Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. We need to come
Speaker 1: up with those spooky Simpsons names. You know what they
Speaker 1: do for a Treehouse of Horror every year. We just
Speaker 1: have never done that, but so I guess this year again. Still,
Speaker 1: I'm just Josh Clark, and you're just Charles w Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry the murderous ghoul Roland. No, you're Josh
Speaker 1: Spooky Clark and I'm Chuck. He's right behind you, Bryant. Nice.
Speaker 1: That's good stuff, man, thanks for swooping in there. So
Speaker 1: this is our Halloween Special, which we do every year
Speaker 1: these days for those of you who aren't familiar but
Speaker 1: who like horror fiction prepared to be delighted. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: we do is, uh, we get together at a year
Speaker 1: and we should point out this is one of two
Speaker 1: ad free episodes we do every year, along with the
Speaker 1: Christmas Holiday Spectacular. Uh. And you know we fight for
Speaker 1: this every year because it would really ruin the vibe
Speaker 1: of a good spooky story if we took a commercial break,
Speaker 1: right yep. But it's our gift to your right. So
Speaker 1: what we do is we read it used to be
Speaker 1: one story. Sometimes we've fan sourced stories which was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a whole horror fiction contest, which we will
Speaker 1: never do again. No, it was a lot of work,
Speaker 1: but it yielded some pretty great stuff. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think last year we did the little uh two sentence
Speaker 1: fans submitted things and that was kind of neat. But
Speaker 1: this year we're going old school and just reading too
Speaker 1: straight up horror fiction stories, one of which was written
Speaker 1: expressly for us for this episode by our favorite writer
Speaker 1: Ed Grabowski. Yes, and we have a little a little
Speaker 1: update till last year's story. So Ed wrote us a
Speaker 1: story last year called extrane of Use Invocot, which was
Speaker 1: great and terrifying. It was so terrifying, in fact, chuck
Speaker 1: that over in the UK, a producer of films got
Speaker 1: in touch with Ed and said, hey, mate, um, I
Speaker 1: want to turn that story into a movie. What do
Speaker 1: you say? He said, I'm not your mate, but sure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's happening. That's I mean, how about that? Yeah.
Speaker 1: They set up a website for it called The Between
Speaker 1: dot Film. That's the name of the movie, is The
Speaker 1: Between and Now in the post dot com bubble days,
Speaker 1: you can call your website dot anything. So again it's
Speaker 1: the Between dot Film and it will give you some
Speaker 1: information on the story. There's even a link to last
Speaker 1: year's Halloween episode, so if you want to go listen
Speaker 1: to it, go to that site and find it. And
Speaker 1: they set up a crowdfunding um uh project to help
Speaker 1: fund the project, and if you kick in you can
Speaker 1: get things like obviously the movie when they complete it. Sure,
Speaker 1: you can get signed scripts, even a credit in the movie.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff you can get that they're offering.
Speaker 1: And the movie slated to come out February fourteen, two
Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen as it stands right now. Man, that's great,
Speaker 1: Like that's it's really on track to go. So um
Speaker 1: things are coming up for the Grabster, and he gave
Speaker 1: us another great story that I'm I would be surprised
Speaker 1: if it doesn't get turned into a movie untially as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that producer said, I love the story, but
Speaker 1: that title's gotta go. Yeah, No one knows how to
Speaker 1: say that. We're just gonna call it the Between. Cool title,
Speaker 1: but the Between is definitely a little more marketable, and
Speaker 1: I think in today's modern world than Latin. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: ought to uh, we ought to get a kickback on that. Huh.
Speaker 1: You know I didn't bring it up. I was hoping
Speaker 1: he would, but he, uh, he hasn't so far. No,
Speaker 1: we're happy to be de facto executive producers. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: could also be facto though if they give us, you know,
Speaker 1: credits in the in the film, maybe a special thanks
Speaker 1: at the end. Yeah, playing money like I owe my
Speaker 1: life to these guys. All right, yeah, all right, Well
Speaker 1: you're ready to read his newest one, the Grabster's newest story.
Speaker 1: That's right. It is called Gifts, not g I F
Speaker 1: F S G I F T S. Right. That was
Speaker 1: a good creepy t thank you. So we're gonna start,
Speaker 1: and Jerry, as ever, is going to pull out all
Speaker 1: the stops and add all the bells and whistles to
Speaker 1: scare the Bejesus out of you while we're reading this. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, there's Gifts by the Grabster. I'm here
Speaker 1: about the housekeeping job. I'm Marissa called earlier. I reached
Speaker 1: out to shake the man's hand, but he kept his
Speaker 1: face on the paperwork. He was shuffling, holding out an
Speaker 1: up raised index finger in my direction. I returned my
Speaker 1: hand to my side. Finally, he stacked the papers and
Speaker 1: looked up at me. You'll want to speak to my wife.
Speaker 1: Then she's handling those arrangements. She's gone to the market,
Speaker 1: but should be back any moment. If you'd like to wait,
Speaker 1: There's a sitting room at the top of the stairs.
Speaker 1: He nodded briskly and moved on to some other towns.
Speaker 1: A wide staircase of dark, varnished wood led to an
Speaker 1: upstairs hallway running to my left and right. The ornate
Speaker 1: wallpaper was striped by alternating shafts of shadow and sunlight
Speaker 1: coming through open doors, except at one end of the hall.
Speaker 1: There the doors were closed in the hallway and folded
Speaker 1: in shadow. Directly ahead of me was an open archway
Speaker 1: leading to the sitting room, a sunlit chamber with a fireplace,
Speaker 1: a number of well crafted but time worn leather chairs,
Speaker 1: a row of bookshelves stacked with volumes, and a small
Speaker 1: table set up for a game of chess. A young
Speaker 1: boy roughly six years old was sitting in one of
Speaker 1: the chairs, a large book spread out in his lap.
Speaker 1: He looked up as I entered. Hello, he said, are
Speaker 1: you a guest? No? I told him I've come about
Speaker 1: the housekeeping job. Do you mind a little company I've
Speaker 1: got to wait for your mother. Okay, his smile brighton.
Speaker 1: It'll be good to have someone to help again. Mom
Speaker 1: gets stressed when she has to do it all herself,
Speaker 1: along with the shopping and everything. My name is Robert,
Speaker 1: but everyone calls me Bobby. My name is Marissa. What's
Speaker 1: that you're reading? Bobby? He tilted the book up so
Speaker 1: I could see the title A sign on Rosie's door.
Speaker 1: What's it about a girl who becomes someone else and
Speaker 1: takes her friends on adventures? I had an adventure this week.
Speaker 1: Do you want to see what I found? Without waiting
Speaker 1: for me to answer, he hopped off the chair, setting
Speaker 1: the book down behind him, and ran past me through
Speaker 1: the archway into the hall on his short legs. Don't
Speaker 1: follow him, I turned to follow, seeing him head off
Speaker 1: down the brighter half of the corridor. It's in my room,
Speaker 1: he called out, then disappeared into one of the open doorways.
Speaker 1: By the time I got there, he was crawling underneath
Speaker 1: the bed. It was clearly his room, decorated with racing
Speaker 1: cars and car tune characters. He emerged clutching would appeared
Speaker 1: to be a pillow. I had a dream the other
Speaker 1: night that I was in the dark, and no matter
Speaker 1: where I crawled around, I couldn't get out of the dark.
Speaker 1: It was cool inside wherever I was, but so dark,
Speaker 1: so black, I couldn't see anything. When I woke up,
Speaker 1: I was holding this. He held the pillow out to me.
Speaker 1: It was oddly shaped, more narrow than the usual pillow,
Speaker 1: and it was made of white satin, with a satin
Speaker 1: ruffle around the edge. I took it and held it up,
Speaker 1: humoring the child's tall tail. But I noticed the pillow
Speaker 1: was stained in the center, a yellowish brown mark in
Speaker 1: a rough oval shape. That's when I realized what it was.
Speaker 1: It was a pillow from a burial casket. Bobby, where
Speaker 1: did you get this? I tried to keep from sounding alarmed.
Speaker 1: When I woke from my dream, I was lying on
Speaker 1: top of it, holding it with both arms. He gave
Speaker 1: it to me. I heard footsteps coming down the hall
Speaker 1: behind me and turned to see a small framed woman
Speaker 1: with graying black hair striding towards me. I handed the
Speaker 1: pillow back to Bobby ms leventus. She said yes. I
Speaker 1: stuck out my hand again, this time getting a soft
Speaker 1: handshake in return. Bobby's been showing me around. I looked
Speaker 1: back at the child who sat on the edge of
Speaker 1: his bed smiling, the pillow nowhere to be seen. All right,
Speaker 1: I don't like the sounds of Bobby. Uh No, not
Speaker 1: with this little burial casket stained pillow or his short,
Speaker 1: stubby legs, which is creepy all by itself. I got
Speaker 1: the job, That's great. My husband didn't exactly sound joyful
Speaker 1: at the news. To be honest, neither did I. Working
Speaker 1: at Shipped in Grains Hotel for the summer was a
Speaker 1: necessity and something of a hardship. The hotel was two
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from our home, and I'd only be
Speaker 1: able to afford the train back to visit once or
Speaker 1: twice a week in the four months i'd be working there.
Speaker 1: But times are hard for everyone, and most had it
Speaker 1: harder than us. Still, knowing this meant I'd be apart
Speaker 1: from John for the entire summer tempered my enthusiasm, and
Speaker 1: I could hear in his voice, even over the phone line,
Speaker 1: more relief and weariness than glee. We sure needed. It's
Speaker 1: a nice place, old kind of fussy. Mrs Taggart is nice,
Speaker 1: and the young boy Bobby is I paused about to say,
Speaker 1: he's a bit odd, but it felt like gossiping about
Speaker 1: a child, so I told John. He's very inquisitive, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't what I meant. It's a lot for you
Speaker 1: to do this, John said, that will help in the
Speaker 1: long run. It's hard to be a part though. I
Speaker 1: love you Mayor, I smiled, looking out the window at
Speaker 1: the tidy gardens in front of shipped and Grange, dissolving
Speaker 1: into shadows as twilight set in. I love you too, John.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you got that sappy party. Don't worry about Bobby.
Speaker 1: Mrs Tiggert was walking me through the hotel, showing me
Speaker 1: what my duties would include, in which room I'd be
Speaker 1: staying in on the ground floor near the kitchen. She
Speaker 1: stopped awkwardly, placing a hand at my elbow. His imagination
Speaker 1: is a new usual at times, but he's a kind boy,
Speaker 1: he really is, which was true. I think he never
Speaker 1: showed me the funeral pillow again. And Bobby would often
Speaker 1: appear around a corner at the doorway of a room
Speaker 1: I was cleaning, clutching something odd. He was so eager
Speaker 1: to show me and didn't seem to have other friends,
Speaker 1: so I let him linger around while I worked In truth,
Speaker 1: he was more pleasant company than either of his parents,
Speaker 1: whom I found stiff and formal. They rarely spoke to
Speaker 1: me at all about anything not directly related to my job.
Speaker 1: This was under my hat when I took it off
Speaker 1: this morning, Bobby said. One afternoon, he held out a
Speaker 1: small pile of coins, worn and blackened with age Latin
Speaker 1: writing barely legible on the faces. Those must be terribly valuable.
Speaker 1: I said, Oh, I can't sell them. His face was
Speaker 1: very serious. Mr. Sorrow says their mind to keep children
Speaker 1: have their flights of fancy and imaginary friends, especially child
Speaker 1: free to rome in old the state, like shipped in Grange.
Speaker 1: But when Bobby said that name, I felt something on
Speaker 1: the back of my neck, like a kiss that barely
Speaker 1: grazes the skin. Mr Sorrow. My voice was just a whisper. Yes,
Speaker 1: Bobby Grint, he's very tall. We were in room thirty three,
Speaker 1: which was named the uttermost End, being the last room
Speaker 1: at the end of the longest third floor corridor. The
Speaker 1: light was always bad in that room. The whole section
Speaker 1: of corridor had a dim greenish quality to it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't simply that the light was insufficient, but rather that
Speaker 1: it felt incorrect. The shadows fell at the wrong angles,
Speaker 1: and the sun, when seen reflecting on a window pane
Speaker 1: or crystal decanter, appeared as a dull orange hole board
Speaker 1: into the sky. As we spoke, Bobby's shadow seemed to
Speaker 1: stretch to reach across the room, as if to unfold me.
Speaker 1: He closed a small fist around the coins and ran off.
Speaker 1: The deep, disconcerting shadows remained. I remade the bed covers
Speaker 1: quickly and hurried to leave. No one had stayed in
Speaker 1: the the Most End in the time I've been working
Speaker 1: at Shifting Grange. Maybe it's because they called it the
Speaker 1: uttermost End. It's not the best name for a room.
Speaker 1: They're like, you'll like it. The lighting is incorrect. Even
Speaker 1: Mary and Joseph would have been like, that's okay, we'll
Speaker 1: go out into the manger. You just keep that. I
Speaker 1: don't like the sounds of Mr Sorrow either. By the way,
Speaker 1: I woke up with hands on my throat this morning.
Speaker 1: John said, ice cold. What did someone break in? There
Speaker 1: was no one there. It must have been a nightmare.
Speaker 1: My heart was racing, though, I'd imagine, so check the
Speaker 1: windows around the house before bed tonight, then just to
Speaker 1: humor me, I will. I think I'll sleep like a
Speaker 1: stone tonight. We've fallen behind on orders at the plant,
Speaker 1: and machine four went down again. I'm pulling my hair out.
Speaker 1: John hung up the phone on his end, and I
Speaker 1: listened to the silence on the line for a while,
Speaker 1: the hum and whisper of currents and the echoes of
Speaker 1: a thousand voices. Later that week, I was cleaning the
Speaker 1: main dining room, Bobby playing at the table behind me
Speaker 1: with some wooden army men he'd found in the attic.
Speaker 1: The clatter of his toys had fallen silent, but I
Speaker 1: didn't notice until Missus Tagger walked in. She looked at me,
Speaker 1: then her gaze moved behind me, her eyes widening Bobby.
Speaker 1: She hissed quietly. I turned to see Bobby standing very
Speaker 1: close behind me, clutching in his hand a gleaming steel blade.
Speaker 1: Is that from the kitchen, Mrs Taggart said. Bobby's face
Speaker 1: turned sullen. No. He dropped the knife, climbing to the
Speaker 1: floor and ran from the room. Mrs Taggert collected the blade,
Speaker 1: turning it over in her hands. It appeared to be
Speaker 1: finally made, though it for a dark stain she carried
Speaker 1: it straight out to the trash bins in the rear yard.
Speaker 1: That boy ain't right, you know. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: turning point right there. In midsummer, the weather grew hot
Speaker 1: and close, but shade trees and thick walls kept the
Speaker 1: oldest state quite cool. John and I still spoke on
Speaker 1: the phone every night, and I plan to return home
Speaker 1: for a weekend in just two weeks. It was nearly
Speaker 1: all I could think about at night. I would lie
Speaker 1: in bed, waiting for sleep, trying to slow my breathing,
Speaker 1: taking in the sugar sweet smell from the elder shrubs
Speaker 1: growing all around the open window. I'd often awakened hours later,
Speaker 1: staring into the blind darkness of a strange room in
Speaker 1: a strange town, and feel the weight of loneliness settle
Speaker 1: on my chest like a stone. In those moments, soft
Speaker 1: fingers of shadow would trace my jawline and collar bone
Speaker 1: with the familiarity of a lover, and I spoke to
Speaker 1: voices I could barely hear. One evening, after completing my
Speaker 1: work for the day, I found Bobby rolling a small
Speaker 1: rubber ball slowly up and down the upstairs hallway. Would
Speaker 1: you like to play catch, I said. His face lit
Speaker 1: up with delight, and he took up a position ten
Speaker 1: meters down the hall from me. It's Canadian. We rolled
Speaker 1: and bounced the ball back and forth for some time,
Speaker 1: Bobby letting out the first really genuine laughter I'd heard
Speaker 1: from him. My back was to the long, dim expanse
Speaker 1: of the corridor leading to the uttermost end, but I
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about it until the door to one
Speaker 1: of the other rooms just behind me slowly opened. I
Speaker 1: saw it swing open from the corner of my eye
Speaker 1: Room twenty seven, the Prince's chamber. I watched the gaping
Speaker 1: doorway for a moment. When no one emerged, I called
Speaker 1: out missus Taggart. There was no reply, but Bobby giggled
Speaker 1: behind me and the ball rolled slowly past me, coming
Speaker 1: to a stop in front of Room twenty seven. I
Speaker 1: crept forward to retrieve it. Crouching to pick up the ball.
Speaker 1: As I stooped in front of the empty, darkened room,
Speaker 1: I was engulfed in a frigid chill. I stuffed my
Speaker 1: hands into my pockets and returned to Bobby. With my
Speaker 1: right hand, I tossed the ball. When I pulled my
Speaker 1: left hand from my pocket. I realized I was holding something.
Speaker 1: It was a pair of scissors. The orange plastic candle
Speaker 1: had been melted and blackened by fire. The blades were
Speaker 1: clean and sharp. I've never seen them before. Oh man.
Speaker 1: The next day I was cleaning the dust from beneath
Speaker 1: one of the guest beds. I like how Ed brings
Speaker 1: us along on the cleaning. Oh yeah, just keep us
Speaker 1: up to date. The next day, I was cleaning the
Speaker 1: dust from beneath one of the guest beds, and as
Speaker 1: I reached for the rag i'd set down, something else
Speaker 1: materialized in my hand. I don't mean to say that
Speaker 1: I reached out and grasped an object. I mean that
Speaker 1: my empty hand suddenly and inexplicably had something in it.
Speaker 1: It had a dry, papery feel, and drawing my hand
Speaker 1: out from under the bed, I saw that it was
Speaker 1: an old scrap of newspaper. There was no date on it,
Speaker 1: as the top edge was torn and nothing on it
Speaker 1: seemed to be of any significance. Advertisements for a furniture
Speaker 1: shop in an article about a winter storm. In the
Speaker 1: center of the paper, a hole had been torn through.
Speaker 1: Looking more closely, I could see that it was actually
Speaker 1: a bite mark. Someone had showed through the center of
Speaker 1: a piece of old newspaper. Mr Sorrow is giving gifts
Speaker 1: to you now, Miss Marissa. It was Bobby in the doorway,
Speaker 1: dark circles under his eyes. He stood and watched me
Speaker 1: for an uncomfortably long time. I threw the newspaper away.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I'm getting creeped out here. Just one more
Speaker 1: week until I can see you again. I know, I
Speaker 1: really can't wait. I've got a nice dinner plan and
Speaker 1: we can walk down by the star set like we
Speaker 1: used to. The water is so green this time of year.
Speaker 1: There was the joy that had been missing from John's
Speaker 1: voice earlier in the summer, and I'll confess it made
Speaker 1: my heart swell to hear it. That sounds wonderful. Are
Speaker 1: things getting better at the factory a bit? I'm not
Speaker 1: sleeping well, though, John said. I guess it's just that
Speaker 1: the house feels empty without you here. I'm consistently awakened
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night by the feeling of
Speaker 1: someone lying in the bed beside me. But of course
Speaker 1: there's no one there. Someone will be there soon enough.
Speaker 1: I was trying to be reassuring, but it came out wrong.
Speaker 1: Me I mean, John laughed, of course you uh yeah,
Speaker 1: you better hope it's her, right, John, of course it's you.
Speaker 1: All right, he sounds bully convinced. All right, let me
Speaker 1: bring it home. Mm hmm. I was awakened by a scream.
Speaker 1: Mrs Taggart was wailing, and I ran toward the sound,
Speaker 1: groggy from sleep and stumbling over furniture in the darkness.
Speaker 1: She was in Bobby's room. The bed was empty, and
Speaker 1: she was crouched halfway out the open window. Bobby, she
Speaker 1: cried out into the night. I stood there, halfway through
Speaker 1: the door, stunned. The window opened via a hand crank,
Speaker 1: The handle detached for safety, and the socket was too
Speaker 1: high for Bobby to reach in any case. Mr Taggart
Speaker 1: ran past me down the corridor, and I followed him
Speaker 1: downstairs into the cool night air. Bobby was crumpled on
Speaker 1: the lawn, his right folded under him, his face bloody,
Speaker 1: but he was alive. He'll be all right. Mr Taggart
Speaker 1: called up to his wife, who was still sobbing in
Speaker 1: the window. Call for the doctor. Then Mrs Taggart shrieked,
Speaker 1: glaring at me across the wide lawn. At that moment,
Speaker 1: I noticed something in my hand, the hand crank for
Speaker 1: the window. I stammered and dropped it. I was sound asleep,
Speaker 1: I swear. I ran back into the house for the phone,
Speaker 1: not thinking clearly, not knowing what to do. So I
Speaker 1: rang John. I needed to hear his voice, mayor he
Speaker 1: sounded sleepy. John. Something horrible happened. Bobby fell out the window,
Speaker 1: but I had the crank to open it in my hand.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it got there, but I was asleep, John,
Speaker 1: I was asleep. Calmed down, Love, take a breath and
Speaker 1: explain it again. I don't really under. John's voice was
Speaker 1: cut off by a sharp hitch in his breath, a
Speaker 1: sort of short cough, John, John, are you there? The
Speaker 1: only sound over the phone line was a soft, wet
Speaker 1: whistling repeated in a slow rhythmic pattern. I felt something
Speaker 1: in my hand just then, something warm like my fingers
Speaker 1: were wrapped in hair, heavy weight dangling below on the phone.
Speaker 1: The whistling sound faded to a low gurgle, and I screamed.
Speaker 1: And I screamed while something hot and wet splashed onto
Speaker 1: my legs and ran down my feet. But I refused
Speaker 1: to look down. I refused to see what it was
Speaker 1: in my hand, and the voice on the phone was
Speaker 1: familiar and cold. It was not John, and I just screamed, Wow, boom,
Speaker 1: holy cow. That is how it's done. If you're a
Speaker 1: horror Somewhere in Canada, a microphone was just dropped. Where
Speaker 1: did you go, Grabster? That was good stuff. Oh daddy,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. I think that could would make
Speaker 1: a at the very least of wonderful short film. Agreed. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a tough one to follow. It's going
Speaker 1: to take a literal horror classic to follow that one.
Speaker 1: And we'll get to that right after our eight minute
Speaker 1: commercial break. Hey we're back. Yes, we should set this
Speaker 1: one up a little bit. It's called The Yellow Wallpaper
Speaker 1: by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and it is one of our
Speaker 1: classic old stories that we used to do some of
Speaker 1: these and published first in New England magazine. And this
Speaker 1: is um can only be considered early work of feminist literature.
Speaker 1: And what it really is clearly is a statement on
Speaker 1: the treatment of women at the time. You know, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, clearly, um. And it must have been when
Speaker 1: was it originally published? This is very brave to have
Speaker 1: published this because super brave. The author Charlotte Perkins Perkins
Speaker 1: Gilman is definitely um almost poking fun at the status
Speaker 1: quo between men and women UM at the time by
Speaker 1: by making your character just so fully bought into it
Speaker 1: that she's not even really questioning it at first. While
Speaker 1: she's questioning it, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, she's
Speaker 1: questioning the details, but not the structure that is giving
Speaker 1: rise to the details. Yeah, and she's clearly not too
Speaker 1: shy about making her statement. It's not you don't have
Speaker 1: to read between too many lines, you know. I like
Speaker 1: it to good story. And I believe this one's been
Speaker 1: made into a movie on Netflix if I'm not miss
Speaker 1: Oh really, I'm pretty sure I saw the Yellow Wallpaper
Speaker 1: on Netflix. Yeah, alright, the yellow Wallpaper. Here we go.
Speaker 1: It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John
Speaker 1: and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer, a colonial mansion,
Speaker 1: hereditary estate. I would say, a haunted house, and reach
Speaker 1: the height of romantic felicity. That would be asking too
Speaker 1: much of fate. Still, I will proudly declare that there
Speaker 1: is something queer about it. Else why should it be
Speaker 1: let so cheaply? And why I have stood so long untenanted.
Speaker 1: That's sort of a mouthful, huh, it really is. It's
Speaker 1: a lul for no one rents this place. John laughs
Speaker 1: at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.
Speaker 1: John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience
Speaker 1: and faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs
Speaker 1: openly at any talk of things not to be felt
Speaker 1: and seen and put down in figures. John is a physician,
Speaker 1: and perhaps I would not say it to a living soul,
Speaker 1: of course, but this is dead paper and a great
Speaker 1: relief to my mind. Perhaps that is one reason I
Speaker 1: do not get well faster. You see, he does not
Speaker 1: believe I am sick. And what can one do If
Speaker 1: a physician of high standing and one's own husband assures
Speaker 1: friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter
Speaker 1: with one but temporary nervous depression, a slight hysterical tendency,
Speaker 1: what is one to do. My brother is also a physician,
Speaker 1: and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.
Speaker 1: So I take phosphates or phosph fights, whichever it is,
Speaker 1: and tonics and journeys and air and exercise, and I'm
Speaker 1: absolutely forbidden to work until I am well again. By
Speaker 1: the way she put work in quotation marks, which I
Speaker 1: think was quite policy for the time. Yeah, little cynical,
Speaker 1: for personally I disagree with their ideas. Personally I believe
Speaker 1: that congenial work, with excitement and change would do me good.
Speaker 1: But what is one to do. I did write for
Speaker 1: a while in spite of them, but it does exhaust
Speaker 1: me a good deal having to be so sly about
Speaker 1: it or else be met with heavy opposition. I sometimes
Speaker 1: fancy that, in my condition, if I had less opposition
Speaker 1: and more society and stimulus. But John says, the very
Speaker 1: worst thing I can do is to think about my condition,
Speaker 1: and I confess it always makes me feel bad. So
Speaker 1: I will let it alone and talk about the house,
Speaker 1: the most beautiful place. It is quite alone, standing well
Speaker 1: back from the road, quite three miles from the village.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of English places that you read about.
Speaker 1: For there are hedges and walls and gates that lock,
Speaker 1: and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.
Speaker 1: There is a delicious garden. I never saw such a garden,
Speaker 1: large and shady, full of box bordered paths and line
Speaker 1: with long grape covered arbors with seats under them. There
Speaker 1: were greenhouses too, but they're all broken now. There was
Speaker 1: some legal trouble. I believe something about the airs and
Speaker 1: co airs. Anyhow, the place has been empty for years
Speaker 1: that spoils my ghostliness. I'm afraid, but I don't care.
Speaker 1: There's something strange about the house. I can feel it.
Speaker 1: I even said so to John one moonlit evening, but
Speaker 1: he said what I felt was a draft and shut
Speaker 1: the window. I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I'm
Speaker 1: sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think
Speaker 1: it is due to the nervous condition. But John says
Speaker 1: if I feel so, I shall neglect proper self control.
Speaker 1: So I take pains to control myself before him at least,
Speaker 1: and that makes me very tired. I don't like our
Speaker 1: room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on
Speaker 1: the piazza and had roses all over the window and
Speaker 1: such pretty old fashioned chintz hangings. But John would not
Speaker 1: hear of it. He said there was only one window,
Speaker 1: and not room for two beds. Nice touch, and no
Speaker 1: near room for him if he took another. He is
Speaker 1: very careful and loving and hardly lets me stir without
Speaker 1: special direction. I have a schedule, prescription for each hour
Speaker 1: in the day. He takes all care from me, so
Speaker 1: I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more. He said.
Speaker 1: We came here solely on my account, that I was
Speaker 1: to have perfect rest and all the air I could get.
Speaker 1: Your exercise depends on your strengthen my idea, he said,
Speaker 1: like that, and your food somewhat on your appetite. But
Speaker 1: air you can absorb all the time. So we took
Speaker 1: the nursery at the top of the house. It was
Speaker 1: a big airy room, the whole floor nearly with windows
Speaker 1: that look always and air and sunshine galore. It was
Speaker 1: a nursery first, and then play room and aymnasium, I
Speaker 1: should judge, for the windows are barred for little children,
Speaker 1: and there are rings and things in the walls. The
Speaker 1: paint and paper look as if a boy's school had
Speaker 1: used it. It is stripped off the paper and great
Speaker 1: patches all around the head of my bed, about as
Speaker 1: far as I can reach, and in a great place
Speaker 1: on the other side of the room low down. I
Speaker 1: never saw a worse paper in my life. One of
Speaker 1: those sprawling, flamboyant patterns, committing every artistic sin it is
Speaker 1: dull enough to confuse the eye, and following pronounced enough
Speaker 1: to constantly irritate and provoke study. And when you follow
Speaker 1: the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance, they suddenly
Speaker 1: commit suicide, plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves, and
Speaker 1: unheard of contradictions. The color is repellent, almost revolting, a smoldering,
Speaker 1: unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow turning sunlight. It
Speaker 1: is a dull yet lurid orange, in some places, a
Speaker 1: sickly sulfur tin in others. No wonder the children hated it.
Speaker 1: I should hate it myself if I had to live
Speaker 1: in this room long. There comes John. I must put
Speaker 1: this away. He hates to have me write a word,
Speaker 1: all right, not bad. It sounds to me early on
Speaker 1: like this lady is already a prisoner in this room,
Speaker 1: a prisoner in her life. Maybe even Chuck, you could say,
Speaker 1: I think so, I don't. John strikes me. He's one
Speaker 1: of those doctors. It's like, uh, you know, just breathe
Speaker 1: into this bag for a bit and you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Don't question me, or I'll have you surgically murdered. All right,
Speaker 1: take it away, We've been here two weeks, and I
Speaker 1: haven't felt like writing before since that first day. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing to hinder my writing as much as
Speaker 1: I please, save lack of strength. John is away all
Speaker 1: day and even some nights when his cases are serious.
Speaker 1: I'm glad my case is not serious, but these nervous
Speaker 1: troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much
Speaker 1: I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer,
Speaker 1: and that satisfies it. Of course, it is only nervousness.
Speaker 1: It does weigh on me so not to do my
Speaker 1: duty in any way. I'm meant to be such a
Speaker 1: help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and
Speaker 1: here I am a comparative burden. Already. Nobody would believe
Speaker 1: what an effort it is to do what little I
Speaker 1: am able to dress and entertain and order things. It
Speaker 1: is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby, such
Speaker 1: a dear baby, and yet I cannot be with him.
Speaker 1: It makes me so nervous. I suppose John never was
Speaker 1: nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about
Speaker 1: this wallpaper. At first, he meant to repaper the room.
Speaker 1: But afterwards he said that I was letting it get
Speaker 1: the better of me, and that nothing was worse for
Speaker 1: a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.
Speaker 1: He said that after the wallpaper was changed, it would
Speaker 1: be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and
Speaker 1: then the gate at the head of the stairs and
Speaker 1: so on. You know, this place is doing you good,
Speaker 1: he said. And really, dear, I don't care to renovate
Speaker 1: the house, just for three months rental. Then let us
Speaker 1: go downstairs. I said, there's such pretty rooms there. Then
Speaker 1: he took me in his arms, and he called me
Speaker 1: a blessed little goose, and he said he would go
Speaker 1: down to the cellar if I wished, and have it
Speaker 1: whitewashed into the bargain. But he has right enough about
Speaker 1: the beds and windows and things. It is an airy
Speaker 1: and comfortable room as anyone need wish. And of course
Speaker 1: I would not be so silly as to make him
Speaker 1: uncomfortable just for a whim. I'm really getting quite fond
Speaker 1: of the big room, all about that horrid paper. Out
Speaker 1: of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious
Speaker 1: deep shaded arbors, the riotous old fashioned flowers and bushes
Speaker 1: and gnarly trees. Out of another, I get a lovely
Speaker 1: view of the bay. In a little private wharf belonging
Speaker 1: to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that
Speaker 1: runs down there from the house. I always fancy that
Speaker 1: I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors.
Speaker 1: But John has cautioned me not to give way to
Speaker 1: fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative
Speaker 1: power and habit of story making, a nervous weakness like
Speaker 1: mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies,
Speaker 1: and that I ought to use my will in good
Speaker 1: sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes that if I were only well enough to write
Speaker 1: a little, it would relieve the press of ideas and
Speaker 1: rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when
Speaker 1: I try. It is so discouraging not to have any
Speaker 1: advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well,
Speaker 1: John says we will ask cousin Henry and Julia down
Speaker 1: for a long visit. But he says he would as
Speaker 1: soon put fireworks in my pillow cases to let me
Speaker 1: have those stimulating people about. Now. I wish I would
Speaker 1: get well faster, but I must not think about that.
Speaker 1: This paper looks to me as if it knew what
Speaker 1: a vicious influence it had. There's a recurrent spot where
Speaker 1: the patterned laws like a broken neck, two bulbous eyes
Speaker 1: that stare at you upside down. I get positively angry
Speaker 1: with the impertinence of it, and the everlasting nous. Up
Speaker 1: and down in sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking
Speaker 1: eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breaths
Speaker 1: didn't match, and the eyes go all up and on
Speaker 1: the line, one a little higher than the other. I
Speaker 1: never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before,
Speaker 1: and we all know how much expression they have. I
Speaker 1: used to lie awake as a child and get more
Speaker 1: entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture
Speaker 1: than most children could find in a toy store. I
Speaker 1: remember what kindly wink the knobs of our big old
Speaker 1: bureau used to have. And there was one chair that
Speaker 1: always seemed like a strong friend. He used to feel
Speaker 1: that if any of the other things looked too fierce,
Speaker 1: I could always hop into that chair and be safe.
Speaker 1: The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however,
Speaker 1: for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I
Speaker 1: suppose when this was used as a playroom they had
Speaker 1: to take the nursery things out, And no wonder, I
Speaker 1: never saw such ravages as the children have made here.
Speaker 1: The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots,
Speaker 1: and it sticketh closer than a brother. They must have
Speaker 1: had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the floor is
Speaker 1: scratched and gouged and splintered. The plaster itself is dug
Speaker 1: out here or there. And this great heavy bed, which
Speaker 1: is all we found in the room, looks as if
Speaker 1: it has been through the wars. But I don't mind
Speaker 1: it a bit, only the paper. There comes John's sister.
Speaker 1: Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful
Speaker 1: of me, I must not let her find me writing.
Speaker 1: She's a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no
Speaker 1: better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the
Speaker 1: writing which made me sick. But I can write when
Speaker 1: she is out and see her A long way off
Speaker 1: from these windows. There's one that commands the road, a
Speaker 1: lovely shaded, winding road, and one that just looks off
Speaker 1: over the country, A lovely country too, full of elms
Speaker 1: and velvet meadows. This wallpaper has a kind of sub
Speaker 1: pattern in a different shade, particularly irritating one, for you
Speaker 1: can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then,
Speaker 1: but in the places where it isn't faded, where the
Speaker 1: sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking,
Speaker 1: formless sort of figure that seems to skulk about behind
Speaker 1: that silly and conspicuous front design. There's sister on the stairs.
Speaker 1: Do you ever call uh? You me a blessed little goose? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Every day. I couldn't believe the lady took the words
Speaker 1: right out of my mouth. How does that go over?
Speaker 1: It doesn't go over? Well, I have shin splints from
Speaker 1: all right, So the lady is here she uh we
Speaker 1: now have learned that her sister in law is the
Speaker 1: housekeeper and nanny of her baby. That she doesn't see right,
Speaker 1: and she's in this room going a little nuts? Was
Speaker 1: she well to begin with? Who knows? Well? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that she's saying like I've always
Speaker 1: considered furniture capable of moving and possessing a personality. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you call that nuts, but maybe she
Speaker 1: has an imagination. The groundwork is there, all right. Here
Speaker 1: we go. Well, the fourth of July is over. The
Speaker 1: people are gone, and I am tired out. John did
Speaker 1: put fireworks in my pillow case. I'm just kidding. The
Speaker 1: people are gone and I am tired out. John thought
Speaker 1: it might do me some good to see a little company,
Speaker 1: so we just had Mother and Nelly and the children
Speaker 1: down for a week. Of course, I didn't do a thing.
Speaker 1: Jenny sees to everything now, but it tired me all
Speaker 1: the same. John says, if I don't pick up faster,
Speaker 1: he shall send me over to Weir Mitchell and the Fall.
Speaker 1: But I don't want to go there at all. I
Speaker 1: had a friend who was in his hands once, and
Speaker 1: she says he is just like John and my brother,
Speaker 1: only more so, that is to say, a nineteenth century man. Besides,
Speaker 1: it is such an undertaking to go so far. I
Speaker 1: don't feel as if it was worth while to turn
Speaker 1: my hand over for anything, And I'm getting dreadfully fretful
Speaker 1: and querulous. I cry it nothing and cry most at
Speaker 1: the time. Of course, I don't want John is here
Speaker 1: or anybody else. But when I am alone, and I'm
Speaker 1: alone a good deal. Just now. John is kept in
Speaker 1: town very often by serious cases. And Jenny is good
Speaker 1: and lets me alone when I want her too. So
Speaker 1: I walk a little in the garden or down that
Speaker 1: lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and
Speaker 1: lie down up here. A good deal. I'm getting really
Speaker 1: fond of the room, in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps
Speaker 1: because of the wallpaper, it dwells in my mind. So
Speaker 1: I lie here on this great immovable bed. It is
Speaker 1: nailed down, I believe, and follow that pattern about by
Speaker 1: the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you.
Speaker 1: I start, will say at the bottom, down in the
Speaker 1: corner over there, where it has not been touched, and
Speaker 1: I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow
Speaker 1: that pointless pattern to some sort of conclusion. I know
Speaker 1: a little of the principle of design, and I know
Speaker 1: this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation
Speaker 1: or alternation or repetition or symmetry or anything else that
Speaker 1: I've ever heard of. It is repeated, of course by
Speaker 1: the breadths, but not otherwise looked at. In one way,
Speaker 1: each breath stands alone. The bloated curves and wishes kind
Speaker 1: of debased Romanesque with delirium. Tremens go waddling up and
Speaker 1: down in isolated columns of fatuity. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in
Speaker 1: great slanting ways of optic horror, like a lot of
Speaker 1: wallowing seaweeds in full chase. The whole thing goes horizontally too,
Speaker 1: at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in
Speaker 1: trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.
Speaker 1: They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and
Speaker 1: that adds wonderfully to the confusion. There is one end
Speaker 1: of the room where it is almost intact, and there,
Speaker 1: when the cross lights fade and the low sun shines
Speaker 1: directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation. After all,
Speaker 1: the interminable grotesque seemed to form around a common center
Speaker 1: and rush off and headlong plunges of equal distraction. It
Speaker 1: makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know why I should write this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't feel able, and I
Speaker 1: know John would think it's absurd, But I must say
Speaker 1: what I feel and think in some way. It is
Speaker 1: such a relief, But the effort is getting to be
Speaker 1: greater than the relief half the time. Now I am
Speaker 1: awfully lazy and lie down ever so much. John says
Speaker 1: I mustn't lose my strength, and has me take cod,
Speaker 1: liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say
Speaker 1: nothing of ale and wine and rare meat. Dear John,
Speaker 1: he loves me very dearly and hates to have me sick.
Speaker 1: I tried to have a real, earnest, reasonable talk with
Speaker 1: him the other day and tell him how I wish
Speaker 1: you would let me go and make a visit to
Speaker 1: cousin Henry and Julia. But he said I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to go, nor able to stand it after I got there.
Speaker 1: And I did not make out a very good case
Speaker 1: for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.
Speaker 1: Is getting to be a great effort for me to
Speaker 1: think straight, just this nervous weakness, I suppose, And dear
Speaker 1: John gathered me up in his arms and just carried
Speaker 1: me upstairs and laid me on the bed and sat
Speaker 1: by me and read to me till get tired. My
Speaker 1: poor little goose head sorry. I feel terrible for this lady.
Speaker 1: I do, and it just really is suffering from like
Speaker 1: massive depression, yeah for sure. And and on top of that,
Speaker 1: she's being locked in her room that's driving her nuts
Speaker 1: by her husband. Yeah, I think that's the problem here.
Speaker 1: He said I was his darling and his comfort and
Speaker 1: all he had, and that I must take care of
Speaker 1: myself for his sake and keep well. He says, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's all about John, right right, get better for me.
Speaker 1: Why can't you just get better? He says, No one
Speaker 1: but myself can help me out of it. That I
Speaker 1: must use my will and self control and not let
Speaker 1: any silly fancies run away with me. There's one comfort.
Speaker 1: The baby is well and happy and does not have
Speaker 1: to occupy this nursery with that horrid wall paper. If
Speaker 1: we had not used it, that blessed child would have
Speaker 1: What a fortunate escape. Why I wouldn't have a child
Speaker 1: of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a
Speaker 1: room for worlds. I never thought of it before, But
Speaker 1: it is lucky that John kept me here. After all.
Speaker 1: I can stand it so much easier than a baby,
Speaker 1: you see. Of course I never mentioned it to them anymore.
Speaker 1: I am too wise, but I keep watching it all
Speaker 1: the same. There are things in that paper that nobody
Speaker 1: knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern,
Speaker 1: the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always
Speaker 1: the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like
Speaker 1: a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern.
Speaker 1: I don't like it a bit, I wonder. I begin
Speaker 1: to think. I wish John would take me away from here.
Speaker 1: It is so hard to talk to John about my case,
Speaker 1: because he is so wise, because he loves me so
Speaker 1: But I tried. Last night, it was moonlight. The moon
Speaker 1: shines in all around, just as the sun does. I
Speaker 1: hate to see it. Sometimes it creeps so slowly and
Speaker 1: always comes in by one window or another. John was asleep,
Speaker 1: and I hated to waken him, so I kept still
Speaker 1: and watched the moonlight on that undulating wallpaper until I
Speaker 1: felt creepy. The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern,
Speaker 1: just as if she wanted to get out. I got
Speaker 1: up softly and went to feel and see if the
Speaker 1: paper did move. When I came back, John was awake.
Speaker 1: What is it, little girl? He said, don't go walking
Speaker 1: about like that, you'll get cold. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a good time to talk, so I told him that
Speaker 1: I was really not gaining here, and that I wished
Speaker 1: he would take me away. Why, darling, said he, or
Speaker 1: at least will be up in three weeks, and I
Speaker 1: can't see how to leave before the repairs are not
Speaker 1: done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you were in any danger, I could
Speaker 1: and would. But you really are better, dear, whether you
Speaker 1: can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear,
Speaker 1: and I know you are gaining flesh and color. Your
Speaker 1: appetite is better. I feel really much easier about you.
Speaker 1: I don't weigh a bit more, or said I, nor
Speaker 1: as much, and my appetite maybe better in the evening
Speaker 1: when you are here, but it is worse in the
Speaker 1: morning when you were away. Bless her little heart, said he,
Speaker 1: with a big hug. She shall be as sick as
Speaker 1: she pleases. But now let's improve the shining hours by
Speaker 1: going to sleep and talk about it in the morning.
Speaker 1: And you won't go away, I asked gloomily, How can I, dear?
Speaker 1: It is only three weeks more, and then we will
Speaker 1: take a nice little trip of a few days. While
Speaker 1: Jeanie is getting the house ready. Really, dear, you are
Speaker 1: better better in body? Perhaps I began and then stop short,
Speaker 1: Or he sat up straight and looked at me with
Speaker 1: such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say
Speaker 1: another word. My darling, I beg of you, for my
Speaker 1: sake and for our child's sake, as well as of
Speaker 1: your own, that you will never, for one instant let
Speaker 1: that idea enter your mind. There is nothing so dangerous,
Speaker 1: so fascinating to a temperament like yours. It is a
Speaker 1: false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as
Speaker 1: a physician when I tell you so? So? Of course
Speaker 1: I said no more on that score, and we went
Speaker 1: to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't, and lay there for hours trying to
Speaker 1: decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really
Speaker 1: did move together or separately. On a pattern like this
Speaker 1: by daylight, there's a lack of sequence, defines of law
Speaker 1: that is constant irritant to a normal mind. Color is
Speaker 1: hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the
Speaker 1: pattern is torturing. You think you have mastered it, but
Speaker 1: just as you get well underway and following it turns
Speaker 1: back a somersault, and there you are. It slaps you
Speaker 1: in the face, knocks you down, and tramples you. It
Speaker 1: is like a bad dream. The outside pattern is a
Speaker 1: florid arabesque reminding one of a fungus. If you can
Speaker 1: imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools,
Speaker 1: budding and sprouting and endless convolutions, why that is something
Speaker 1: like it? That is, sometimes there's one marked peculiarity about
Speaker 1: this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself,
Speaker 1: and that is that it changes as the light changes
Speaker 1: when the sun shoots in through the east window. I
Speaker 1: always watched for that first long straight ray. It changes
Speaker 1: so quickly that I never can quite believe it. That
Speaker 1: is why I always watch it by moonlight. The moon
Speaker 1: shines in all night. When there is a moon, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know it was the same paper at night in
Speaker 1: any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst
Speaker 1: of all, by moonlight, it becomes bars. The outside pattern
Speaker 1: I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain
Speaker 1: as can be. I didn't realize for a long time
Speaker 1: what the thing was that showed behind that dim sub pattern.
Speaker 1: But now I am quite sure it is a woman.
Speaker 1: By daylight, she is subdued quiet. I fancy it is
Speaker 1: the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling.
Speaker 1: It keeps me quiet by the hour. I lie down
Speaker 1: ever so much. Now John says it is good for
Speaker 1: me and to sleep all I can. Indeed, he started
Speaker 1: the habit by making me lie down for an hour
Speaker 1: after each meal. It's a very bad habit, I am convinced.
Speaker 1: For you see, I don't sleep, and that cultivates deceit
Speaker 1: for I don't tell them I'm awake. Oh No. The
Speaker 1: fact is I'm getting a little afraid of John. It
Speaker 1: seems very queer sometimes, and even Jenny has an inexplicable look.
Speaker 1: It strikes me occasionally just as a scientific hypothesis, but
Speaker 1: perhaps it is the paper. All right, un she's coming
Speaker 1: to her senses, right. I don't know if you would
Speaker 1: call that a scientific hypothesis, but yeah, she seems to
Speaker 1: be like, oh I mean about John, right, yeah, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: agreed this quote position unquote mm hmm, all right. I've
Speaker 1: watched John when he did not know I was looking,
Speaker 1: and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses,
Speaker 1: and I've called him several times looking at the paper
Speaker 1: and Jenny too. I caught Jenny with her hand on
Speaker 1: it once. She didn't know I was in the room,
Speaker 1: and when I asked her, in a quiet, very quiet voice,
Speaker 1: with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing
Speaker 1: with the paper, she turned around as if she had
Speaker 1: been caught stealing, and looked quite angry and asked me
Speaker 1: why I should frighten her. So then she said that
Speaker 1: the paper stained everything it touched, and she had found
Speaker 1: yellow smooches on all my clothes and John's, and she
Speaker 1: wished we would be more careful. Did not that sound innocent?
Speaker 1: But I know she was studying that pattern, and I
Speaker 1: am determined that nobody shall find it out. But myself,
Speaker 1: life is very much more exciting now than it used
Speaker 1: to be. You see, I have something more to expect,
Speaker 1: to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat
Speaker 1: better and more quiet than I was. John is so
Speaker 1: pleased to see me improved. He laughed a little the
Speaker 1: other day and said I seemed to be flourishing in
Speaker 1: spite of my wallpaper. I turned it off with a laugh.
Speaker 1: I had no intention of telling him it was because
Speaker 1: of the wallpaper. He would make fun of me. He
Speaker 1: might even want to take me away. I don't want
Speaker 1: to leave now until I have found it out. There
Speaker 1: is a week more, and I think that will be enough.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling ever so much better. I don't sleep much
Speaker 1: at night, for it is so interesting to watch the developments,
Speaker 1: but I sleep a good deal in the daytime. In
Speaker 1: the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing. There are always
Speaker 1: new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow
Speaker 1: all over it. I cannot keep counting them, though I
Speaker 1: have tried conscientiously. It is the strangest yellow that wallpaper.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of all the yellow things I
Speaker 1: ever saw, Not the beautiful ones like buttercups, but old, foul,
Speaker 1: bad yellow things. There's something else about that paper, the smell.
Speaker 1: I noticed it the moment we came in the room,
Speaker 1: but with so much air and sun it was not bad.
Speaker 1: Now we have had a week of fog and rain,
Speaker 1: and whether the windows are open or not, the smell
Speaker 1: is here. It creeps all over the house, find it
Speaker 1: hovering in the dining room, skulking in the parlor, hiding
Speaker 1: in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.
Speaker 1: It gets into my hair, even when I go to
Speaker 1: ride by, turning my head suddenly in surprise. It there
Speaker 1: is that smell, Such a peculiar odor too. I spend
Speaker 1: hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it
Speaker 1: smelled like. It is not bad at first, and very gentle,
Speaker 1: but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.
Speaker 1: In this damp weather, it is awful. I wake up
Speaker 1: in the night and find it hanging over me. It
Speaker 1: used to disturb me. At first I thought seriously of
Speaker 1: burning the house to reach the smell, but now I
Speaker 1: am used to it. The only thing I can think
Speaker 1: of that it is like is the color of the paper,
Speaker 1: a yellow smell. There's a very funny mark on the
Speaker 1: wall low down near the mopboard, a streak that runs
Speaker 1: round the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture
Speaker 1: except the bed, A long, straight, even smooch. What are
Speaker 1: these smooches? I think she means like smear, smudge, Okay, smudge,
Speaker 1: I think the old timey smudge. I'm gonna bring that back.
Speaker 1: It goes behind every piece of furniture except the bed,
Speaker 1: A long, straight, even smooch. As if it had been
Speaker 1: rubbed over and over. I wonder how it was done
Speaker 1: and who did it, and what they did it for.
Speaker 1: Round and round and round, round and round and round.
Speaker 1: It makes me dizzy. I really have discovered something at last,
Speaker 1: through watching so much at night when it changes, so
Speaker 1: I have finally found out the front pattern does move,
Speaker 1: and no wonder the woman behind shakes it. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: I think there are a great many women behind, and
Speaker 1: sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her
Speaker 1: crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright
Speaker 1: spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots
Speaker 1: she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard,
Speaker 1: and she's all the time haring to climb through. But
Speaker 1: nobody could climb through that pattern. It strangles, So I
Speaker 1: think that is why it has so many heads. They
Speaker 1: get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and
Speaker 1: turns them upside down and makes their eyes white. If
Speaker 1: those heads were covered or taken off, it would not
Speaker 1: be half so bad. I think that woman gets out
Speaker 1: in the daytime, and I'll tell you why. Privately. I've
Speaker 1: seen her. I can see her out of every one
Speaker 1: of my windows, and it's the same woman I know,
Speaker 1: for she is always creeping, and most women do not
Speaker 1: creep by daylight. That is very true, except little gooses.
Speaker 1: I see her on that long road under the tree,
Speaker 1: creeping along. When a carriage comes, she hides under the
Speaker 1: BlackBerry vines. I don't blame her a bit. It must
Speaker 1: be very humiliating to be out creeping by daylight. I
Speaker 1: always locked the door when I creep by daylight. I
Speaker 1: can't do it at night, for I know John will
Speaker 1: suspect something at once. And John is so queer now
Speaker 1: that I don't want to irritate him. I wish he
Speaker 1: would take another room. Besides, I don't want anybody to
Speaker 1: get that woman out at night. But myself often wonder
Speaker 1: if I could see her out of all the windows
Speaker 1: at once, but turn as fast as I can. I
Speaker 1: can only see out of one at a time, And
Speaker 1: though I always see her, she may be able to
Speaker 1: creep faster than I can turn. I watched her sometimes
Speaker 1: away off in the open country, creeping as fast as
Speaker 1: a cloud shadow in a high wind. If only that
Speaker 1: top pattern could be gotten off from the under one,
Speaker 1: I mean to try it a little. By little, I
Speaker 1: found out another funny thing, but I shan't tell it
Speaker 1: this time. Does not do to trust people so much.
Speaker 1: There are only two more days to get this paper off,
Speaker 1: and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don't
Speaker 1: like the look in his eyes. And I heard him
Speaker 1: ask Jenny a lot of professional questions about me. She
Speaker 1: had a very good report to give. She said, I
Speaker 1: slept a good deal in the daytime. John knows I
Speaker 1: don't sleep very well at night, for all, I'm so quiet.
Speaker 1: He asked me all sorts of questions too, and pretended
Speaker 1: to be very loving and kind, as if I couldn't
Speaker 1: see through him. Still, I don't wonder he x o
Speaker 1: sleeping under this paper for three months. It only interests me,
Speaker 1: but I feel sure John and Jenny are secretly affected
Speaker 1: by it. All right, take his home, brother taken at home.
Speaker 1: Come on, poor lady, let's go hurrah. This is the
Speaker 1: last day. But it is enough John to stay in
Speaker 1: town overnight and won't be out until this evening. Jenny
Speaker 1: wanted to sleep with me the sly thing, but I
Speaker 1: told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night
Speaker 1: all alone. That was clever, for really, I wasn't alone
Speaker 1: a bit as soon as it was moonlight, and that
Speaker 1: poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern. I
Speaker 1: got up and ran to help her. I pulled and
Speaker 1: she shook. I shook and she pulled, And before morning
Speaker 1: we had peeled off yards of that paper, a strip
Speaker 1: about as high as my head and half around the room.
Speaker 1: And then when the sun came, that awful pattern began
Speaker 1: to laugh at me. I declared I would finish it
Speaker 1: to day. We go away tomorrow, and they are moving
Speaker 1: all of my furniture down again, to leave things as
Speaker 1: they were before. Jenny looked at the wall in amazement,
Speaker 1: but I told her merrily that I did it out
Speaker 1: of pure fite at the vicious thing. She laughed and
Speaker 1: said she wouldn't mind doing it herself, but I must
Speaker 1: not get tired. How she betrayed herself that time. But
Speaker 1: I am here, and no person touches the paper but
Speaker 1: me not alive. She tried to get me out of
Speaker 1: the room, it was too patent, but I said it
Speaker 1: was so quiet and empty and clean now that I
Speaker 1: believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could,
Speaker 1: and not to wake me even for dinner. I would
Speaker 1: call when I woke. So now she is gone and
Speaker 1: the servants are gone and the things are gone, and
Speaker 1: there is nothing left with that great bedstead nailed down
Speaker 1: with the canvas mattress we found on it. We shall
Speaker 1: sleep downstairs tonight and take the boat home tomorrow. I
Speaker 1: quite enjoy the room now, but it is bare again.
Speaker 1: How those children did tear about here? The bedstet is
Speaker 1: fairly gnawed. But I must get to work. I have
Speaker 1: locked the door and thrown the key down into the
Speaker 1: front path. I don't want to go out, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to have anybody come in until John comes.
Speaker 1: I wanted to astonish him. I've got a rope up here,
Speaker 1: and that even Jenny did not find. If that woman
Speaker 1: does get out and tries to get away, I can
Speaker 1: tie her. But I forgot. I could not reach far
Speaker 1: without anything to stand on. This bed will not move.
Speaker 1: I tried to lift it and push it until I
Speaker 1: was lame, and then I got so angry. I bit
Speaker 1: off a little piece at one corner, but it hurt
Speaker 1: my teeth. Then I peeled off all the paper I
Speaker 1: could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly, and
Speaker 1: the pattern just enjoys it. All those strangled heads and
Speaker 1: bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths to shriek with derision.
Speaker 1: I'm getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump
Speaker 1: out the window would be an admirable exercise, but the
Speaker 1: bars are too strong to even try. Besides, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: do it, of course, not. I know well enough that
Speaker 1: a step like that is improper. It might be misconstrued.
Speaker 1: I don't like to look out the windows even There
Speaker 1: are so many of those creeping women, and they creep
Speaker 1: so fast. I wonder if they all come out of
Speaker 1: that wallpaper as I did. But I am securely fastened
Speaker 1: now by my well hidden rope. You don't get me
Speaker 1: out into the road there. I suppose I shall have
Speaker 1: to get back behind the pattern when it comes at night,
Speaker 1: and that is hard. It is so pleasant to be
Speaker 1: out in this great room and creep around as I please.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go outside. I won't even if
Speaker 1: Jenny asks me to. For outside, you have to creep
Speaker 1: on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.
Speaker 1: But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and
Speaker 1: my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall,
Speaker 1: so I cannot lose my way. Why there's John at
Speaker 1: the door. It is no use, young man. You can't
Speaker 1: open it. How he does call and pound. Now he's
Speaker 1: crying for an axe. It would be ashamed to break
Speaker 1: down that beautiful door, John dear, said I, in the
Speaker 1: gentlest voice. The key is down by the front steps
Speaker 1: under a plantain leaf. That silenced him for a few moments.
Speaker 1: Then he said, very quietly, indeed, opened the door, my darling,
Speaker 1: I can't, said I. The key is down by the
Speaker 1: front door, under a plantain leaf. And then I said
Speaker 1: it again several times, very gently and slowly, and said
Speaker 1: it so often that he had to go and see.
Speaker 1: And he got it, of course, and he came in.
Speaker 1: He stopped short by the door. What is the matter,
Speaker 1: he cried, for God's sake, what are you doing? I
Speaker 1: kept on creeping just the same, But I looked at
Speaker 1: him over my shoulder. I've got out at last, said I,
Speaker 1: in spite of you and Jane. And I've pulled off
Speaker 1: most of the paper, so you can't put me back. Now.
Speaker 1: Why should that man have fainted? But he did, and
Speaker 1: right across my path by the wall, so that I
Speaker 1: had to creep over him every time. Alrighty, that was
Speaker 1: a good story. Creeping she she became part of the wallpaper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love how um Madam Perkins Uh to switch
Speaker 1: suddenly where your brains like, wait, what happened? And then
Speaker 1: it starts to sink in. It's great stuff. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: creepy uh and quite a feminist statement. Like I said,
Speaker 1: you don't have to read between any lines on that one.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, being held behind bars Yeah yeah. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: happy Halloween everybody, Thanks for joining us. We hope you
Speaker 1: liked this one. Yeah, and this one uh is released
Speaker 1: right on Halloween, which is always nice. It is perfect,
Speaker 1: as they say, so until the next episode. If you
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at Josh m Clark and at s y
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
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Speaker 1: You can send us a spooky email to Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined
Speaker 1: us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should
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