Diary Entry 2

Kai is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious. I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. Kai does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no REASON to suffer, and that satisfies him. Of course it is only nervousness or manic depression. It does weigh on me not to do my duty in any way. I am meant to be such a help to Kai, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already! Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able to. It is fortunate Parsley is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby! And yet I CANNOT be with him, it makes me so nervous. I suppose Kai never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me about the wallpaper! At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies. He said that after the wallpaper was changed it would be the iron bed stand and then the barred windows, and then the gate at the head of the stairs, and so on. "You know the place is doing you good," he said, "and really, I don't care to renovate the house just for a three months." "Then let me go downstairs," I said, "there are such pretty rooms in here." Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little curse, and said he would go down to the cellar, if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain. But he is right enough about the beds and windows and all that stuff. It is an airy and comfortable room as any one would wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a silly disorder that he tells me I have. I'm really getting quite fond of the big room, all but the ghastly wallpaper. 

Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep shaded arbores, the riotous old-fashioned flowers and gnarly trees. Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always like to see people walking in these numerous paths and arbores, but Kai has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the past. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story making, a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of emotions and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try. I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me. But I find I get pretty tired when I try. It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well, Kai says we will ask Cousins Georgia and Jill down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fireworks in my pillowcase as to let me have those stimulating people about now. I wish I could get well faster. But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it KNEW what a vicious influence it had over me, here is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside down. I get positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. 

There is one place where the eyes didn't match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other. I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy store. I remember what kind eyes our old grandfather clock used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend. I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe. The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here. The wallpaper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticks closer than a brother they must have had perseverance as well as hatred. Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through some tough years. But I don't mind it a bit only the f*****g wallpaper. Sorry, it really is starting to grate on my nerves. There comes Kai's darling sister, Isabelle. Such a dear girl and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing. She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick! But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows. 

There is one that commands the road, a lovely shaded winding road, and one that just looks off over the mountains. A lovely view, too, full of great elms and peaks. This wallpaper has a kind of sub pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly either. But in the places where it isn't faded and where the sun is just so I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to skulk about behind the silly and conspicuous front design. There's Isabelle on the stairs! Well, the Fourth of July is over! The people are gone and I am tired out. Kai thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Neve and the children come over for a week. Of course I didn't do a thing. Isabelle sees to everything now. But it tired me all the same. Kai says if I don't pick up faster he shall send me to Wormward Asylum in the fall. But I don't want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in there, they dyed her hair a manner of strange colours. Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far. I don't feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and I'm getting dreadfully fretful and querulous. I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time. Of course I don't when Kai is around or anybody else, but when I am alone, I cry. And I am alone a good deal of the time. Kai is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Isabelle is good and leaves me alone when I want her to. So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal. I'm getting really fond of the room in spite of the f*****g wallpaper. Perhaps BECAUSE of the wallpaper. It dwells in my mind so much! I lie here on this great immovable bed, it is nailed down, I believe and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we'll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I WILL follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.