In Ethan Frome, is Ethan and Mattie's one night alone more intimate than it would have been had they become lovers during Zeena's absence?.

The connection between Ethan and Mattie as it is presented
in the novel surpasses the physical. They are drawn to each other as soul mates, finding
in each other their own deepest emotions. When Mattie first expresses aloud what Ethan
has always felt silently, he believes "that words had at last been found to utter his
secret soul." The evening they spend together while Zeena is away emphasizes this bond
between them; the scene as Wharton writes it creates an emotional intimacy that is more
profound than a momentary sexual union, although the strong physical attraction between
them is evident in their every gesture.

After Zeena has
left, Ethan hurries through the day's work in the village so that he can return home to
Mattie. He imagines their evening together:

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For the first time they would be alone together
indoors, and they would sit there, one on each side of the stove, like a married couple,
he in his stocking feet and smoking his pipe, she laughing and talking in that funny way
she had, which was always as new to him as if he had never heard her
before.

It is significant
that Ethan does not dream of his time alone with Mattie in sexual terms; instead it is
the emotional intimacy of marriage that warms him. The "sweetness of the picture" in
Ethan's mind sends his spirits soaring "with a rush."

The
subsequent scene that Wharton creates between Ethan and Mattie is one of domestic
sharing. They have supper together at a nicely laid table; a fire burns brightly in the
stove with the cat drowsing before its warmth. Ethan is "suffocated with the sense of
well being."

After supper, they sit together as Ethan had
imagined, he smoking his pipe and Mattie doing her sewing. Temporary awkwardness soon
disappears between them as they talk "easily and simply" of everyday subjects. This
communication between Ethan and Mattie emphasizes the heart of their
relationship:

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The commonplace nature of what they said produced
in Ethan an illusion of long-established intimacy which no outburst of emotion could
have given . . . .

The love
between Ethan and Mattie flows between them like an electric current as the night wears
on, but it remains unexpressed, except in hands that reach toward each other but do not
meet and in Ethan's lips kissing not Mattie but a bit of the cloth she sews. There is no
physical contact between Ethan and Mattie during their evening together, but their
emotional intimacy creates a spiritual union between them that is much deeper, even
though, as Ethan later realizes "he had not even touched her
hand."