Ethan Frome

by Edith Wharton

it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.

"That man touch a hundred? He looks as if he was dead and in hell now!"

'bout as bare's a milkpan when the cat's been round;

The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires. The moon had set, but the night was so transparent that the white house–fronts between the elms looked gray against the snow, clumps of bushes made black stains on it, and the basement windows of the church sent shafts of yellow light far across the endless undulations.

"We never got away—how should you?" seemed to be written on every headstone;

He used to think that fifty years sounded like a long time to live together, but now it seemed to him that they might pass in a flash.

Tears rose in his throat and slowly burned their way to his lids.

Slowly the rim of the rainy vapours caught fire and burnt away, and a pure moon swung into the blue.

But Mrs. Hale had said, "You've had an awful mean time, Ethan Frome," and he felt less alone with his misery.

I don't see's there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard; 'cept that down there they're all quiet, and the women have got to hold their tongues."