heading into town and that they should not wait for him to have dinner. Frantically searching for a solution, Ethan decides again to ask Andrew Hale for the advance on the lumber, feeling that Hale would relent if he thought that the money would make a difference in Zeena's health. With the money, Ethan decides, he will be able to run away with Mattie and start a new life elsewhere. Aiming to intercept Hale before he departs for work, Ethan runs quickly down the hill, and spots the Hale wagon in the distance. Arriving at its side, he finds not Hale but Hale's wife in the sleigh. She informs him that Hale is resting at home for the morning, and she speaks kindly to him about his fortitude in caring for Zeena before she goes on. Mrs. Hale's compassionate words encourage Ethan in his errand: if the Hales feel so sympathetic toward him, he thinks, surely they will advance him the cash. But after a few paces, Ethan's conscience catches up with his fantasies, and he realizes the extent of the deception in which he is prepared to engage. With his ethics now gaining dominance over his passions, Ethan slowly turns around and heads back to the farm.
Ethan's defining characteristic in this chapter is indecision. He desperately wants to abandon Zeena but lacks the courage to do so, and he tries to convince himself that it is not his wife but financial reality that is holding him back. The novel evokes the image of a prison contracting around him: "The inexorable facts closed in on him like prison-warders hand-cuffing a convict. There was no way out--none." The phrase bears much truth: in many ways Ethan is indeed a prisoner of circumstances beyond his control. Still, a tinge of melodrama flavors his insistence that there is "no way out"; it seems that if he really wanted to elope with Mattie, he could manage it. Admittedly, such a decision would present financial difficulties, but one senses that Ethan's cowardice and obedience to social mores, as well as his personal ethics, constitute the real forces that keep him from eloping. He uses money matters to justify his decision not to run away to the part of himself that wants to do so. As we question the sincerity of Ethan's financial worries, we also question how realistic his assessment of his and Mattie's relationship may actually be. Mattie's behavior clearly demonstrates that she has feelings for Ethan, but Ethan seems to be making a large leap when he imagines her going out west with him; after all, they have shared only one kiss so far. Mattie remains more of an ideal to him, one senses, than a reality; he loves her for herself, but also because she represents an opportunity for "rebellion" against the twin tyrannies of custom and geography, which tie him to his hypochondriac wife and his snowbound farm. She is the "one ray of light," he thinks, in the darkness of his prison, and his terror over losing her seems to be a terror at the prospect of seeing, like the Ethan Frome on the gravestone, fifty years with Zeena consume his time on earth. Until now the snowy landscape has symbolized Ethan's spiritual oppression, with the recurring wintry imagery serving as a reminder of his status as a prisoner of Starkfield. On the morning of Mattie's departure, however, the landscape is transformed: there is sunlight and "a pale haze of spring" over the snow, so that the wintry fields seem to hold a promise of renewal and rebirth. This promise, of course, Ethan associates with Mattie, and Wharton draws an obvious parallel between Mattie's shining last name, Silver, and the sudden beauty adopted by nature: "the fields lay like a silver shield under the sun. . . . Every yard of the road was alive with Mattie's presence." Again the text emphasizes Frome's mystical connection to the natural world, as he sees the events of his own life reflected in the beauty around him. Meanwhile, Ethan's plans continue to oscillate wildly. At night, in his study, he gives in to despair; the next day, the sun and the hint of spring seem to revive him, and he begins to plan for escape again. Yet, once again, his fears and his sense of conscience overcome him, as the unexpected kind words of Mrs. Hale are enough to thwart his temporary determination to escape from Starkfield. The theme of personal desires being repressed in favor of social order recurs here: Ethan cannot get the money that he needs from the Hales, because to do so would be to violate the complex web of duty and obligation that defines the community of Starkfield. He wants to rebel, but he cannot bring himself to do what is necessary to bring that rebellion to fruition.