The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Mr Willard drove me up to the Adirondacks.
It was the day after Christmas and a grey sky bellied over us, fat with snow. I felt overstuffed and dull and disappointed, the way I always do the day after Christmas, as if whatever it was the pine boughs and the candles and the silver and the gilt-ribboned presents and the birch-log fires and the Christmas turkey and the carols at the piano promised never came to pass.
At Christmas I almost wished I was a Catholic.
First Mr Willard drove and then I drove. I don't know what we talked about, but as the countryside, already deep under old falls of snow, turned us a bleaker shoulder, and as the fir trees crowded down from the grey hills to the road edge, so darkly green they looked black, I grew gloomier and gloomier.
I was tempted to tell Mr Willard to go ahead alone, I would hitch-hike home.
But one glance at Mr Willard's face - the silver hair in its boyish crewcut, the clear eyes, the pink cheeks, all frosted like a sweet wedding cake with the innocent, trusting expression - and I knew I couldn't do it. I'd have to see the visit through to the end.
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