wharton journey summary

Summaries, Analysis & Lists

“A Journey” Summary by Edith Wharton

“A Journey” is a short story by Edith Wharton about a married couple who are returning to New York by train after being away for the husband’s health. Here’s a summary of “A Journey”.

“A Journey” Summary

A woman lies in her train car. She can see her husband in his across the aisle through a gap in the curtain. There’s distance and irritation between them now. His voice is weak; she wonders if she’d hear him if he called. A year ago, when he’d been healthy, they were in step with each other. Now, she’s too energetic for him, and feels confined.

They gave up their nice house and moved to Colorado for his health. He got worse. He’s not the same man anymore—she has to be the protector now and tend to him. She resents his condition, with only occasional moments of pity.

She was happy when the doctors said to return home, even though they know this means he won’t last long. They act like there’s still hope.

She was worried something would interfere with returning home, but it went as planned. She never really liked anyone she met in Colorado.

A Journey Edith Wharton Summary Synopsis Plot

He got some amusement looking out the window the first day but worsened on the second and slept badly. On the third day he’s worse and irritated. Some people offer help, but there’s nothing to do.

She sits with him a while before bed. She tries to look forward to being back home in less than twenty-four hours. She hopes they won’t pretend too much that he’s looking well.

She worries whether he might be calling to her. She wants to check on him but doesn’t want to risk disturbing him either. She eventually clams her mind and sleeps.

She wakes at seven in the morning and feels hopeful. They’ll be home in ten hours. She goes to her husband’s berth to get him his milk. His hand is cold, and she soon realizes he’s dead. She realizes they’ll be put off the train if anyone finds out—she witnessed such a scene once. She can’t deal with being left alone on the platform with her husband’s body.

She keeps the curtain closed when the porter comes. Eventually everyone is up and the porter comes by again to make up the berth. She says he needs his milk first, so it’s brought when they leave the current station. She drinks it herself and persuades the porter to let her husband sleep.

A motherly woman sits by her, offers to take a look and gives some advice but she fends her off. The wife feels the passengers looking at her and the closed curtain. A fat man in black sits across from her and explains sickness is a delusion and one must open up to the spirit. He has a pamphlet.

“A Journey” Summary, Cont’d

She hears a conversation about the best way to take medicine. She’s in a fog, but manages to answer the porter’s questions and fend off the motherly lady.

She anticipates what will happen when they reach New York. His body will be very cold and they might know he’s been dead since morning. There will be lots of questions. She sets it in her mind that she must pretend she doesn’t know and scream when the curtain is opened.

She repeats to herself that she doesn’t know, but the words lose their meaning. She becomes fixated on the pattern in the curtain and then has a vision of her husband’s face. It follows her as she turns away and she’s startled. It feels like a lot of time has passed but everyone seems the same.

Remembering she hasn’t eaten, she has a dry biscuit from her bag and some brandy from her husband’s flask. She feels more relaxed and falls asleep.

She dreams of being swept into darkness and imagines herself lying dead next to her husband. She wakes in terror.

It’s getting dark out and there’s lots of activity as the passengers gather their things. The train enters the Harlem tunnel; they’ll be home in a few minutes. Her family will be at the station.

The porter says they’ll have to get him up now. Everything goes dark and she falls, hitting her head on her husband’s berth.

I hope this summary of “A Journey” by Edith Wharton was helpful.

Patricia Grace

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A Journey By Edith Wharton Story Analysis With Summary/Theme

A Journey by Edith Wharton – This article will tell you the short story entitled, “ A Journey By Edith Wharton with story analysis, summary and theme in English. What is the theme, summary, plot, setting, character and point of view of the story, A Journey By Edith Wharton ?

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A Journey by Edith Wharton Story Analysis with Summary and Theme

As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness. Now and then she turned her head and looked through the opening in the hangings at her husband’s curtains across the aisle…. She wondered restlessly if he wanted anything and if she could hear him if he called. His voice had grown very weak within the last months and it irritated him when she did not hear. This irritability, this increasing childish petulance seemed to give expression to their imperceptible estrangement. Like two faces looking at one another through a sheet of glass they were close together, almost touching, but they could not hear or feel each other: the conductivity between them was broken. She, at least, had this sense of separation, and she fancied sometimes that she saw it reflected in the look with which he supplemented his failing words. Doubtless the fault was hers. She was too impenetrably healthy to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease. Her self-reproachful tenderness was tinged with the sense of his irrationality: she had a vague feeling that there was a purpose in his helpless tyrannies. The suddenness of the change had found her so unprepared. A year ago their pulses had beat to one robust measure; both had the same prodigal confidence in an exhaustless future. Now their energies no longer kept step: hers still bounded ahead of life, preempting unclaimed regions of hope and activity, while his lagged behind, vainly struggling to overtake her. When they married, she had such arrears of living to make up: her days had been as bare as the whitewashed school-room where she forced innutritious facts upon reluctant children. His coming had broken in on the slumber of circumstance, widening the present till it became the encloser of remotest chances. But imperceptibly the horizon narrowed. Life had a grudge against her: she was never to be allowed to spread her wings. At first the doctors had said that six weeks of mild air would set him right; but when he came back this assurance was explained as having of course included a winter in a dry climate. They gave up their pretty house, storing the wedding presents and new furniture, and went to Colorado. She had hated it there from the first. Nobody knew her or cared about her; there was no one to wonder at the good match she had made, or to envy her the new dresses and the visiting-cards which were still a surprise to her. And he kept growing worse. She felt herself beset with difficulties too evasive to be fought by so direct a temperament. She still loved him, of course; but he was gradually, undefinably ceasing to be himself. The man she had married had been strong, active, gently masterful: the male whose pleasure it is to clear a way through the material obstructions of life; but now it was she who was the protector, he who must be shielded from importunities and given his drops or his beef-juice though the skies were falling. The routine of the sick-room bewildered her; this punctual administering of medicine seemed as idle as some uncomprehended religious mummery. There were moments, indeed, when warm gushes of pity swept away her instinctive resentment of his condition, when she still found his old self in his eyes as they groped for each other through the dense medium of his weakness. But these moments had grown rare. Sometimes he frightened her: his sunken expressionless face seemed that of a stranger; his voice was weak and hoarse; his thin-lipped smile a mere muscular contraction. Her hand avoided his damp soft skin, which had lost the familiar roughness of health: she caught herself furtively watching him as she might have watched a strange animal. It frightened her to feel that this was the man she loved; there were hours when to tell him what she suffered seemed the one escape from her fears. But in general she judged herself more leniently, reflecting that she had perhaps been too long alone with him, and that she would feel differently when they were at home again, surrounded by her robust and buoyant family. How she had rejoiced when the doctors at last gave their consent to his going home! She knew, of course, what the decision meant; they both knew. It meant that he was to die; but they dressed the truth in hopeful euphuisms, and at times, in the joy of preparation, she really forgot the purpose of their journey, and slipped into an eager allusion to next year’s plans. At last the day of leaving came. She had a dreadful fear that they would never get away; that somehow at the last moment he would fail her; that the doctors held one of their accustomed treacheries in reserve; but nothing happened. They drove to the station, he was installed in a seat with a rug over his knees and a cushion at his back, and she hung out of the window waving unregretful farewells to the acquaintances she had really never liked till then. The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum. She had to explain to the child’s mother that her husband was too ill to be disturbed: a statement received by that lady with a resentment visibly supported by the maternal sentiment of the whole car…. That night he slept badly and the next morning his temperature frightened her: she was sure he was growing worse. The day passed slowly, punctuated by the small irritations of travel. Watching his tired face, she traced in its contractions every rattle and jolt of the tram, till her own body vibrated with sympathetic fatigue. She felt the others observing him too, and hovered restlessly between him and the line of interrogative eyes. The freckled child hung about him like a fly; offers of candy and picture- books failed to dislodge her: she twisted one leg around the other and watched him imperturbably. The porter, as he passed, lingered with vague proffers of help, probably inspired by philanthropic passengers swelling with the sense that “something ought to be done;” and one nervous man in a skull-cap was audibly concerned as to the possible effect on his wife’s health. The hours dragged on in a dreary inoccupation. Towards dusk she sat down beside him and he laid his hand on hers. The touch startled her. He seemed to be calling her from far off. She looked at him helplessly and his smile went through her like a physical pang. “Are you very tired?” she asked. “No, not very.” “We’ll be there soon now.” “Yes, very soon.” “This time to-morrow–“ He nodded and they sat silent. When she had put him to bed and crawled into her own berth she tried to cheer herself with the thought that in less than twenty-four hours they would be in New York. Her people would all be at the station to meet her–she pictured their round unanxious faces pressing through the crowd. She only hoped they would not tell him too loudly that he was looking splendidly and would be all right in no time: the subtler sympathies developed by long contact with suffering were making her aware of a certain coarseness of texture in the family sensibilities. Suddenly she thought she heard him call. She parted the curtains and listened. No, it was only a man snoring at the other end of the car. His snores had a greasy sound, as though they passed through tallow. She lay down and tried to sleep… Had she not heard him move? She started up trembling… The silence frightened her more than any sound. He might not be able to make her hear–he might be calling her now… What made her think of such things? It was merely the familiar tendency of an over-tired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings…. Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her…. The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made her put them from her with an effort of her whole sound tired body. She turned on her side and slept. She sat up stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o’clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle for her not to be cheerful in the morning. Her cheeks burned deliciously under the coarse towel and the wet hair about her temples broke into strong upward tendrils. Every inch of her was full of life and elasticity. And in ten hours they would be at home! She stepped to her husband’s berth: it was time for him to take his early glass of milk. The window-shade was down, and in the dusk of the curtained enclosure she could just see that he lay sideways, with his face away from her. She leaned over him and drew up the shade. As she did so she touched one of his hands. It felt cold…. She bent closer, laying her hand on his arm and calling him by name. He did not move. She spoke again more loudly; she grasped his shoulder and gently shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? … Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed at her with steady eyes. She remained motionless for a long time, holding him thus; and they looked at each other. Suddenly she shrank back: the longing to scream, to call out, to fly from him, had almost overpowered her. But a strong hand arrested her. Good God! If it were known that he was dead they would be put off the train at the next station– In a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before her a scene she had once witnessed in travelling, when a husband and wife, whose child had died in the train, had been thrust out at some chance station. She saw them standing on the platform with the child’s body between them; she had never forgotten the dazed look with which they followed the receding train. And this was what would happen to her. Within the next hour she might find herself on the platform of some strange station, alone with her husband’s body…. Anything but that! It was too horrible–She quivered like a creature at bay. As she cowered there, she felt the train moving more slowly. It was coming then–they were approaching a station! She saw again the husband and wife standing on the lonely platform; and with a violent gesture she drew down the shade to hide her husband’s face. Feeling dizzy, she sank down on the edge of the berth, keeping away from his outstretched body, and pulling the curtains close, so that he and she were shut into a kind of sepulchral twilight. She tried to think. At all costs she must conceal the fact that he was dead. But how? Her mind refused to act: she could not plan, combine. She could think of no way but to sit there, clutching the curtains, all day long…. She heard the porter making up her bed; people were beginning to move about the car; the dressing-room door was being opened and shut. She tried to rouse herself. At length with a supreme effort she rose to her feet, stepping into the aisle of the car and drawing the curtains tight behind her. She noticed that they still parted slightly with the motion of the car, and finding a pin in her dress she fastened them together. Now she was safe. She looked round and saw the porter. She fancied he was watching her. “Ain’t he awake yet?” he enquired. “No,” she faltered. “I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven.” She nodded silently and crept into her seat. At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: “Ain’t he going to get up? You know we’re ordered to make up the berths as early as we can.” She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station. “Oh, not yet,” she stammered. “Not till he’s had his milk. Won’t you get it, please?” “All right. Soon as we start again.” When the train moved on he reappeared with the milk. She took it from him and sat vaguely looking at it: her brain moved slowly from one idea to another, as though they were stepping-stones set far apart across a whirling flood. At length she became aware that the porter still hovered expectantly. “Will I give it to him?” he suggested. “Oh, no,” she cried, rising. “He–he’s asleep yet, I think–“ She waited till the porter had passed on; then she unpinned the curtains and slipped behind them. In the semi-obscurity her husband’s face stared up at her like a marble mask with agate eyes. The eyes were dreadful. She put out her hand and drew down the lids. Then she remembered the glass of milk in her other hand: what was she to do with it? She thought of raising the window and throwing it out; but to do so she would have to lean across his body and bring her face close to his. She decided to drink the milk. She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it. “When’ll I fold up his bed?” he asked. “Oh, not now–not yet; he’s ill–he’s very ill. Can’t you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible.” He scratched his head. “Well, if he’s really sick–“ He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet. She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her. “I’m real sorry to hear your husband’s sick. I’ve had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?” “Oh, no–no, please! He mustn’t be disturbed.” The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently. “Well, it’s just as you say, of course, but you don’t look to me as if you’d had much experience in sickness and I’d have been glad to assist you. What do you generally do when your husband’s taken this way?” “I–I let him sleep.” “Too much sleep ain’t any too healthful either. Don’t you give him any medicine?” “Y–yes.” “Don’t you wake him to take it?” “Yes.” “When does he take the next dose?” “Not for–two hours–“ The lady looked disappointed. “Well, if I was you I’d try giving it oftener. That’s what I do with my folks.”

ASIDE FROM THE SHORT STORY, A JOURNEY BY EDITH WHARTON , SEE ALSO : 140+ Best Aesop’s Fables Story Examples With Moral And Summary

After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern- jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast, waylaid the passers with a buttery clutch, saying in a loud whisper, “He’s sick;” and once the conductor came by, asking for tickets. She shrank into her corner and looked out of the window at the flying trees and houses, meaningless hieroglyphs of an endlessly unrolled papyrus. Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass–their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain…. Later in the day a fat man detached himself from the mist of faces. He had a creased stomach and soft pale lips. As he pressed himself into the seat facing her she noticed that he was dressed in black broadcloth, with a soiled white tie. “Husband’s pretty bad this morning, is he?” “Yes.” “Dear, dear! Now that’s terribly distressing, ain’t it?” An apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth. “Of course you know there’s no sech thing as sickness. Ain’t that a lovely thought? Death itself is but a deloosion of our grosser senses. On’y lay yourself open to the influx of the sperrit, submit yourself passively to the action of the divine force, and disease and dissolution will cease to exist for you. If you could indooce your husband to read this little pamphlet–“ The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn’t tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog…. The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them… Her head was spinning and she tried to steady herself by clutching at her thoughts as they swept by, but they slipped away from her like bushes on the side of a sheer precipice down which she seemed to be falling. Suddenly her mind grew clear again and she found herself vividly picturing what would happen when the train reached New York. She shuddered as it occurred to her that he would be quite cold and that some one might perceive he had been dead since morning. She thought hurriedly:–“If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won’t believe me–no one would believe me! It will be terrible”–and she kept repeating to herself:–“I must pretend I don’t know. I must pretend I don’t know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally–and then I must scream.” … She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do. Gradually new thoughts crowded upon her, vivid and urgent: she tried to separate and restrain them, but they beset her clamorously, like her school-children at the end of a hot day, when she was too tired to silence them. Her head grew confused, and she felt a sick fear of forgetting her part, of betraying herself by some unguarded word or look. “I must pretend I don’t know,” she went on murmuring. The words had lost their significance, but she repeated them mechanically, as though they had been a magic formula, until suddenly she heard herself saying: “I can’t remember, I can’t remember!” Her voice sounded very loud, and she looked about her in terror; but no one seemed to notice that she had spoken. As she glanced down the car her eye caught the curtains of her husband’s berth, and she began to examine the monotonous arabesques woven through their heavy folds. The pattern was intricate and difficult to trace; she gazed fixedly at the curtains and as she did so the thick stuff grew transparent and through it she saw her husband’s face–his dead face. She struggled to avert her look, but her eyes refused to move and her head seemed to be held in a vice. At last, with an effort that left her weak and shaking, she turned away; but it was of no use; close in front of her, small and smooth, was her husband’s face. It seemed to be suspended in the air between her and the false braids of the woman who sat in front of her. With an uncontrollable gesture she stretched out her hand to push the face away, and suddenly she felt the touch of his smooth skin. She repressed a cry and half started from her seat. The woman with the false braids looked around, and feeling that she must justify her movement in some way she rose and lifted her travelling-bag from the opposite seat. She unlocked the bag and looked into it; but the first object her hand met was a small flask of her husband’s, thrust there at the last moment, in the haste of departure. She locked the bag and closed her eyes … his face was there again, hanging between her eye-balls and lids like a waxen mask against a red curtain…. She roused herself with a shiver. Had she fainted or slept? Hours seemed to have elapsed; but it was still broad day, and the people about her were sitting in the same attitudes as before. A sudden sense of hunger made her aware that she had eaten nothing since morning. The thought of food filled her with disgust, but she dreaded a return of faintness, and remembering that she had some biscuits in her bag she took one out and ate it. The dry crumbs choked her, and she hastily swallowed a little brandy from her husband’s flask. The burning sensation in her throat acted as a counter-irritant, momentarily relieving the dull ache of her nerves. Then she felt a gently-stealing warmth, as though a soft air fanned her, and the swarming fears relaxed their clutch, receding through the stillness that enclosed her, a stillness soothing as the spacious quietude of a summer day. She slept. Through her sleep she felt the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force– sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days.–Now all at once everything was still–not a sound, not a pulsation… She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him with smooth upstaring face. How quiet it was!–and yet she heard feet coming, the feet of the men who were to carry them away… She could feel too–she felt a sudden prolonged vibration, a series of hard shocks, and then another plunge into darkness: the darkness of death this time–a black whirlwind on which they were both spinning like leaves, in wild uncoiling spirals, with millions and millions of the dead….

She sprang up in terror. Her sleep must have lasted a long time, for the winter day had paled and the lights had been lit. The car was in confusion, and as she regained her self-possession she saw that the passengers were gathering up their wraps and bags. The woman with the false braids had brought from the dressing-room a sickly ivy-plant in a bottle, and the Christian Scientist was reversing his cuffs. The porter passed down the aisle with his impartial brush. An impersonal figure with a gold-banded cap asked for her husband’s ticket. A voice shouted “Baig- gage express!” and she heard the clicking of metal as the passengers handed over their checks. Presently her window was blocked by an expanse of sooty wall, and the train passed into the Harlem tunnel. The journey was over; in a few minutes she would see her family pushing their joyous way through the throng at the station. Her heart dilated. The worst terror was past…. “We’d better get him up now, hadn’t we?” asked the porter, touching her arm. He had her husband’s hat in his hand and was meditatively revolving it under his brush. She looked at the hat and tried to speak; but suddenly the car grew dark. She flung up her arms, struggling to catch at something, and fell face downward, striking her head against the dead man’s berth. The Short story entitled, “A Journey by Edith Wharton,” is from americanliterature.com

The summary and analysis of Edith Wharton’s short story “A Journey” help you figure out what the story is really about. Allow us to indulge ourselves by delving into the great story analysis of the story.

Edith Newbold Jones was the birth name of the author who went by the pen name Edith Wharton (1862-1937).

She was an American who won the Pulitzer Prize for her novels, short stories, and designs. In 1927, 1928, and 1930, she was up for the Nobel Prize in Literature . Wharton used her insider’s view of America’s wealthy classes and her brilliant, natural wit to write funny, sharp, socially and psychologically insightful novels and short stories.

Wharton wrote more than 50 books in total, including fiction, short stories, travel books, historical novels, and criticism. The story “ A Journey ” is one of the short stories she wrote.

The themes of transition , acceptance , gender roles , loyalty , independence , conflict , and social opinion are prevalent in A Journey.

Edith Wharton wrote “ A Journey ” in 1889 as part of her collection of short stories entitled “The Greater Inclination.”

This story, which was first published in 1889, is about a woman’s conflicting feelings as her husband’s health gradually deteriorates while they are traveling home in a train.

Edith Wharton’s short story conveys the concept that occasionally we must embark on a journey leading to an epiphany or some form of self-realization .

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Here are the characters in the story, A Journey from enotes.com .

The woman used to teach at school, but her husband got sick soon after they got married. Even though she was happy with her husband at first, she is now sad and lonely, and finding out that he has died only makes her feel worse.

Since getting sick, the husband has become irritable and distant. Their trip to Colorado hasn’t helped him feel better. He dies while on the train.

The clergyman is a fellow traveler and Christian Scientist who offers unsolicited advise to the woman, teaching the irrationality of disease and death.

A Journey by Edith Wharton

In A Journey by Edith Wharton we have the theme of change, acceptance, gender roles, loyalty, independence, conflict and social opinion. Taken from her The New York Stories collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that Wharton may be exploring the theme of change. The female protagonist though she loves her husband does not necessarily wish to remain with him. Due to his illness he is not the same man that she married. Things have changed in the relationship. However it is noticeable that despite how the protagonist feels she remains by her husband’s side throughout the story. This may be important as Wharton may be placing a spotlight on the accepted societal norms of the time when it came to the role of a woman in a marriage. Though the protagonist has thoughts of leaving her husband due to the pressures imposed on her. She remains by his side. Rather than being a wife she has become a nurse to her husband. Though some critics might suggest that it would be selfish of the protagonist to leave her husband Wharton might be suggesting that should the roles be reversed the protagonist’s husband may not necessarily show the same loyalty. If anything society at the time would have viewed women to have a responsibility to their husbands. Once married a woman lost any sense of independence.

It is also interesting that the protagonist is afraid to tell anybody on the train that her husband is dead. She knows that should she tell people she and her husband will be removed from the train. This could be important as it suggests that there may be a negative attitude towards death within society. Death is something to be seen from a distance rather than close proximity. With social opinion dictating that it may be inappropriate for the protagonist and her husband to continue their journey. How imposing social opinion actually is in the story is noticeable by the sense of panic that the protagonist feels on discovery that her husband is dead. She does not grieve his death rather she is concerned about hiding the fact that he is dead. If anything the protagonist is being practical under very difficult circumstances. She is also accepting of the conditions she finds herself in. Knowing that she will be judged by others due to the fact that her husband has died on the train. If anything Wharton may be suggesting that at times society can lack empathy.

The fact that the protagonist is in conflict with herself may also be significant as it suggests that she is torn between staying with her husband and leaving him. If anything Wharton manages to give the reader an insight into the emotions that the protagonist is feeling. She had aspirations for the future but due to her husband’s illness her own life has been put on hold. Taking on the responsibility as a caregiver or nurse to her husband. It is also possible that Wharton is highlighting how quickly an individual’s life can change from a life of happiness to one of misery without the individual having any control over how things turn out. Which is very much the case when it comes to the protagonist. Her life has been interrupted without her permission. She has no say in what will happen to her due to the accepted societal norms of the time. If she were to leave her husband she would become an outcast within society.

The end of the story is also interesting as the reader is left aware of the fact that there is still so much for the protagonist to do. She still has to tell somebody that her husband is dead. Something which already leaves the protagonist conflicted. In reality there is no real resolution for the protagonist. Her work has really only begun. However the fact that the train has arrived back in New York may be of some benefit to the protagonist as New York is not only her home but her family will also be at the station waiting for her. Having spent six weeks in an unfamiliar environment at least that protagonist is back in an environment that is known to her. It is as though she has the reassurance of familiarity. The protagonist also has the opportunity in time to reclaim her life and to live it as she sees fit. She has done everything that is expected of her by society. Considering the pressure that the protagonist was under throughout the train journey she has done remarkably well. She has stayed by her husband’s side and handled the circumstances she found herself in to the best of her ability. The reader aware that there is not much else that the protagonist can do for her husband.

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Bhuto by Satyajit Ray

by Edith Wharton

As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness. Now and then she turned her head and looked through the opening in the hangings at her husband's curtains across the aisle....

She wondered restlessly if he wanted anything and if she could hear him if he called. His voice had grown very weak within the last months and it irritated him when she did not hear. This irritability, this increasing childish petulance seemed to give expression to their imperceptible estrangement. Like two faces looking at one another through a sheet of glass they were close together, almost touching, but they could not hear or feel each other: the conductivity between them was broken. She, at least, had this sense of separation, and she fancied sometimes that she saw it reflected in the look with which he supplemented his failing words. Doubtless the fault was hers. She was too impenetrably healthy to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease. Her self-reproachful tenderness was tinged with the sense of his irrationality: she had a vague feeling that there was a purpose in his helpless tyrannies. The suddenness of the change had found her so unprepared. A year ago their pulses had beat to one robust measure; both had the same prodigal confidence in an exhaustless future. Now their energies no longer kept step: hers still bounded ahead of life, preempting unclaimed regions of hope and activity, while his lagged behind, vainly struggling to overtake her.

When they married, she had such arrears of living to make up: her days had been as bare as the whitewashed school-room where she forced innutritious facts upon reluctant children. His coming had broken in on the slumber of circumstance, widening the present till it became the encloser of remotest chances. But imperceptibly the horizon narrowed. Life had a grudge against her: she was never to be allowed to spread her wings.

At first the doctors had said that six weeks of mild air would set him right; but when he came back this assurance was explained as having of course included a winter in a dry climate. They gave up their pretty house, storing the wedding presents and new furniture, and went to Colorado. She had hated it there from the first. Nobody knew her or cared about her; there was no one to wonder at the good match she had made, or to envy her the new dresses and the visiting-cards which were still a surprise to her. And he kept growing worse. She felt herself beset with difficulties too evasive to be fought by so direct a temperament. She still loved him, of course; but he was gradually, undefinably ceasing to be himself. The man she had married had been strong, active, gently masterful: the male whose pleasure it is to clear a way through the material obstructions of life; but now it was she who was the protector, he who must be shielded from importunities and given his drops or his beef-juice though the skies were falling. The routine of the sick-room bewildered her; this punctual administering of medicine seemed as idle as some uncomprehended religious mummery.

There were moments, indeed, when warm gushes of pity swept away her instinctive resentment of his condition, when she still found his old self in his eyes as they groped for each other through the dense medium of his weakness. But these moments had grown rare. Sometimes he frightened her: his sunken expressionless face seemed that of a stranger; his voice was weak and hoarse; his thin-lipped smile a mere muscular contraction. Her hand avoided his damp soft skin, which had lost the familiar roughness of health: she caught herself furtively watching him as she might have watched a strange animal. It frightened her to feel that this was the man she loved; there were hours when to tell him what she suffered seemed the one escape from her fears. But in general she judged herself more leniently, reflecting that she had perhaps been too long alone with him, and that she would feel differently when they were at home again, surrounded by her robust and buoyant family. How she had rejoiced when the doctors at last gave their consent to his going home! She knew, of course, what the decision meant; they both knew. It meant that he was to die; but they dressed the truth in hopeful euphuisms, and at times, in the joy of preparation, she really forgot the purpose of their journey, and slipped into an eager allusion to next year's plans.

At last the day of leaving came. She had a dreadful fear that they would never get away; that somehow at the last moment he would fail her; that the doctors held one of their accustomed treacheries in reserve; but nothing happened. They drove to the station, he was installed in a seat with a rug over his knees and a cushion at his back, and she hung out of the window waving unregretful farewells to the acquaintances she had really never liked till then.

The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum. She had to explain to the child's mother that her husband was too ill to be disturbed: a statement received by that lady with a resentment visibly supported by the maternal sentiment of the whole car....

That night he slept badly and the next morning his temperature frightened her: she was sure he was growing worse. The day passed slowly, punctuated by the small irritations of travel. Watching his tired face, she traced in its contractions every rattle and jolt of the tram, till her own body vibrated with sympathetic fatigue. She felt the others observing him too, and hovered restlessly between him and the line of interrogative eyes. The freckled child hung about him like a fly; offers of candy and picture- books failed to dislodge her: she twisted one leg around the other and watched him imperturbably. The porter, as he passed, lingered with vague proffers of help, probably inspired by philanthropic passengers swelling with the sense that "something ought to be done;" and one nervous man in a skull-cap was audibly concerned as to the possible effect on his wife's health.

The hours dragged on in a dreary inoccupation. Towards dusk she sat down beside him and he laid his hand on hers. The touch startled her. He seemed to be calling her from far off. She looked at him helplessly and his smile went through her like a physical pang.

"Are you very tired?" she asked.

"No, not very."

"We'll be there soon now."

"Yes, very soon."

"This time to-morrow--"

He nodded and they sat silent. When she had put him to bed and crawled into her own berth she tried to cheer herself with the thought that in less than twenty-four hours they would be in New York. Her people would all be at the station to meet her--she pictured their round unanxious faces pressing through the crowd. She only hoped they would not tell him too loudly that he was looking splendidly and would be all right in no time: the subtler sympathies developed by long contact with suffering were making her aware of a certain coarseness of texture in the family sensibilities.

Suddenly she thought she heard him call. She parted the curtains and listened. No, it was only a man snoring at the other end of the car. His snores had a greasy sound, as though they passed through tallow. She lay down and tried to sleep... Had she not heard him move? She started up trembling... The silence frightened her more than any sound. He might not be able to make her hear--he might be calling her now... What made her think of such things? It was merely the familiar tendency of an over-tired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings.... Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her.... The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made her put them from her with an effort of her whole sound tired body. She turned on her side and slept.

She sat up stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o'clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle for her not to be cheerful in the morning. Her cheeks burned deliciously under the coarse towel and the wet hair about her temples broke into strong upward tendrils. Every inch of her was full of life and elasticity. And in ten hours they would be at home!

She stepped to her husband's berth: it was time for him to take his early glass of milk. The window-shade was down, and in the dusk of the curtained enclosure she could just see that he lay sideways, with his face away from her. She leaned over him and drew up the shade. As she did so she touched one of his hands. It felt cold....

She bent closer, laying her hand on his arm and calling him by name. He did not move. She spoke again more loudly; she grasped his shoulder and gently shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? ... Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed at her with steady eyes.

She remained motionless for a long time, holding him thus; and they looked at each other. Suddenly she shrank back: the longing to scream, to call out, to fly from him, had almost overpowered her. But a strong hand arrested her. Good God! If it were known that he was dead they would be put off the train at the next station--

In a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before her a scene she had once witnessed in travelling, when a husband and wife, whose child had died in the train, had been thrust out at some chance station. She saw them standing on the platform with the child's body between them; she had never forgotten the dazed look with which they followed the receding train. And this was what would happen to her. Within the next hour she might find herself on the platform of some strange station, alone with her husband's body.... Anything but that! It was too horrible--She quivered like a creature at bay.

As she cowered there, she felt the train moving more slowly. It was coming then--they were approaching a station! She saw again the husband and wife standing on the lonely platform; and with a violent gesture she drew down the shade to hide her husband's face.

Feeling dizzy, she sank down on the edge of the berth, keeping away from his outstretched body, and pulling the curtains close, so that he and she were shut into a kind of sepulchral twilight. She tried to think. At all costs she must conceal the fact that he was dead. But how? Her mind refused to act: she could not plan, combine. She could think of no way but to sit there, clutching the curtains, all day long....

She heard the porter making up her bed; people were beginning to move about the car; the dressing-room door was being opened and shut. She tried to rouse herself. At length with a supreme effort she rose to her feet, stepping into the aisle of the car and drawing the curtains tight behind her. She noticed that they still parted slightly with the motion of the car, and finding a pin in her dress she fastened them together. Now she was safe. She looked round and saw the porter. She fancied he was watching her.

"Ain't he awake yet?" he enquired.

"No," she faltered.

"I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven."

She nodded silently and crept into her seat.

At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: "Ain't he going to get up? You know we're ordered to make up the berths as early as we can."

She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station.

"Oh, not yet," she stammered. "Not till he's had his milk. Won't you get it, please?"

"All right. Soon as we start again."

When the train moved on he reappeared with the milk. She took it from him and sat vaguely looking at it: her brain moved slowly from one idea to another, as though they were stepping-stones set far apart across a whirling flood. At length she became aware that the porter still hovered expectantly.

"Will I give it to him?" he suggested.

"Oh, no," she cried, rising. "He--he's asleep yet, I think--"

She waited till the porter had passed on; then she unpinned the curtains and slipped behind them. In the semi-obscurity her husband's face stared up at her like a marble mask with agate eyes. The eyes were dreadful. She put out her hand and drew down the lids. Then she remembered the glass of milk in her other hand: what was she to do with it? She thought of raising the window and throwing it out; but to do so she would have to lean across his body and bring her face close to his. She decided to drink the milk.

She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it.

"When'll I fold up his bed?" he asked.

"Oh, not now--not yet; he's ill--he's very ill. Can't you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible."

He scratched his head. "Well, if he's _really_ sick--"

He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet.

She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her.

"I'm real sorry to hear your husband's sick. I've had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?"

"Oh, no--no, please! He mustn't be disturbed."

The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently.

"Well, it's just as you say, of course, but you don't look to me as if you'd had much experience in sickness and I'd have been glad to assist you. What do you generally do when your husband's taken this way?"

"I--I let him sleep."

"Too much sleep ain't any too healthful either. Don't you give him any medicine?"

"Don't you wake him to take it?"

"When does he take the next dose?"

"Not for--two hours--"

The lady looked disappointed. "Well, if I was you I'd try giving it oftener. That's what I do with my folks."

After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern- jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast, waylaid the passers with a buttery clutch, saying in a loud whisper, "He's sick;" and once the conductor came by, asking for tickets. She shrank into her corner and looked out of the window at the flying trees and houses, meaningless hieroglyphs of an endlessly unrolled papyrus.

Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass--their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain....

Later in the day a fat man detached himself from the mist of faces. He had a creased stomach and soft pale lips. As he pressed himself into the seat facing her she noticed that he was dressed in black broadcloth, with a soiled white tie.

"Husband's pretty bad this morning, is he?"

"Dear, dear! Now that's terribly distressing, ain't it?" An apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth.

"Of course you know there's no sech thing as sickness. Ain't that a lovely thought? Death itself is but a deloosion of our grosser senses. On'y lay yourself open to the influx of the sperrit, submit yourself passively to the action of the divine force, and disease and dissolution will cease to exist for you. If you could indooce your husband to read this little pamphlet--"

The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn't tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog.... The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them...

Her head was spinning and she tried to steady herself by clutching at her thoughts as they swept by, but they slipped away from her like bushes on the side of a sheer precipice down which she seemed to be falling. Suddenly her mind grew clear again and she found herself vividly picturing what would happen when the train reached New York. She shuddered as it occurred to her that he would be quite cold and that some one might perceive he had been dead since morning.

She thought hurriedly:--"If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won't believe me--no one would believe me! It will be terrible"--and she kept repeating to herself:--"I must pretend I don't know. I must pretend I don't know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally--and then I must scream." ... She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do.

Gradually new thoughts crowded upon her, vivid and urgent: she tried to separate and restrain them, but they beset her clamorously, like her school-children at the end of a hot day, when she was too tired to silence them. Her head grew confused, and she felt a sick fear of forgetting her part, of betraying herself by some unguarded word or look.

"I must pretend I don't know," she went on murmuring. The words had lost their significance, but she repeated them mechanically, as though they had been a magic formula, until suddenly she heard herself saying: "I can't remember, I can't remember!"

Her voice sounded very loud, and she looked about her in terror; but no one seemed to notice that she had spoken.

As she glanced down the car her eye caught the curtains of her husband's berth, and she began to examine the monotonous arabesques woven through their heavy folds. The pattern was intricate and difficult to trace; she gazed fixedly at the curtains and as she did so the thick stuff grew transparent and through it she saw her husband's face--his dead face. She struggled to avert her look, but her eyes refused to move and her head seemed to be held in a vice. At last, with an effort that left her weak and shaking, she turned away; but it was of no use; close in front of her, small and smooth, was her husband's face. It seemed to be suspended in the air between her and the false braids of the woman who sat in front of her. With an uncontrollable gesture she stretched out her hand to push the face away, and suddenly she felt the touch of his smooth skin. She repressed a cry and half started from her seat. The woman with the false braids looked around, and feeling that she must justify her movement in some way she rose and lifted her travelling-bag from the opposite seat. She unlocked the bag and looked into it; but the first object her hand met was a small flask of her husband's, thrust there at the last moment, in the haste of departure. She locked the bag and closed her eyes ... his face was there again, hanging between her eye-balls and lids like a waxen mask against a red curtain....

She roused herself with a shiver. Had she fainted or slept? Hours seemed to have elapsed; but it was still broad day, and the people about her were sitting in the same attitudes as before.

A sudden sense of hunger made her aware that she had eaten nothing since morning. The thought of food filled her with disgust, but she dreaded a return of faintness, and remembering that she had some biscuits in her bag she took one out and ate it. The dry crumbs choked her, and she hastily swallowed a little brandy from her husband's flask. The burning sensation in her throat acted as a counter-irritant, momentarily relieving the dull ache of her nerves. Then she felt a gently-stealing warmth, as though a soft air fanned her, and the swarming fears relaxed their clutch, receding through the stillness that enclosed her, a stillness soothing as the spacious quietude of a summer day. She slept.

Through her sleep she felt the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force-- sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days.--Now all at once everything was still--not a sound, not a pulsation... She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him with smooth upstaring face. How quiet it was!--and yet she heard feet coming, the feet of the men who were to carry them away... She could feel too--she felt a sudden prolonged vibration, a series of hard shocks, and then another plunge into darkness: the darkness of death this time--a black whirlwind on which they were both spinning like leaves, in wild uncoiling spirals, with millions and millions of the dead....

She sprang up in terror. Her sleep must have lasted a long time, for the winter day had paled and the lights had been lit. The car was in confusion, and as she regained her self-possession she saw that the passengers were gathering up their wraps and bags. The woman with the false braids had brought from the dressing-room a sickly ivy-plant in a bottle, and the Christian Scientist was reversing his cuffs. The porter passed down the aisle with his impartial brush. An impersonal figure with a gold-banded cap asked for her husband's ticket. A voice shouted "Baig- gage express!" and she heard the clicking of metal as the passengers handed over their checks.

Presently her window was blocked by an expanse of sooty wall, and the train passed into the Harlem tunnel. The journey was over; in a few minutes she would see her family pushing their joyous way through the throng at the station. Her heart dilated. The worst terror was past....

"We'd better get him up now, hadn't we?" asked the porter, touching her arm.

He had her husband's hat in his hand and was meditatively revolving it under his brush.

She looked at the hat and tried to speak; but suddenly the car grew dark. She flung up her arms, struggling to catch at something, and fell face downward, striking her head against the dead man's berth.

A Journey is featured in Short Stories for High School II

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A Journey by Edith Wharton [?]

She wondered restlessly if he wanted anything and if she could hear him if he called. His voice had grown very weak within the last months and it irritated him when she did not hear. This irritability, this increasing childish petulance seemed to give expression to their imperceptible estrangement. Like two faces looking at one another through a sheet of glass they were close together, almost touching, but they could not hear or feel each other: the conductivity between them was broken. She, at least, had this sense of separation, and she fancied sometimes that she saw it reflected in the look with which he supplemented his failing words. Doubtless the fault was hers. She was too impenetrably healthy to be touched by the irrelevancies of disease. Her self-reproachful tenderness was tinged with the sense of his irrationality: she had a vague feeling that there was a purpose in his helpless tyrannies. The suddenness of the change had found her so unprepared. A year ago their pulses had beat to one robust measure; both had the same prodigal confidence in an exhaustless future. Now their energies no longer kept step: hers still bounded ahead of life, preëmpting unclaimed regions of hope and activity, while his lagged behind, vainly struggling to overtake her.

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1889 Short Story

Black and white Photo of Author Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)

A Journey is an English Realism , Social Commentary short story by American writer Edith Wharton . It was first published in 1889.

A Journey by Edith Wharton

The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum. She had to explain to the child’s mother that her husband was too ill to be disturbed: a statement received by that lady with a resentment visibly supported by the maternal sentiment of the whole car….

That night he slept badly and the next morning his temperature frightened her: she was sure he was growing worse. The day passed slowly, punctuated by the small irritations of travel. Watching his tired face, she traced in its contractions every rattle and jolt of the tram, till her own body vibrated with sympathetic fatigue. She felt the others observing him too, and hovered restlessly between him and the line of interrogative eyes. The freckled child hung about him like a fly; offers of candy and picture- books failed to dislodge her: she twisted one leg around the other and watched him imperturbably. The porter, as he passed, lingered with vague proffers of help, probably inspired by philanthropic passengers swelling with the sense that “something ought to be done;” and one nervous man in a skull-cap was audibly concerned as to the possible effect on his wife’s health.

“Are you very tired?” she asked.

“No, not very.”

“We’ll be there soon now.”

“Yes, very soon.”

“This time to-morrow–“

He nodded and they sat silent. When she had put him to bed and crawled into her own berth she tried to cheer herself with the thought that in less than twenty-four hours they would be in New York. Her people would all be at the station to meet her–she pictured their round unanxious faces pressing through the crowd. She only hoped they would not tell him too loudly that he was looking splendidly and would be all right in no time: the subtler sympathies developed by long contact with suffering were making her aware of a certain coarseness of texture in the family sensibilities.

Suddenly she thought she heard him call. She parted the curtains and listened. No, it was only a man snoring at the other end of the car. His snores had a greasy sound, as though they passed through tallow. She lay down and tried to sleep… Had she not heard him move? She started up trembling… The silence frightened her more than any sound. He might not be able to make her hear–he might be calling her now… What made her think of such things? It was merely the familiar tendency of an over-tired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings…. Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her…. The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made her put them from her with an effort of her whole sound tired body. She turned on her side and slept.

She sat up stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o’clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle for her not to be cheerful in the morning. Her cheeks burned deliciously under the coarse towel and the wet hair about her temples broke into strong upward tendrils. Every inch of her was full of life and elasticity. And in ten hours they would be at home!

She stepped to her husband’s berth: it was time for him to take his early glass of milk. The window-shade was down, and in the dusk of the curtained enclosure she could just see that he lay sideways, with his face away from her. She leaned over him and drew up the shade. As she did so she touched one of his hands. It felt cold….

She bent closer, laying her hand on his arm and calling him by name. He did not move. She spoke again more loudly; she grasped his shoulder and gently shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? … Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed at her with steady eyes.

In a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before her a scene she had once witnessed in travelling, when a husband and wife, whose child had died in the train, had been thrust out at some chance station. She saw them standing on the platform with the child’s body between them; she had never forgotten the dazed look with which they followed the receding train. And this was what would happen to her. Within the next hour she might find herself on the platform of some strange station, alone with her husband’s body…. Anything but that! It was too horrible–She quivered like a creature at bay.

As she cowered there, she felt the train moving more slowly. It was coming then–they were approaching a station! She saw again the husband and wife standing on the lonely platform; and with a violent gesture she drew down the shade to hide her husband’s face.

“Ain’t he awake yet?” he enquired.

“No,” she faltered.

“I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven.”

She nodded silently and crept into her seat.

At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: “Ain’t he going to get up? You know we’re ordered to make up the berths as early as we can.”

She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station.

“Oh, not yet,” she stammered. “Not till he’s had his milk. Won’t you get it, please?”

“All right. Soon as we start again.”

“Will I give it to him?” he suggested.

“Oh, no,” she cried, rising. “He–he’s asleep yet, I think–“

She waited till the porter had passed on; then she unpinned the curtains and slipped behind them. In the semi-obscurity her husband’s face stared up at her like a marble mask with agate eyes. The eyes were dreadful. She put out her hand and drew down the lids. Then she remembered the glass of milk in her other hand: what was she to do with it? She thought of raising the window and throwing it out; but to do so she would have to lean across his body and bring her face close to his. She decided to drink the milk.

She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it.

“When’ll I fold up his bed?” he asked.

“Oh, not now–not yet; he’s ill–he’s very ill. Can’t you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible.”

He scratched his head. “Well, if he’s _really_ sick–“

He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet.

She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her.

“I’m real sorry to hear your husband’s sick. I’ve had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?”

“Oh, no–no, please! He mustn’t be disturbed.”

The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently.

“Well, it’s just as you say, of course, but you don’t look to me as if you’d had much experience in sickness and I’d have been glad to assist you. What do you generally do when your husband’s taken this way?”

“I–I let him sleep.”

“Too much sleep ain’t any too healthful either. Don’t you give him any medicine?”

“Y–yes.”

“Don’t you wake him to take it?”

“Yes.”

“When does he take the next dose?”

“Not for–two hours–“

The lady looked disappointed. “Well, if I was you I’d try giving it oftener. That’s what I do with my folks.”

After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern- jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast, waylaid the passers with a buttery clutch, saying in a loud whisper, “He’s sick;” and once the conductor came by, asking for tickets. She shrank into her corner and looked out of the window at the flying trees and houses, meaningless hieroglyphs of an endlessly unrolled papyrus.

Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass–their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain….

“Husband’s pretty bad this morning, is he?”

“Dear, dear! Now that’s terribly distressing, ain’t it?” An apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth.

“Of course you know there’s no sech thing as sickness. Ain’t that a lovely thought? Death itself is but a deloosion of our grosser senses. On’y lay yourself open to the influx of the sperrit, submit yourself passively to the action of the divine force, and disease and dissolution will cease to exist for you. If you could indooce your husband to read this little pamphlet–“

The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn’t tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog…. The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them…

She thought hurriedly:–“If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won’t believe me–no one would believe me! It will be terrible”–and she kept repeating to herself:–“I must pretend I don’t know. I must pretend I don’t know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally–and then I must scream.” … She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do.

“I must pretend I don’t know,” she went on murmuring. The words had lost their significance, but she repeated them mechanically, as though they had been a magic formula, until suddenly she heard herself saying: “I can’t remember, I can’t remember!”

Her voice sounded very loud, and she looked about her in terror; but no one seemed to notice that she had spoken.

As she glanced down the car her eye caught the curtains of her husband’s berth, and she began to examine the monotonous arabesques woven through their heavy folds. The pattern was intricate and difficult to trace; she gazed fixedly at the curtains and as she did so the thick stuff grew transparent and through it she saw her husband’s face–his dead face. She struggled to avert her look, but her eyes refused to move and her head seemed to be held in a vice. At last, with an effort that left her weak and shaking, she turned away; but it was of no use; close in front of her, small and smooth, was her husband’s face. It seemed to be suspended in the air between her and the false braids of the woman who sat in front of her. With an uncontrollable gesture she stretched out her hand to push the face away, and suddenly she felt the touch of his smooth skin. She repressed a cry and half started from her seat. The woman with the false braids looked around, and feeling that she must justify her movement in some way she rose and lifted her travelling-bag from the opposite seat. She unlocked the bag and looked into it; but the first object her hand met was a small flask of her husband’s, thrust there at the last moment, in the haste of departure. She locked the bag and closed her eyes … his face was there again, hanging between her eye-balls and lids like a waxen mask against a red curtain….

She roused herself with a shiver. Had she fainted or slept? Hours seemed to have elapsed; but it was still broad day, and the people about her were sitting in the same attitudes as before.

A sudden sense of hunger made her aware that she had eaten nothing since morning. The thought of food filled her with disgust, but she dreaded a return of faintness, and remembering that she had some biscuits in her bag she took one out and ate it. The dry crumbs choked her, and she hastily swallowed a little brandy from her husband’s flask. The burning sensation in her throat acted as a counter-irritant, momentarily relieving the dull ache of her nerves. Then she felt a gently-stealing warmth, as though a soft air fanned her, and the swarming fears relaxed their clutch, receding through the stillness that enclosed her, a stillness soothing as the spacious quietude of a summer day. She slept.

Through her sleep she felt the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force– sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days.–Now all at once everything was still–not a sound, not a pulsation… She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him with smooth upstaring face. How quiet it was!–and yet she heard feet coming, the feet of the men who were to carry them away… She could feel too–she felt a sudden prolonged vibration, a series of hard shocks, and then another plunge into darkness: the darkness of death this time–a black whirlwind on which they were both spinning like leaves, in wild uncoiling spirals, with millions and millions of the dead….

She sprang up in terror. Her sleep must have lasted a long time, for the winter day had paled and the lights had been lit. The car was in confusion, and as she regained her self-possession she saw that the passengers were gathering up their wraps and bags. The woman with the false braids had brought from the dressing-room a sickly ivy-plant in a bottle, and the Christian Scientist was reversing his cuffs. The porter passed down the aisle with his impartial brush. An impersonal figure with a gold-banded cap asked for her husband’s ticket. A voice shouted “Baig- gage express!” and she heard the clicking of metal as the passengers handed over their checks.

“We’d better get him up now, hadn’t we?” asked the porter, touching her arm.

He had her husband’s hat in his hand and was meditatively revolving it under his brush.

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist known for her novels depicting upper-class society, including “The Age of Innocence” (Pulitzer Prize winner).

Inside surprise England star's meteoric rise – from school boy tournament to Euro 2024

Adam Wharton could be on the cusp of his first England senior appearance - its been quite the journey for the youngster who first played at Wembley as a school boy

20:58, 25 MAY 2024

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Its been a whirlwind few months for Adam Wharton.

At the turn of the year he was turning out for a struggling Blackburn Rovers , fighting tooth and nail for survival in the Championship ; fast forward four months, and after a big move to Premier League side Crystal Palace , he's on the cusp on the England squad.

Wharton was a somewhat surprising name in the week as Gareth Southgate named his 33-man preliminary squad - which later has to be cut down to 26 ahead of the Euros this summer.

READ MORE: Biggest shocks from England's Euro 2024 squad – household names ditched and five debutants

READ MORE: Southgate to drop 'goal machine and breakout star' in final Euro 2024 squad, AI predicts

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It's been quite the journey for Wharton, who first got a taste of Wembley way back in 2015 as part of the Utilita Kids Cup. The competition is one of the country’s largest national football competitions - and it culminates with a Wembley final.

Wharton, who was at Salesbury Church of England Primary School, won the tournament when his primary school earned the right to represent Blackburn Rovers in the competition.

Do you think Adam Wharton can make the England Euro 2024 squad? Let us know in the comments section

“It was my whole life back in the day and it still is,” Wharton explained when recalling his relationship with the tournament. “It’s great to be able to play and enjoy yourself, especially as a kid.

“We played in the tournament every year with a bunch of schools from Blackburn. When you win that, you go onto another tournament where you represent Blackburn.

"We went to Bolton Academy for the next tournament, where we played other Clubs from the Championship at the time with schools representing them, such as Wigan and others.

“We won that and went to the Final, where we played at Wembley against a team representing Bournemouth before the 2015 Play-Off Final on the pitch. We won on penalties 3-2 and then got to watch the Play-Off Final.”

“It was one of the best moments of my life at the time,” he added. “I’ll never forget the day. It was a great moment and something I look back on, for sure. Those are the moments that stick with you, no matter what you go on to achieve in your career.

“The more kids that can experience them moments, the better.”

Wharton signed for Crystal Palace from Blackburn for £18m, with add-ons taking it to £22m, on 1 February this year.

And the midfielder has gone from strength-to-strength in London under Oliver Glasner - starting the past 15 matches, picking up three assists and becoming a key part in the Frenchman's new 3-4-3 formation.

Wharton made his debut for the England Under-21 side in March after initially being called up to the England Under-20s - and he now stands on the cusp of his first senior cap.

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Blu del barrio on their star trek: discovery journey & adira's future.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Star trek: discovery just did a perfectly sneaky wrath of khan callback, star trek: discovery season 5 episode 9 ending explained.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 9 - "Lagrange Point"

Blu del Barrio shines as Ensign Adira Tal in Star Trek: Discovery , making history as the first non-binary actor in the franchise.
"Lagrange Point" sees Adira on a daring mission with Captain Burnham, showcasing their growth as a valuable USS Discovery crew member.
Blu del Barrio expresses bittersweet feelings about the show ending, emphasizing the importance of LGBTQ+ representation and Adira's impact.

Blu del Barrio has come into their own as Ensign Adira Tal in Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Del Barrio is the first non-binary actor in Star Trek , and Adira has grown into an invaluable member of the USS Discovery's crew.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 9 , "Lagrange Point" sees Adira go on a dangerous away mission with Captain Michael Burnham (Soneqa Martin-Green). Adira dresses up as a Breen and infiltrates the aliens' massive dreadnought to heist the portal to the Progenitors' ancient technology. After Adira parted ways with their love interest, Gray Tal (Ian Alexander), Star Trek: Discovery season 5 has seen Adira distinguish themselves in new ways as a Starfleet Officer.

As Burnham seeks the universe's greatest treasure in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, she'll need help from a host of new and returning characters.

Screen Rant had the pleasure of chatting with Blu del Barrio about Star Trek: Discovery coming to an end, their pride in the show's LGBTQ+ representation, what it was like to dress up as a Breen, and their hopes for Adira's future in Star Trek .

Blu del Barrio Feels Bittersweet About Star Trek: Discovery Ending

Screen Rant: It's the final season of Discovery . How do you feel about it ending? And how do you feel about your time as Adira?

Blu del Barrio: It's really bittersweet. It feels weird now because it's been so long since we actually filmed it. Like, closer to two years. So it feels very bizarre having it come out now, so long from when we filmed it. It feels very strange. And reliving all the sadness of it being over is really hard. I really hope for another future for Adira, especially because they were so young. And I think it could be cool to see them being older or in a different iteration of Trek. I think that would be really cool. And it's Star Trek, so that can happen. You never know. So yeah, it's really bittersweet. I think that they ended in a really good place. I'm very happy with Adira in season five and the journey that they got to have through it. But yeah, I think, as it would be for anybody, it's really sad.

Have you seen the ending of the finale, and the extra scenes you filmed? Are you saving it?

Blu del Barrio: I'm saving it. I have not seen them yet.

I did see it the other day, and I turned it into that meme of Matthew McConaughey crying in Interstellar. I was emotionally a mess for the rest of the day. It was beautiful.

Blu del Barrio: Oh, that makes me really happy. I'm waiting to watch the whole last episode. Yeah, I haven't seen it, so I'm waiting to watch it with everybody else.

Blu del Barrio Takes Pride In Star Trek: Discovery's LGBTQ+ Representation

The LGBTQ+ representation on Discovery is always going to be one of the show's greatest legacies. Talk to me about what it means for you to be part of this show and this cast.

Blu del Barrio: It's the thing that I'm most proud of, being a part of this cast, because, and I've said this before... and it's still very strange to me that it's true... But the representation that Ian and I provide on this show is probably the representation that would have helped me when I came out as a kid. To stay out of the closet and have people validate me and to have characters on TV that were validating my experience, because I didn't have that. And unfortunately, I didn't have anybody around me who validated my experience. So what just meant was I went back in the closet. And I know that's true for a lot of people. And not many people have someone in their immediate friends or family who is trans or non-binary or genderqueer. That's starting to change now. But definitely, when I was younger, that was not the case. So to now be able to be that representation is the thing that I'm most proud of about my time on Discovery, and the fact that I've had other people and viewers who are trans, non-binary, send me messages and talk to me at conventions. It's about how they love Adira, and Adira validated their experience, and how they feel connected in ways. And also, to have parents of trans kids reach out to me and tell me that it helped them better understand their kids and have conversations... That is the most meaningful thing about this entire process to me because that would have saved my life as a kid. And I didn't have that. And the fact that Adira can be that for people is incredibly special.

I saw you and Ian Alexander do an Instagram Live recently, so it's great you guys still hang out.

Blu del Barrio: Oh yeah, we have the same friend group. So we just are very close and he's gonna be in my life, whether he likes it or not, for a very long time.

Is Dungeons and Dragons still a thing you guys do? Do you still get together and play D&D?

Blu del Barrio: We haven't played D&D in so long, which I'm really sad about because I really, really loved playing D&D, and that was such a fun thing. But it's really hard when we're not all in the same place. We started it while we were all able to get together at the same time, even when we were on Zoom. But now we're all doing very different things and very busy. Anthony has been so busy, and it's been a lot harder to get together. But I hope that we do something in the future.

What It Was Like For Blu To Play A Breen In Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 9

Let's talk about Discovery 509. I talked to Jonathan Frakes about it, and I was blown away. It's one of my favorite episodes of the series. And it's so cool you had such a big part to play - disguised as a Breen! What was it like to wear a Breen suit?

Blu del Barrio: Oh, it was so rough! (laughs) You look so cool. It is so heavy and difficult to move around in. It's like wearing a piece of art because it is a piece of art. It took them months and months and months to actually craft these suits. And I don't even know how much they're worth, like probably priceless. We had, like, five fittings for each of us, I think, over the span of filming the season, getting ready for this. But it feels like you could not be wearing any more clothing if you tried. And you're weighed down by so much. The padding and all of the different metals around it. It's just so heavy. And you're trying to look cool, and that was really difficult. But then I realized after you watch a little bit, you can do pretty much anything except for fall down on your face and still look cool because of how the whole thing fits and how [the suit] kind of holds you. Also, it kind of restricts your movement, sort of like a corset does where you can't really lean certain ways. It felt like that. But they look so cool.

It really does. And I love all the Iron Man scenes with the close-ups of your faces.

Blu del Barrio: That was really cool. I mean, they do so many really cool shots like that on this show. I've seen so many iterations of cameras and camera lenses that I didn't think was possible or real. But yeah, the stuff they did with the helmet was so awesome. I think there were little cameras inside of our helmets, or there was something that was farther away that was also a camera. But we spent so much time doing all of that. And it was so worth it because it looks so cool.

You also have one of the best one-liners: "Everyone always picks on the Ensign."

Blu del Barrio: That's true. And I love that I got to say it. I love the whole episode. I love that it really felt like Adira's first season of [being] a real crew member to me. They've really found their footing, and especially in this mission. Just the way they were making jokes and stuff that they would never have done early on. So it just felt very solidified.

Blu de Barrio's Hopes For Adira's Star Trek Future After Discovery

If Discovery had continued and gotten a season 6, was it ever mentioned how Adira's story could have continued? Or is there something you would have liked to have seen happen with Adira?

Blu del Barrio: I don't know anything about how it was meant to progress. There was a myriad of things that I hoped for Adira. I always wanted Adira to go and to have some experience with the Mirror Universe. I always thought that would be really fun. I love the Mirror Universe, I really wanted to be a part of that. I would have loved to go back and see more of Adira’s story back on Earth. Like, before Discovery. I would have loved to learn more of the history behind that. I would have loved if they kind of followed Tilly’s direction of teaching. I think that would have been really cool. And they would be a really good teacher. Yeah, there was a bunch of stuff that was always in my head.

There is always Starfleet Academy. That seems like a no-brainer for me for Adira to come back as the grizzled Starfleet veteran.

Blu del Barrio: (laughs) Adira is so young on Discovery that I would love for them to come back in some iteration of Trek in the future. I personally would love to do it. I love this character with all of my heart, and they're very close to me. And I love Star Trek and everybody that I've worked with on this for four or five years. So I would love to come back in the future and in sort of iteration.

About Star Trek: Discovery Season 5

The fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery finds Captain Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery uncovering a mystery that will send them on an epic adventure across the galaxy to find an ancient power whose very existence has been deliberately hidden for centuries. But there are others on the hunt as well … dangerous foes who are desperate to claim the prize for themselves and will stop at nothing to get it.

Check out our other Star Trek: Discovery season 5 interviews here:

Sonequa Martin-Green
David Ajala and Doug Jones
Wilson Cruz, Mary Wiseman & Blu del Barrio
Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise
Callum Keith Rennie
Eve Harlow and Elias Toufexis
David Ajala
Mary Wiseman
Elias Toufexis
Jonathan Frakes

Star Trek: Discovery is streaming on Paramount+

Edith Wharton: A Journey

The first twenty-four hours had passed off well. He revived a little and it amused him to look out of the window and to observe the humours of the car. The second day he began to grow weary and to chafe under the dispassionate stare of the freckled child with the lump of chewing-gum. She had to explain to the child’s mother that her husband was too ill to be disturbed: a statement received by that lady with a resentment visibly supported by the maternal sentiment of the whole car….

That night he slept badly and the next morning his temperature frightened her: she was sure he was growing worse. The day passed slowly, punctuated by the small irritations of travel. Watching his tired face, she traced in its contractions every rattle and jolt of the tram, till her own body vibrated with sympathetic fatigue. She felt the others observing him too, and hovered restlessly between him and the line of interrogative eyes. The freckled child hung about him like a fly; offers of candy and picture- books failed to dislodge her: she twisted one leg around the other and watched him imperturbably. The porter, as he passed, lingered with vague proffers of help, probably inspired by philanthropic passengers swelling with the sense that “something ought to be done;” and one nervous man in a skull-cap was audibly concerned as to the possible effect on his wife’s health.

“Are you very tired?” she asked.

“No, not very.”

“We’ll be there soon now.”

“Yes, very soon.”

“This time to-morrow—”

He nodded and they sat silent. When she had put him to bed and crawled into her own berth she tried to cheer herself with the thought that in less than twenty-four hours they would be in New York. Her people would all be at the station to meet her — she pictured their round unanxious faces pressing through the crowd. She only hoped they would not tell him too loudly that he was looking splendidly and would be all right in no time: the subtler sympathies developed by long contact with suffering were making her aware of a certain coarseness of texture in the family sensibilities.

Suddenly she thought she heard him call. She parted the curtains and listened. No, it was only a man snoring at the other end of the car. His snores had a greasy sound, as though they passed through tallow. She lay down and tried to sleep… Had she not heard him move? She started up trembling… The silence frightened her more than any sound. He might not be able to make her hear — he might be calling her now… What made her think of such things? It was merely the familiar tendency of an over-tired mind to fasten itself on the most intolerable chance within the range of its forebodings…. Putting her head out, she listened; but she could not distinguish his breathing from that of the other pairs of lungs about her. She longed to get up and look at him, but she knew the impulse was a mere vent for her restlessness, and the fear of disturbing him restrained her…. The regular movement of his curtain reassured her, she knew not why; she remembered that he had wished her a cheerful good-night; and the sheer inability to endure her fears a moment longer made her put them from her with an effort of her whole sound tired body. She turned on her side and slept.

She sat up stiffly, staring out at the dawn. The train was rushing through a region of bare hillocks huddled against a lifeless sky. It looked like the first day of creation. The air of the car was close, and she pushed up her window to let in the keen wind. Then she looked at her watch: it was seven o’clock, and soon the people about her would be stirring. She slipped into her clothes, smoothed her dishevelled hair and crept to the dressing-room. When she had washed her face and adjusted her dress she felt more hopeful. It was always a struggle for her not to be cheerful in the morning. Her cheeks burned deliciously under the coarse towel and the wet hair about her temples broke into strong upward tendrils. Every inch of her was full of life and elasticity. And in ten hours they would be at home!

She bent closer, laying her hand on his arm and calling him by name. He did not move. She spoke again more loudly; she grasped his shoulder and gently shook it. He lay motionless. She caught hold of his hand again: it slipped from her limply, like a dead thing. A dead thing? … Her breath caught. She must see his face. She leaned forward, and hurriedly, shrinkingly, with a sickening reluctance of the flesh, laid her hands on his shoulders and turned him over. His head fell back; his face looked small and smooth; he gazed at her with steady eyes.

In a terrifying flash of remembrance there arose before her a scene she had once witnessed in travelling, when a husband and wife, whose child had died in the train, had been thrust out at some chance station. She saw them standing on the platform with the child’s body between them; she had never forgotten the dazed look with which they followed the receding train. And this was what would happen to her. Within the next hour she might find herself on the platform of some strange station, alone with her husband’s body…. Anything but that! It was too horrible — She quivered like a creature at bay.

As she cowered there, she felt the train moving more slowly. It was coming then — they were approaching a station! She saw again the husband and wife standing on the lonely platform; and with a violent gesture she drew down the shade to hide her husband’s face.

“Ain’t he awake yet?” he enquired.

“No,” she faltered.

“I got his milk all ready when he wants it. You know you told me to have it for him by seven.”

She nodded silently and crept into her seat.

At half-past eight the train reached Buffalo. By this time the other passengers were dressed and the berths had been folded back for the day. The porter, moving to and fro under his burden of sheets and pillows, glanced at her as he passed. At length he said: “Ain’t he going to get up? You know we’re ordered to make up the berths as early as we can.”

She turned cold with fear. They were just entering the station.

“Oh, not yet,” she stammered. “Not till he’s had his milk. Won’t you get it, please?”

“All right. Soon as we start again.”

“Will I give it to him?” he suggested.

“Oh, no,” she cried, rising. “He — he’s asleep yet, I think—”

She returned to her seat with the empty glass and after a while the porter came back to get it.

“When’ll I fold up his bed?” he asked.

“Oh, not now — not yet; he’s ill — he’s very ill. Can’t you let him stay as he is? The doctor wants him to lie down as much as possible.”

He scratched his head. “Well, if he’s really sick—”

He took the empty glass and walked away, explaining to the passengers that the party behind the curtains was too sick to get up just yet.

She found herself the centre of sympathetic eyes. A motherly woman with an intimate smile sat down beside her.

“I’m real sorry to hear your husband’s sick. I’ve had a remarkable amount of sickness in my family and maybe I could assist you. Can I take a look at him?”

“Oh, no — no, please! He mustn’t be disturbed.”

The lady accepted the rebuff indulgently.

“I — I let him sleep.”

“Too much sleep ain’t any too healthful either. Don’t you give him any medicine?”

“Don’t you wake him to take it?”

“When does he take the next dose?”

“Not for — two hours—”

The lady looked disappointed. “Well, if I was you I’d try giving it oftener. That’s what I do with my folks.”

After that many faces seemed to press upon her. The passengers were on their way to the dining-car, and she was conscious that as they passed down the aisle they glanced curiously at the closed curtains. One lantern- jawed man with prominent eyes stood still and tried to shoot his projecting glance through the division between the folds. The freckled child, returning from breakfast, waylaid the passers with a buttery clutch, saying in a loud whisper, “He’s sick;” and once the conductor came by, asking for tickets. She shrank into her corner and looked out of the window at the flying trees and houses, meaningless hieroglyphs of an endlessly unrolled papyrus.

Now and then the train stopped, and the newcomers on entering the car stared in turn at the closed curtains. More and more people seemed to pass — their faces began to blend fantastically with the images surging in her brain….

“Husband’s pretty bad this morning, is he?”

“Dear, dear! Now that’s terribly distressing, ain’t it?” An apostolic smile revealed his gold-filled teeth.

The faces about her again grew indistinct. She had a vague recollection of hearing the motherly lady and the parent of the freckled child ardently disputing the relative advantages of trying several medicines at once, or of taking each in turn; the motherly lady maintaining that the competitive system saved time; the other objecting that you couldn’t tell which remedy had effected the cure; their voices went on and on, like bell-buoys droning through a fog…. The porter came up now and then with questions that she did not understand, but that somehow she must have answered since he went away again without repeating them; every two hours the motherly lady reminded her that her husband ought to have his drops; people left the car and others replaced them…

She thought hurriedly:— “If they see I am not surprised they will suspect something. They will ask questions, and if I tell them the truth they won’t believe me — no one would believe me! It will be terrible” — and she kept repeating to herself:— “I must pretend I don’t know. I must pretend I don’t know. When they open the curtains I must go up to him quite naturally — and then I must scream.” … She had an idea that the scream would be very hard to do.

Her voice sounded very loud, and she looked about her in terror; but no one seemed to notice that she had spoken.

As she glanced down the car her eye caught the curtains of her husband’s berth, and she began to examine the monotonous arabesques woven through their heavy folds. The pattern was intricate and difficult to trace; she gazed fixedly at the curtains and as she did so the thick stuff grew transparent and through it she saw her husband’s face — his dead face. She struggled to avert her look, but her eyes refused to move and her head seemed to be held in a vice. At last, with an effort that left her weak and shaking, she turned away; but it was of no use; close in front of her, small and smooth, was her husband’s face. It seemed to be suspended in the air between her and the false braids of the woman who sat in front of her. With an uncontrollable gesture she stretched out her hand to push the face away, and suddenly she felt the touch of his smooth skin. She repressed a cry and half started from her seat. The woman with the false braids looked around, and feeling that she must justify her movement in some way she rose and lifted her travelling-bag from the opposite seat. She unlocked the bag and looked into it; but the first object her hand met was a small flask of her husband’s, thrust there at the last moment, in the haste of departure. She locked the bag and closed her eyes … his face was there again, hanging between her eye-balls and lids like a waxen mask against a red curtain….

She roused herself with a shiver. Had she fainted or slept? Hours seemed to have elapsed; but it was still broad day, and the people about her were sitting in the same attitudes as before.

A sudden sense of hunger made her aware that she had eaten nothing since morning. The thought of food filled her with disgust, but she dreaded a return of faintness, and remembering that she had some biscuits in her bag she took one out and ate it. The dry crumbs choked her, and she hastily swallowed a little brandy from her husband’s flask. The burning sensation in her throat acted as a counter-irritant, momentarily relieving the dull ache of her nerves. Then she felt a gently-stealing warmth, as though a soft air fanned her, and the swarming fears relaxed their clutch, receding through the stillness that enclosed her, a stillness soothing as the spacious quietude of a summer day. She slept.

Through her sleep she felt the impetuous rush of the train. It seemed to be life itself that was sweeping her on with headlong inexorable force — sweeping her into darkness and terror, and the awe of unknown days. — Now all at once everything was still — not a sound, not a pulsation… She was dead in her turn, and lay beside him with smooth upstaring face. How quiet it was! — and yet she heard feet coming, the feet of the men who were to carry them away… She could feel too — she felt a sudden prolonged vibration, a series of hard shocks, and then another plunge into darkness: the darkness of death this time — a black whirlwind on which they were both spinning like leaves, in wild uncoiling spirals, with millions and millions of the dead….

She sprang up in terror. Her sleep must have lasted a long time, for the winter day had paled and the lights had been lit. The car was in confusion, and as she regained her self-possession she saw that the passengers were gathering up their wraps and bags. The woman with the false braids had brought from the dressing-room a sickly ivy-plant in a bottle, and the Christian Scientist was reversing his cuffs. The porter passed down the aisle with his impartial brush. An impersonal figure with a gold-banded cap asked for her husband’s ticket. A voice shouted “Baig- gage express!” and she heard the clicking of metal as the passengers handed over their checks.

“We’d better get him up now, hadn’t we?” asked the porter, touching her arm.

He had her husband’s hat in his hand and was meditatively revolving it under his brush.

Bibliographic data

Author: Edith Wharton Title: A Journey Published in: The Greater Inclination (March 1899)

[Full text]

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A Journey Summary
Summary. Last Updated September 6, 2023. The eponymous journey in Edith Wharton's story is a trip by rail from Colorado to New York. A woman and her husband are traveling together, and the man is ...
"A Journey" Summary by Edith Wharton
"A Journey" by Edith Wharton: Plot Summary. He got some amusement looking out the window the first day but worsened on the second and slept badly. On the third day he's worse and irritated. Some people offer help, but there's nothing to do. She sits with him a while before bed. She tries to look forward to being back home in less than ...
Journey Summary & Analysis
Analysis. The narrator prepares for his trip into the city to meet officials about his land. He thinks of himself as "an old man going on a journey," though he notes that he is only 71, not really an old man. His family buttons up his coat for him and gives him money, making him feel more like an old man than he wants.
A Journey By Edith Wharton Story Analysis With Summary/Theme
SUMMARY. This short story, called " A Journey" is written by Edith Wharton. In the summary and analysis, it was written while she was still married to Edward Wharton, a man she didn't like very much. They got a divorce in 1913. "This story's trip becomes a metaphor for an unhappy marriage," says the author.
A Journey Analysis
Analysis. Last Updated September 6, 2023. The title of "A Journey" alludes to both a cross-country trip by train and the spiritual journey the protagonist experiences in the course of the ...
A Journey by Edith Wharton
In A Journey by Edith Wharton we have the theme of change, acceptance, gender roles, loyalty, independence, conflict and social opinion. Taken from her The New York Stories collection the story is narrated in the third person by an unnamed narrator and after reading the story the reader realises that Wharton may be exploring the theme of change.
A Journey Themes
Discussion of themes and motifs in Edith Wharton's A Journey. eNotes critical analyses help you gain a deeper understanding of A Journey so you can excel on your essay or test.
A Journey by Edith Wharton
Welcome to the CodeX Cantina where our mission is to get more people talking about books! Was there a theme or meaning you wanted us to talk about further? L...
A Journey by Edith Wharton
A Journey is a short story by Edith Wharton. Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive ...
Story of the Week: A Journey
The journey itself becomes a metaphor for an unhappy marriage: "Life had a grudge against her; she was never to be allowed to spread her wings." If there's an epilogue to this story, perhaps it's to be found in the increasing distance in subsequent years between Edith and Edward Wharton, leading to their inevitable divorce in 1913.
A Journey
A Journey is a short story by Edith Wharton. Edith Wharton ( born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous ...
Edith Wharton, A journey
In fact, she was a prolific writer. And so, when last week's Library of America story turned out to be one of hers, I decided to read it. "A journey" was written, according the brief introductory notes, in the 1890s when Wharton was in her late 20s to early 30s. It was written during the time when she was married - unhappily - to ...
A Journey
A Journey was published in 1889, about a woman's mixed emotions as her husband's health declines rapidly on their train ride home. "Life had a grudge against her: she was never to be allowed to spread her wings." Northern Pacific Railroad car, 1893. As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her ...
Edith Wharton: "A Journey"
Edith Wharton has a scenario for you to consider. The author: Edith Wharton (1862-1937): Born into upper-class New York society, Wharton received all the advantages that money could buy, including European travel, access to her father's library, private tutors, and presentation to society as a debutante.
A Journey Summary
A Journey Summary. "A Journey" is a short story written by Edith Wharton in 1899 as part of her collection of short stories called "The Greater Inclination.". This short story is about a wife and husband traveling from Colorado to New York. They travel in turmoil, due to the husband being very sick.
Read A Journey by Edith Wharton
A Journey. by Edith Wharton [?] As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness.
Learn English Through Story
Learn English Through Story - A Journey by Edith Wharton By: English Stories Collection channel. Story title: A JourneyAuthor: Edith Wharton Thank you for wa...
A Journey by Edith Wharton
3.70. 118 ratings20 reviews. A Journey is a short story by Edith Wharton. Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to ...
A Journey Characters
"A Journey" Characters. T he main characters in "A Journey" include the woman, the husband, and the clergyman. The woman is a former schoolteacher whose husband became ill soon after their ...
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton (/ ˈ hw ɔːr t ən /; born ... "Edith Wharton's Journey" is a radio adaptation, for the NPR series Radio Tales, of the short story "A Journey" from Edith Wharton's collection The Greater Inclination. The American singer and songwriter Suzanne Vega paid homage to Edith Wharton in her song "Edith Wharton's Figurines" on her 2007 ...
A Journey by Edith Wharton
A Journey by Edith Wharton - Summary. Written by Meirav Seifert. Edith Wharton. Image source. A female protagonist is on a train to New York at night when it's raining, watching the lights flash by in the darkness. She thinks how she and her husband, in the berth across from her, have become estranged.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Inside Out 2: Directed by Kelsey Mann. With Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Tony Hale. Follow Riley, in her teenage years, encountering new emotions.
"A Journey" by Edith Wharton
A Journey is an English Realism, Social Commentary short story by American writer Edith Wharton. It was first published in 1889. It was first published in 1889. Liked this Story?
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Inside surprise England star's meteoric rise - from school boy tournament to Euro 2024. Adam Wharton could be on the cusp of his first England senior appearance - its been quite the journey for the youngster who first played at Wembley as a school boy. Its been a whirlwind few months for Adam Wharton.
Where Chani Goes At The End Of Dune 2 & What It Means For Dune 3
Chani is betrayed by Paul after guiding him throughout the film. At the end of Dune: Part Two, Chani is betrayed by Paul's decision to marry Princess Irulan after he defeats Feyd-Rautha. Chani, played by Zendaya, is first introduced in Dune (2021) as a mysterious subject in Paul's visions. He encounters Chani and the Fremen at the end of the ...
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Blu del Barrio has come into their own as Ensign Adira Tal in Star Trek: Discovery season 5. Del Barrio is the first non-binary actor in Star Trek, and Adira has grown into an invaluable member of the USS Discovery's crew. Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 9, "Lagrange Point" sees Adira go on a dangerous away mission with Captain Michael ...
Edith Wharton: A Journey
Edith Wharton: A Journey. As she lay in her berth, staring at the shadows overhead, the rush of the wheels was in her brain, driving her deeper and deeper into circles of wakeful lucidity. The sleeping-car had sunk into its night-silence. Through the wet window-pane she watched the sudden lights, the long stretches of hurrying blackness.

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“A Journey” Summary

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Bibliographic data

Related content:

Mark Twain: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Isaac Asimov: The Ugly Little Boy

W. W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw

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