And—she did the cooking. I think I have already said that she had not learned to cook. How she and her mother expected her to get along as a poor clerk’s wife I can’t imagine. The worst of it was, she believed she could cook. That is the way with women. They look down on housekeeping, on the practical side of life, as too coarse and low to be worthy their attention. They say all that sort of thing is easy, is like the toil of a day laborer. They say anybody could do it. And they really believe so. Men, no matter how high their position, weary and bore themselves every day, because they must, with routine tasks beside which dishwashing has charm and variety. Yet women shirk their proper and necessary share of life’s burden, pretending that it is beneath them.
Edna, typical woman, thought she could cook and keep house because she, so superior, could certainly do inferior work if she chose. But after that first brief spurt of enthusiasm, of daily conference with the “Lady Book’s Complete Housekeeper’s Guide,” the flat was badly kept—was really horribly kept—was worse than either her home or mine before we had been living there many months. It took on much the same odor. It looked worse, as tawdry finery, when mussy and dirty, is more repulsive than a plain toilet gone back. I did not especially mind that. But her cooking— I had not been accustomed to anything especially good in the way of cooking. Mother was the old-fashioned fryer, and you know those fryers always served the vegetables soggy. I could have eaten exceedingly poor stuff without complaining or feeling like complaining. But the stuff she was soon flinging angrily upon the slovenly table I could not eat. She ate it, enough of it to keep alive, and it didn’t seem to do her any harm. How many women have you known who were judges of things to eat? Do you understand how women continue to eat the messes they put into their pretty mouths, and keep alive?
I could not eat Edna’s cooking. I ate bread, cold meats and the like from the delicatessen shop. When the meal happened to be of her own preparing I dropped into the habit of slipping away after a pretense at eating, to get breakfast or dinner or supper in a restaurant—the cheapest kind of restaurant, but I ate there with relish. And never once did I murmur to Edna. I loved her too well; also, I am by nature a tolerant, even-tempered person, hating strife, avoiding the harsh word. In fact, my timidity in that respect has been my chief weakness, has cost me dear again and again. But——
After ten months of married life Edna fell ill. All you married men will prick up your ears at that. Why is it that bread winners somehow contrive to keep on their feet most of the time, little though they know as to caring for their health, reckless though they are in eating and drinking? Why is it that married women—unless they have to work—spend so much time in sick bed or near it? They say we in America have more than nine times as many doctors proportionately to population as any other country. The doctors live off of our women—our idle, overeating, lazy women who will not work, who will not walk, who are always getting something the matter with them. Of course the doctors—parasites upon parasites—fake up all kinds of lies, many of them malicious slanders against the husbands, to excuse their patients and to keep them patients. But what is the truth?
Edna, who read all the time she was not plotting to get acquainted with our neighbors—they looked down upon us and wished to have nothing to do with us—Edna who ate quantities of candy between meals and ate at meals rich things she bought of confectioners and bakers—Edna fell ill and frightened me almost out of my senses. I understand it now. But I did not understand then. I believed, as do all ignorant people—both the obviously ignorant and the ignorant who pass for enlightened—I believed sickness to be a mysterious accident, like earthquakes and lightning strokes, a hit-or-miss blow from nowhere in particular. So I was all sympathy and terror.
She got well. She looked as well as ever. But she said she was not strong. “And Godfrey, we simply have got to keep a girl. I’ve borne up bravely. But I can’t stand it any longer. You see for yourself, the rough work and the strain of housekeeping are too much for me.”
“Very well,” said I. The bills, including the doctor’s and drug bills, were piling up. We were more than a thousand dollars in debt. But I said: “Very well. You are right.” We men do not realize that there are two distinct and equal expressions of strength. The strength of bulk, that is often deceptive in that it looks stronger than it is; the strength of fiber, that is always deceptive in that it is stronger than it looks. In a general way, man has the strength of bulk, woman the strength of fiber. So man looks on woman’s appearance of fragility and fancies her weak and himself the stronger. I looked at Edna, and said: “Very well. We must have a girl to help.”
I shan’t linger upon this part of my story. I am tempted to linger, but, after all, it is the commonplace of American life, familiar to all, though understood apparently by only a few. Why do more than ninety per cent of our small business men fail? Why are the savings banks accounts of our working classes a mere fraction of those of the working classes of other countries? And so on, and so on. But I see your impatience, gentle reader, with these matters so “inartistic.” We sank deeper and deeper in debt. Edna’s health did not improve. The girl we hired had lived with better class people; she despised us, shirked her work, and Edna did not know how to manage her. If the head of the household is incompetent and indifferent, a servant only aggravates the mess, and the more servants the greater the mess. All Edna’s interest was for her music, her novels, her social advancement, and her dreams of being a grand lady. These dreams had returned with increased power; they took complete possession of her. They soured her disposition, made her irritable, usually blue or cross, only at long intervals loving and sweet. No, perhaps the dreams were not responsible. Perhaps—probably—the real cause was the upset state of her health through the absurd idle life she led. Idle and lonely. For she would not go with whom she could, she could not go with whom she would.
“I’m sick of sitting alone,” said she. “No wonder I can’t get well.”
“Let’s go back near the old folks,” suggested I. “Our friends won’t come to see us in this part of the town. They feel uncomfortable.”