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----