A Yellow Smell — The Yellow Wallpaper

She is getting a little afraid of John. He seems queer. Jennie has an inexplicable look. Perhaps, as a scientific hypothesis, it is the paper. She watches John when he does not know she is looking and catches him at the wall. She catches Jennie with a hand on it once. Jennie startles, then says the paper stains everything, yellow smooches on the clothes, and they should be more careful. The narrator is sure Jennie was studying the pattern. Nobody else shall find it out.

Life is more exciting. She eats better and is quieter. John is pleased and says she flourishes in spite of the wallpaper. She will not tell him it is because of the wallpaper. He might make fun of her, or take her away before she has found it out. A week remains. She watches at night and sleeps a good deal by day, when the fungus grows new shoots and new shades of foul yellow.

Then the smell. It was faint in sun. A week of fog brings it through dining-room, parlor, hall, and stairs, into her hair, even onto a ride if she turns her head. She thought of burning the house to reach it. Now she is used to it. A yellow smell. Low near the mopboard a long even smooch runs behind every piece of furniture except the bed, as if rubbed over and over. Round and round. It makes her dizzy.