After the Fourth of July — The Yellow Wallpaper

The Fourth of July is over. Mother, Nellie, and the children have gone. She did not do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now. The week tired her all the same. John says if she does not pick up faster he shall send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall. She does not want to go. A friend who was in Mitchell's hands says he is just like John and her brother, only more so. The journey itself feels like too much. She does not feel it is worth while to turn her hand over. She is fretful. She cries at nothing, and cries most of the time, though not when John or anybody else is there.

She is alone a good deal. John is kept in town by serious cases. Jennie lets her alone when she wants it. She walks a little in the garden or down the lane, sits under the roses, and lies down upstairs a good deal. She is getting fond of the room in spite of the wallpaper. Perhaps because of the wallpaper. It dwells in her mind. She lies on the great immovable bed, nailed down she believes, and follows the pattern by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics. She starts at an untouched corner and determines, for the thousandth time, to follow that pointless pattern to a conclusion.

She knows a little design. This thing was not arranged on radiation, alternation, repetition, or symmetry. The bloated curves waddle in isolated columns. They also connect diagonally in slanting waves of optic horror. A horizontal breadth used as a frieze adds to the confusion. At one end, when the low sun hits, the grotesques almost form around a common centre and rush off again. It makes her tired to follow it. She will take a nap.