Ethan Frome: Chapter 4 Summary & Analysis

Ethan looks forward to an evening alone with Mattie, and recalls how warm and inviting the kitchen was in the days when his mother was alive. He remembers that his mother had been a "talker," until her illness, when she fell silent and began to hear voices. When Zenobia Pierce, his cousin, came to help nurse his mother, Ethan was grateful for the company and conversation, and when his mother died, rather than being alone again he asked Zeena to marry him.

When they married, Zeena and Ethan agreed that they would sell the farm and saw-mill and move to a larger town, where Ethan would become an engineer. But no one wanted to buy the farm, and as they waited for a year Zeena developed her "sickliness," making any move to a larger town impossible, though Ethan suspects Zeena's illness may be imagined or faked.

After a while, Zeena had stopped talking almost entirely, except to complain. Ethan wonders if Zeena is going crazy like his mother (and many other women who lived on isolated farms). But at other times he wonders if maybe she is deliberately holding her tongue and plotting revenge.

Not wanting to be caught in the lie he has told to Zeena, Ethan goes to Andrew Hale with his load of lumber and asks for an advance payment, even though he knows Hale never pays sooner than three months after delivery. Hale refuses politely, explaining he needs the money for his son's upcoming wedding to Ruth Varnum. Ethan's pride keeps him from pursuing the matter, and he leaves without the money.

In the village Ethan is passed by Denis Eady in his father's cutter (a fancy sled for the time). Ethan's heart sinks as he imagines that Denis is on his way to the farm to meet Mattie. Retrieving his horses from Andrew Hale's stable, he surprises Ned Hale and Ruth Varnum secretly kissing at the top of the hill where he and Mattie paused the night before—the couple, startled, quickly part.

On the way home, Ethan passes the Frome graveyard again and sees the headstone of his namesake, another Ethan Frome, and his wife, named Endurance. The inscription on their headstone reads: "Dwelled Together in Peace for Fifty Years." He wonders if his own headstone with Zeena will bear the same words.

The farmhouse door is locked—then Mattie opens the door, silhouetted in lamplight as Zeena had been the night before. She has run a crimson ribbon through her hair. The table is carefully laid for supper, with Ethan's favorite pickles in a red glass pickle -dish. The room is warm and bright, and Zeena's cat lies contentedly by the fire. Ethan jealously asks if Mattie has had any visitors. She teases him by describing how she entertained Jotham Powell over a cup of coffee.

As Ethan and Mattie sit down at the table, Zeena's cat jumps between them onto Zeena's chair. Conversation is strained as they feel that somehow Zeena is in the room with them. The cat goes after the milk and as Ethan and Mattie's hands meet on the handle of the milk-jug the cat knocks over the pickle-dish, shattering it.

Mattie is distraught. The pickle-dish was one of Zeena's most prized wedding gifts. In fact, Zeena prizes it so highly that she never ever uses it. Ethan consoles Mattie by replacing the broken fragments on the top shelf of the china-closet, saying that if he cannot replace it he will glue it together the next day. Mattie is reassured, and they return to supper.