Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton

h Wharton

      Ethan Frome

      ETHAN FROME

      In the early years of the 20th century, life on a farm in Massachusetts is not easy. The New England winters are hard; snow and ice cover the fields for months, and the nights are long and cold. For a poor farmer like Ethan Frome, life has few bright moments.

      Ethan is a slow, quiet man, but he feels things strongly. He feels the beauty of the world around him – stars shining in a moonless sky, the blue shadows of trees on sunlit snow. He feels the sad loneliness of his life, locked in a loveless marriage to Zeena, a cold, silent woman, whose only interest is her own ill health. Then Zeena’s cousin, Mattie Silver, comes to live in the farmhouse, and as the months pass, Ethan feels a new happiness stealing into his life. He loves to watch Mattie’s face across the dinner table, to see her sweet smile and hear her soft voice, to walk arm in arm with her across the snowy fields.

      His wife Zeena says very little, but her cold, watchful eyes see everything …

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis simplified edition ©Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19972 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479115 1A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of Ethan Frome is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479297 4 Illustrated by: Paul Fisher JohnsonWord count (main text): 10,700 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookwormse-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478670 6e-Book first published 2012

      1

      Beginnings

      If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post office there. If you know the post office, you have probably seen Ethan Frome driving up to it in his buggy; and you have probably wondered who he was.

      It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time. He was a noticeable figure. His tall, strong body was badly twisted, and much shorter on the right side than on the left. He moved slowly and painfully, pulling himself along. Just the few steps from his buggy to the post office were clearly difficult for him. His face had a sad, grim look. It was the face and body of an old man, and I was surprised to hear that he was only fifty-two.

      I learnt this from Harmon Gow, a man who knew all the families around Starkfield.

      ‘He’s been like that since his bad accident, nearly twenty-four years ago,’ said Harmon. ‘But Fromes don’t die young. Ethan’ll live to a hundred, probably.’