![[Illustration]](https://oldbook.b-cdn.net/kitaplar/1/pg1952-h/images/cover.jpg)
The Yellow Wallpaper
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secureancestral halls for the summer.
A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reachthe height of romantic felicity—but that would be asking too much offate!
Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.
Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?
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 intensehorror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to befelt and seen and put down in figures.
John is a physician, and perhaps—(I would not say it to a livingsoul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to mymind)—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 own husband, assures friendsand relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporarynervous 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 samething.
So I take phosphates or phosphites—whichever it is, and tonics, andjourneys, 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 dome good.
But what is one to do?
I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a gooddeal—having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.
I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and moresociety and stimulus—but John says the very worst thing I can do is tothink 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 thatyou read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots ofseparate little houses for the gardeners and people.
There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden—large andshady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arborswith seats under them.
There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.
There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs andco-heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.
That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid; but I don’t care—there issomething strange about the house—I can feel it.
I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was adraught, and shut the window.
I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to beso 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 take painsto control myself,—before him, at least,—and that makes me verytired.
I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on thepiazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty old-fashioned chintzhangings! but John would not hear of it.
He