I Had the story, bit by bit, from various people,
and, as generally happens in such cases, each time
it was a different story.
If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the
post-office. If you know the post-office you
must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the
reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across
the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and
you must have asked who he was.
It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for
the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp.
Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield,
though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not
so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives”
were easily singled out by their lank longitude from
the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless
powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking
each step like the jerk of a chain. There was
something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and
he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for
an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not
more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow,
who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield
in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the
families on his line.
“He’s looked that way ever since he had
his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago
come next February,” Harmon threw out between
reminiscent pauses.
The “smash-up” it was-I gathered from
the same informant-which, besides drawing the red
gash across Ethan Frome’s forehead, had so shortened
and warped his right side that it cost him a visible
effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the
post-office window. He used to drive in from
his farm every day at about noon, and as that was
my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him
in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on
the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating.
I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom
received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle,
which he put without a glance into his sagging pocket.
At intervals, however, the post-master would hand him
an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia-or Mrs. Zeena-Frome,
and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand
corner the address of some manufacturer of patent
medicine and the name of his specific. These
documents my neighbour would also pocket without a
glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their
number and variety, and would then turn away with
a silent nod to the post-master.
Every one in Starkfield knew him and gave him a greeting
tempered to his own grave mien; but his taciturnity
was respected and it was only on rare occasions that
one of the older men of the place detained him for
a word. When this happened he would listen quietly,
his blue eyes on the speaker’s face, and answer
in so low a tone that his words never reached me;
then he would climb stiffly into his buggy, gather
up the reins in his left hand and drive slowly away
in the direction of his farm.
