Cudgels are out of date. Were he an alderman, I might take a Woman’s Club to him, but a husband has been known to laugh this instrument to scorn.
But supposing he sat down. What then? He might be a gentleman of irascible, nasty temper, and in walking about my room, I might step on his feet. These irritable folk have such large feet, at least they are always in the way, and always being stepped on no matter how careful one tries to be.
I decline to contemplate the scene.
Plainly I am better off single.
I walk to my front window, and stretch my arms above my head. There is a light fall of snow upon the ground. This late snow is trying: in its season, it is beautiful; but out of season, it breeds a cheerlessness that emphasises one’s loneliness. I look out through the leafless trees toward the lake, but it is hidden by the whirling, eddying snowflakes. I see Mr. Thrush hurrying home to his little nest.
“Yes,” I say to myself, repeating my last thought with a certain obstinacy, “yes, I am better off without a husband, and yet I wish I had one—one would answer, on a pinch—one at a time, at least. A husband is like a world in that respect; one at a time, is the proper proportion.”
“It’s far better to have none, unless you learn to cook him.” These words recurred to me, just as I was on the point of taking a life partner, in a figurative sense.
The woman that deliberates is lost; consequently, as it won’t do to think the matter over, I plunge in.
My spouse is now pacing up and down the room in a rampant manner, complaining of his dinner, the world in general, and me in particular.