A Blessed Little Goose — The Yellow Wallpaper

Two weeks have passed. She sits in the atrocious nursery and can write only when strength allows. John is away all day, and some nights when his cases are serious. She is glad her case is not serious, and the nervous troubles still weigh on her. He does not know how much she suffers. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him. She meant to be a help and a comfort. She is already a burden. Dressing, entertaining, and ordering things take an effort nobody would believe. Mary is good with the baby. She cannot be with him. It makes her so nervous.

John laughs at her about the wallpaper. At first he meant to repaper the room. Then he said she was letting it get the better of her, and nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to fancies. After the paper it would be the heavy bedstead, then the barred windows, then the gate at the head of the stairs. The place is doing her good, he says, and he will not renovate a three months' rental. She asks to go downstairs, where the rooms are pretty.

He takes her in his arms and calls her a blessed little goose. He would go down cellar and have it whitewashed into the bargain. She decides he is right about the beds and windows. She will not make him uncomfortable just for a whim. She is getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.