Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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(00:22):
Alan Noble, www dot MySpace slash Immature Underscore Indefinitely. The
Yellow Wall Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It is very
seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure

(00:44):
ancestral halls for the summer, a colonial mansion, a hereditary estate.
I would say a haunted house, and reach the height
of romantic felicity, but that would be asking too much
a fate. Still, I would proudly declare that there is
something queer about it. Else why else should it be
let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

(01:07):
John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that
in marriage. John is practical in the extreme. He has
no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and
he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to
be felt and seen and put down in figures. John

(01:29):
is a physician, and perhaps I would not say it
to a living soul, of course, but this is dead
paper and a great relief to my mind. Perhaps that
is one reason I do not get well faster. You see,
he does not believe I am sick. And what can
one do If a physician of high standing and one's

(01:51):
own husband assures friends and relatives that there is really
nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression, a
slight hysterical tendency, what is one to do. My brother
is also a physician, and also of high standing, and
he says the same thing. So I take phosphates or phosphates,

(02:15):
whichever it is, and tonics and journeys and air and exercise,
and am absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again. Personally,
I disagree with their ideas. Personally, I believe that congenial work,
with excitement and change would do me good. But what

(02:37):
is one to do? I did write for a while
in spite of them, but it does exhaust me a
good deal having to be so sly about it, or
else meet with heavy opposition. I sometimes fancy that my
condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus.
But John says, the very worst thing I can do

(03:00):
think about my condition, and I confess it always makes
me feel bad. So I will let it alone and
talk about the house the most beautiful place. It is
quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three
miles from the village. It makes me think of English
places that you read about. For there are hedges and

(03:21):
walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little
houses for the gardeners and people. There's a delicious garden.
I never saw such a garden, large and shady, full
of box bordered paths and lined with long grape covered
arbors with seats under them. There were greenhouses too, but

(03:43):
they are all broken now. There is some legal trouble.
I believe something about the hares and cohairs. Anyway, the
place has been empty for years that spoils my ghostliness.
I am afraid, but I don't care. There is something
strange about the house. I can feel it. I even

(04:03):
said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said
what I felt was a draft and shut the window.
I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm sure I
never used to be so sensitive. I think it is
due to this nervous condition. But John says if I
feel so, I shall neglect proper self control. So I

(04:26):
take pains to control myself before him at least, and
that makes me very tired. I don't like our room
a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the
piazza and had roses all over the window, and such
pretty old fashioned chants hangings. But John would not hear

(04:47):
of it. He said there was only one window, and
not room for two beds, and no near room for
him if he took another. He is very careful in
loving and hardly lets me stir without special direction. I
have a schedule, prescription for each hour in the day.

(05:09):
He takes all care from me, and so I feel
basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said, we
came here solely on my account, that I was to
have perfect rest and all the air I could get.
Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear, said he,
and your food somewhat on your appetite, but air you

(05:32):
can absorb all the time. So he took the nursery
at the top of the house. It is a big,
airy room, the whole floor nearly with windows that look
always and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first,
and then play room and gymnasium. I should judge for

(05:54):
the windows are barred for little children, and there are
rings and things in the walls. The paint and paper
look as if a boy's school had used it. It
is stripped off, the paper in great patches all around
the head of my bed, about as far as I
can reach, and in a great place on the other

(06:16):
side of the room low down. I never saw a
worse paper in my life. One of those sprawling, flamboyant patterns,
committing every artistic sin. It is dull enough to confuse
the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and
provoke study. And when you follow the lame, uncertain curves

(06:39):
for a little distance, they suddenly commit suicide, plunge off
at outrageous angles, destroy themselves. Unheard of contradictions. The color
is repellent, almost revolting, a smoldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded

(07:00):
by the slow turning sunlight. It is a dull yet
lurid orange, in some places a sickly sulfur tint in others.
No wonder the children hated it. I should hate it
myself if I had to live in this room long.
There comes John, and I must put this away. He
hates to have me write a word. We've been here

(07:25):
two weeks and I haven't felt like writing before. Since
that first day. I am sitting by the window now
up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to
hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack
of strength. John is away all day and even some
nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my

(07:47):
case is not serious, but these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.
John does not know how much I really suffer. He
knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.
Of course. It is only nervousness. It does weigh on

(08:08):
me so not to do my duty in any way.
I meant to be such a help to John, such
a real rest and comfort, and here I am a
comparative burden. Already. No one would believe what an effort
it is to do what little I am able to
dress and entertain and other things. It is fortunate Mary

(08:31):
is so good with the baby, such a dear baby,
and yet I cannot be with him. Makes me so nervous.
I suppose John was never nervous in his life. He
laughs at me so about this wall paper. At first
he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said

(08:53):
that I was letting it get the better of me,
and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than
to give way to such fancies. He said that after
the wall paper was changed, it would be the heavy bedstead,
and then the barred windows, and in the gate at
the head of the stairs and so on. You know,

(09:14):
the place is doing you good, he said. And really, dear,
I don't care to renovate the house just for a
three months rental. Then do let us go downstairs, I said,
there are such pretty rooms there. Then he took me
in his arms and called me a blessed little goose,
and said he would go down to the cellar if

(09:35):
I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But
he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.
It is an airy and comfortable room as any one
need wish, And of course I would not be so
silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.

(09:55):
I'm really getting quite fond of the big room all
but that horrid paper. Out of one window I can
see the garden, those mysterious deep shaded arbors, the riotous,
old fashioned flowers and bushes and gnarly trees. Out of another,
I get a lovely view of the bay and a

(10:16):
little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a
beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house.
I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous
paths and arbors. But John has cautioned me not to
give way to fancy in the least. He says that

(10:37):
with my imaginative power and habit of story making, a
nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all
manners of excited fancies, and that I ought to use
my will in good sense to check the tendency. So
I try. I think sometimes that if I were only
well enough to write a little, it would relieve the

(10:59):
press of ideas and rest me. But I find I
get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging
not to have any advice and companionship about my work.
When I get really well, John says we will ask
cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit. But
he says he would as soon as put fireworks in

(11:21):
my pillow case as to let me have those stimulating
people about me now. I wish I could get well faster,
but I must not think about that. This paper looks
to me as if it knew what a vicious influence
it had. There is a recurrent spot where the pattern
lulls like a broken neck, and two bulbous eyes stare

(11:45):
at you upside down. I get positively angry with the
impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and
sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere.
There's one little place where two breaths didn't match, and
the eyes go all up and down the line, one

(12:07):
a little higher than the other. I never saw so
much expression and an inanimate thing before, and we all
know how much expression they have. I used to lie
awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror
out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children
could find in a toy store. I remember what a

(12:31):
kindly wink the knobs of our big old bureau used
to have. And there was one chair that always seemed
like a strong friend. I used to feel that if
any of the other things looked too fierce, I could
always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture
in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for

(12:54):
we had to bring it all up from downstairs. I
suppose when this was use as a play room they
had to take the nursery things out, And no wonder
I never saw such ravages as the children's have made here.
The wall paper, as I said before, is torn off
in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother. They

(13:17):
must have had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the
floor is scratched and gouged and splintered. The plaster itself
is dug out here and there. And this great heavy bed,
which is all we found in the room, looks as
if it had been through the wars. But I don't
mind it a bit, only the paper. There comes John's sister.

(13:41):
Such a dear girl she is, and so careful of me.
I must not let her find me writing. She is
a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession.
I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which
made me sick. But I can write when she is
out her A long way off from the windows, there

(14:03):
is one that commands the road, A lovely shaded winding road,
and one that just looks off over the country, A
lovely country too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.
This wall paper has a kind of sub pattern in
a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can

(14:24):
only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then,
but in the places where it isn't faded, and where
the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking,
formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind
that silly and conspicuous front design. Their sister on the stairs. Well,

(14:50):
the fourth of July is over, the people are gone,
and I am tired out. John thought it might do
me good to see a little company, so we just
had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.
Of course I didn't do a thing. Ginny sees to
everything now, but it tired me all the same. John says,

(15:14):
if I don't pick up faster, he shall send me
to where Mitchell in the fall. But I don't want
to go there at all. I had a friend who
was in his hands once, and she says he is
just like John and my brother, only more so. Besides,
it is such an undertaking to go so far. I

(15:35):
don't feel as if it was worth while to turn
my hand over for anything. And I'm getting dreadfully fretful
and querulous. I cry at nothing, and cry most of
the time. Of course, I don't when John is here
or anybody else, but when I am alone, and I
am alone a good deal. Just now. John is kept

(15:59):
in town very often by serious cases. And Jinny is
good and lets me alone when I want her to.
So I walk a little in the garden, when down
that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses,
and lie down up here. A good deal. I'm really
getting fond of the room, in spite of the wall paper.

(16:20):
Perhaps because of the wallpaper, it dwells in my mind.
So I lie here on this great immovable bed. It
is nailed down, I believe, and follow that pattern about
by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I
assure you. I start, we'll say at the bottom down

(16:43):
in the corner over there, it has not been touched.
And I determine for the thousandth time that I will
follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.
I know a little of the principle of design, and
I know this thing was not ranged on any laws
of radiation or alternation or repetition or symmetry, or anything

(17:06):
else that I ever heard of. It is repeated, of
course by the breaths, but not otherwise looked at. In
one way, each breadth stands alone. The bloated curves and flourishes,
I kind of debased Romanesque with delirium trimmings, go wabbling

(17:27):
up and down in isolated columns of fatuity. But on
the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines
run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like
a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole
thing goes horizontally too, at least it seems so, and

(17:49):
I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of
its going in that direction. They have used a horizontal
breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.
There is one end of the room where it is
almost intact, and there, when the cross lights fade and
the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost

(18:11):
fancy radiation. After all, the interminable grotesques seem to form
around a common center and rush off in headlong plunges
of equal distraction. It makes me tired to follow it.
I will take a nap. I guess I don't know
why I should write this. I don't want to. I

(18:33):
don't feel able, and I know John would think it absurd,
but I must say what I feel and think. In
some way. It is such a relief, but the effort
is getting to be greater than the relief half the time.
Now I am awfully lazy and lie down ever so much.

(18:56):
John says I mustn't lose my strength, and he has
me take cod, liver oil and lots of tonics and things,
to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.
Dear John, he loves me dearly and hates to have
me sick. I tried to have a real, earnest, reasonable

(19:16):
talk with him the other day and tell him how
I wish he would let me go and make a
visit to cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I
wasn't able to go, nor able to stand it after
I got there, and I did not make out a
very good case for myself, for I was crying before
I had finished. It is getting to be a great
effort for me to think straight, just this nervous weakness,

(19:39):
I suppose, and dear John gathered me up in his
arms and just carried me upstairs and laid me on
the bed and sat by me and read to me
until it tired my head. He said I was his
darling and his comfort and all he had, and that
I must take care of myself for his sake and
keep well. He says, no one but myself can help

(20:03):
me out of it. That I must use my will
and self control and not let any silly fancies run
away with me. There's one comfort. The baby is well
and happy and does not have to occupy this nursery
with the horrid wall paper. If we had not used it,
the blessed child would have What a fortunate escape. Why

(20:25):
I wouldn't have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing,
live in such a room for worlds. I never thought
of it before, But it is lucky that John kept
me here. After all. I can stand it so much
easier than a baby, you see. Of course, I never
mention it to them any more. I am too wise,

(20:46):
but I keep watch of it all the same. There
are things in that paper that nobody knows but me
or ever will behind that outside pattern. The dim shapes
get clearer every day. It's always the same shape, only
very numerous, and it is like a woman stooping down

(21:07):
and creeping about behind that pattern. I don't like it
a bit, I wonder. I begin to think I wish
John would take me away from here. It is so
hard to talk with John about my case, because he
is so eyes and because he loves me so But
I tried it last night. It was moonlight. The moon

(21:29):
shines in all around, just as the sun does. I
hate to see it sometimes it creeps so slowly and
always comes in by one window or another. John was asleep,
and I hated to waken him, so I kept still
and watch the moonlight on that undulating wall paper till

(21:49):
I felt creepy. The faint and figure behind it seemed
to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to
get out. I got up softly and went to feel
and see if the paper did move. And when I
came back, John was awake. What is it, little girl?
He said, don't go walking about like that, you'll get cold.

(22:13):
I thought it was a good time to talk, so
I told him that I really was not gaining here
and that I wished he would take me away. Why, darling,
said he, our least will be up in three weeks,
and I can't see how to leave before the repairs
are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave
town just now. Of course, if you were in any danger,

(22:37):
I could and would. But you really are better, dear,
whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear,
and I know you are gaining flesh and color. Your
appetite is better. I thought, really much easier about you.
I don't weigh a bit more, said I, nor as much.

(22:59):
And my appetite may be better in the evening when
you are here, but it is worse in the morning
when you are away. Bless her little heart, said he,
with a great big hug. She shall be as sick
as she pleases. But now let's improve the shining hours
by going to sleep and talk about it in the morning.

(23:19):
And you won't go away, I asked gloomily. Why how
can I, dear? It is only three weeks more, and
then we will take a nice little trip of a
few days while Jinny is getting the house ready. Really, dear,
you are better better in body, perhaps, I began and

(23:40):
stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at
me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could
not say another word. My darling said he. I beg
of you, for my sake and for our child's sake,
as well as for your own, that you will never,
for one instant let that idea enter your mind. There

(24:01):
is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating to a temperament like yours.
It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not
trust me as a physician when I tell you so? So,
of course I said no more on that score, and
we went to sleep. Before long. He thought I was

(24:22):
asleep first, but I wasn't, and lay there for hours
trying to decide whether that front pattern and that back
pattern really did move together or separately. On a pattern
like this by daylight, there is a lack of sequence,
a defiance of law that is a constant irritant to

(24:43):
a normal mind. The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough,
and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing. You think
you have mastered it, but just as soon as you
get well underwagh in following, it turns up back somersault,
and there you are it slaps you in the face,

(25:04):
knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like
a bad dream. The outside pattern is a florid arabesque
reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a
toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools budding and
sprouting in endless convolutions, why that is something like it?

(25:28):
That is sometimes there is one marked peculiarity about this paper,
a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that
is that it changes as the light changes. When the
sun shoots in through the east window. I always watch
for that first long straight ray. It changes so quickly

(25:52):
that I never can quite believe it. That is why
I watch it always by moonlight. The moon shines in
all night. When there is a moon, I wouldn't know
it was the same paper at night in any kind
of light, in twilight, candle light, lamp light, and worst

(26:13):
of all, by moonlight, it becomes bars. The outside pattern
I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain
as can be. I didn't realize for a long time
what the thing was that showed behind that dim sub pattern,
but now I am quite sure it is a woman

(26:34):
by daylight. She is subdued quiet. I fancy it is
the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling.
It keeps me quiet by the hour. I lie down
ever so much. Now. John says it is good for
me and to sleep all I can. Indeed, he started

(26:55):
the habit by making me lie down for an hour
after each meal. It is a very bad habit, I
am convinced. For you see, I don't sleep, and that
cultivates deceit for I don't tell them I'm awake. Oh No.
The fact is I'm getting a little afraid of John.

(27:16):
He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jinny has an
inexplicable look. It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis,
that perhaps it is the paper. I have watched John
when he did not know I was looking, and come
into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses. And

(27:38):
I've caught him several times looking at the paper and
Jenny too. I caught Jenny with her hand on it
once she didn't know I was in the room, and
when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice,
with a most restrained manner possible, what she was doing

(27:58):
with the paper. She turned around as if she had
been caught stealing, and looked quite angry. Asked me why
I should frighten her so. Then she said that the
paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow
smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she wished
we would be more careful. Did not that sound innocent?

(28:21):
But I know she was studying that pattern, and I
am determined that nobody shall find it out. But myself,
life is so very much more exciting now than it
used to be. You see, I have something more to expect,
to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat
better and am more quiet than I was. John is

(28:42):
so pleased to see me improve. He laughed a little
the other day and said I seemed to be flourishing
in spite of my wallpaper. I turned it off with
a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it
was because of the wall paper. He would make fun
at me. He might even want to take me away.

(29:05):
I don't want to leave now until I have found
it out. There is a week more, and I think
that will be enough. I am feeling ever so much better.
I don't sleep much at night, for it is so
interesting to watch developments, but I sleep a good deal
in the daytime. In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

(29:27):
There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new
shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count
of them, though I have tried conscientiously. It is the
strangest yellow that wall paper. It makes me think of
all the yellow things I ever saw, Not beautiful ones
like buttercups, but old, foul, bad yellow things. But there's

(29:53):
something else about that paper, the smell. I noticed it
the moment we came into the room, but with so
much air and sun, it was not bad. Now we
have had a week of fog and rain, and whether
the windows are open or not, the smell is still here.
It creeps all over the house. I find it hovering

(30:16):
in the dining room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in
the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
It gets into my hair. Even when I go to ride.
If I turn my head suddenly and surprise it, there
is that smell, Such a peculiar odor too. I have

(30:37):
spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what
it smelled like. It is not bad at first, and
very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I
have ever met. In this damp weather, it is awful.
I wake up in the night and find it hanging

(30:58):
over me. It used to disturb me. At first I
thought seriously of burning the house to reach the smell.
But now I'm used to it. The only thing I
can think of is that it is like the color
of the paper, a yellow smell. There's a very funny

(31:19):
mark on this wall, low down near the mop board,
a streak that runs around the room. It goes behind
every piece of furniture except the bed, a long, straight,
even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over.
I wonder how it was done, and who did it,

(31:41):
and what they did it for. Round and round and round,
round and round and round. It makes me dizzy. I
really have discovered something at last, through watching so much
at night when it changes, so, I have finally found
out the front pattern does move, and no wonder the

(32:05):
woman behind shakes it. Sometimes I think there are a
great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she
crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.
Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and
in the very shady spots, she just takes hold of
the bars and shakes them hard. And she's all the

(32:27):
time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through
that pattern. It strangles, so I think that is why
it has so many heads. They get through, and then
the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside down
and makes their eyes white. Those heads recovered or taken off,
it would not be half so bad. I think that

(32:49):
woman gets out in the daytime, and I'll tell you why. Privately.
I've seen her. I can see her out of every
one of the windows. It is the same woman I know,
for she is always creeping, and most women do not
creep by daylight. I see her on that long road
under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes,

(33:12):
she hides under the BlackBerry vines. I don't blame her
a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught
creeping by daylight. I always lock the door when I
creep by daylight. I came to it at night, for
I know John would suspect something at once, and John
is so queer now that I don't want to irritate him.

(33:35):
I wish he would take another room. Besides, I don't
want anybody to get that woman out at night. But myself,
I often wonder if I could see her out of
all the windows at once, but turn as fast as
I can. I can only see out of one at
a time, and though I always see her, she may

(33:57):
be able to creep faster than I can turn. I
have watched her sometimes away off in the open country,
creeping as fast as a cloud shadow and a high wind.
If only that top pattern could be gotten off from
the under one, I mean to try it. Little by little.
I've found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell

(34:19):
it at this time, and does not do to trust
people too much. There are only two more days to
get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning
to notice. I don't like the look in his eyes.
And I heard him ask Jinny a lot of professional
questions about me. She had a very good report to give,

(34:39):
She said, I slept a good deal in the daytime.
John knows I don't sleep very well at night for all,
I'm so quiet. He asked me all sorts of questions too,
and pretended to be very loving and kind, as if
I couldn't see through him. Still, I don't wonder he

(35:01):
acts so sleeping under this paper for three months it
only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jinny
are secretly affected by it. Hurrah. This is the last day,
but it is enough. John is to stay in town
over night and won't be out until this evening. Jinny

(35:23):
wanted to sleep with me, the sly thing, but I
told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night
all alone. That was clever, for I really wasn't alone
a bit. As soon as it was moonlight and that
poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I
got up and ran to help her. I pulled and
she shook. I shook and she pulled, and before morning

(35:46):
we had peeled off yards of the paper, a strip
about as high as my head and half around the room.
And then when the sun came and that awful pattern
began to laugh at me, I declared I would finish
it to day. We go away tomorrow, and they're all
moving all my furniture down again to leave things as
they were before. Jinny looked at the wall in amazement,

(36:10):
but I told her merrily that I did it out
of pure spite at the vicious thing. She laughed and
said she wouldn't mind doing it herself. But I must
not get tired. How she betrayed herself that time. But
I am here, and no person touches this paper but
me not alive. She tried to get me out of

(36:32):
the room. It was too patent, but I said it
was so quiet and empty and clean. Now that I believed,
I would lie down again and sleep all I could,
and not to wake me even for dinner. I would
call when I woke. So now she is gone, and
the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and
there is nothing left but that great bedstead, nailed down

(36:55):
with the canvas mattress we found on it. We shall
sleep downstairs to night and take the boat home tomorrow.
I quite enjoy the room now it is bare again.
How those children did tear about here. This bedstead is
fairly gnawed. But I must get to work. I have

(37:15):
locked the door and thrown the key down to the
front path. I don't want to go out, and I
don't want to have anybody come in till John comes.
I want to astonish him. I've got a rope up
here that even Ginny did not find. If that woman
does get out and tries to get away, I can
tie her. But I forgot I could not reach far

(37:37):
without anything to stand on. This bed will not move.
I tried to lift and push it until I was lame,
and then I got so angry I bit off a
little piece at one corner, but it hurt my teeth.
Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach
standing on the floor. It sticks horribly, and the pattern

(37:58):
just enjoys it. All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes
and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision. I'm getting
angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of
the window would be admirable exercise. But the bars are
too strong even to try. Besides, I wouldn't do it,
of course not. I know well enough that a step

(38:20):
like that is improper and might be misconstrued. I don't
like to even look out of the windows. There are
so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.
I wonder if they all came out of that wallpaper
as I did. But I am securely fastened now by
my well hidden rope. You don't get me out in

(38:42):
the road. There. I suppose I shall have to get
back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that
is hard. It is so pleasant to be out in
this great room and creep around as I please. I
don't want to go outside. I won't even if Jenny
asked me to. For outside, you have to creep on
the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow. But

(39:06):
here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my
shoulder just fits into that long smooch around the wall,
so I cannot lose my way. Why there's John at
the door. It's no use, young man. You can't open it.
How he does call and pound. Now he's crying for

(39:26):
an axe. It would be a shame to break down
that beautiful door. John, dear, said I, in the gentlest voice.
The key is down by the front steps under a
plantain leaf. That's silence tone for a few moments. Then
he said, very quietly, Indeed, open the door, my darling.

(39:48):
I can't, said I. The key is down by the
front door, under a plantain leaf. And then I said
it again several times, very gently and slowly, and said
it so often that he had to go and see.
And he got it, of course, and came in. He
stopped short by the door. What is the matter, he cried,

(40:10):
For God's sake, what are you doing? I kept on
creeping just the same, but I looked at him over
my shoulder. I've got out at last, said I, in
spite of you and Jenny. And I've pulled off most
of the paper, so you can't put me back now.
Why should the man have fainted? But he did, and

(40:31):
right across my path by the wall, so that I
had to creep over him every time. End of The
Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, recorded by Alan Noble, Thomasville, Alabama,

(40:57):
October twentieth two and in SCTs