Year 1906
Troubles at Home
The everlasting and continuous illness of Lena made David fretful, especially whenever she got one of her bad spells. But she kept puttering around as much as she could in the house. She looked pale and felt tired and at times was forced to give up and take to bed.
David murmured that he couldn’t comprehend the medical terms of virus nor of bacillus. The invasion of germs meant little to him. Nevertheless results in her case were dire. But the stomach had been a mean affair, which kept one flat. The doctor explained to David its action from his book learning. David felt upset by hearing of such queer things. That’s what was the matter with those doctors all the time.
It’s rather paradoxical that David, “the scribbler,” should seem to put down “book learning” even though it’s in the service of curing his wife! His attitude seems to be that his own home wisdom is the absolute, even in areas he knows nothing about.
Something heavy seemed to be heaving upwards within him from his stomach to his heart. David said it was all nonsense. Headache comes mostly from overeating. David’s face darkened with disappointment as if the earth had begun to wobble from its orbit and he stared into vacancy. “Yes!” David said. “What we need most is a good ‘liver laundry.’ A laundry with a soul if possible.”
David always scoffed at the illnesses of other people. “Poppycock!” he used to say. “Just get sickness on their minds with their imagination.”
A grim thought turned into a grimmer question. The whole world seemed a vacancy to David. He stretched his legs with his hands in his trouser pockets and set with his chin sunk on his breast and a scowl on his face, which was half sheepish and half truculent. Uncontrollable anguish gripped David’s body and made him gasp and writhe, and the agony filled him with a desperate desire to escape at any cost.
The doctor advised Lena to take a course of sulphur baths . It was in the spring of 1907 that Lena went to Mount Clemens, Michigan, for a four-weeks’ stay. She came home quite improved and feeling much better. But she was much upset in her demeanor, having met there at the hotel and in the bath house Eastern wealthy women, stout double-chinned matrons dressed in silks and satins, with heavy golden rope chains about their short necks, with medallions resting on their large breastworks, diamond earrings dangling from their ears, many sparkling rings on their fingers. Women who were spending their leisure time in gossiping and card playing.
Such sights had put a bug in Lena’s ear and her mind revolted. She began craving for the things the other women had. Of course she couldn’t be blamed, as it is natural for most women to be envious of things other women have.
Lena became very discontented with herself. The end of such cynical philosophy, which in reality is no sense whatever, but rather an erosion of jealousy and bad temper, was an ugly spirit which had quickly developed a feeling of discontent for quite a while in their home life.
I can’t follow this. Is he being self-critical about himself? Or is he citing himself approvingly?
Lena became angry and very unruly, not knowing what was the matter with her. Everything seemed to cross her way since she came home from Mount Clemens. She began grumbling, “Why can’t I have the same things which other women have?” forgetting her past long struggle with sickness and the cost of doctors and medicine for so many years. David’s voice seemed to run out of power as overwhelming self-consciousness possessed him and he didn’t know how to get rid of it.
Lena was a stoutly built person whose vision did not extend beyond her immediate needs. She was able to agitate herself for hours. The doctor blamed her ills to her liver. It was appendicitis before. Next it was her gall bladder. Then colitis; later stomach ulcers. If that didn’t help then the doctor came back on the job with all cylinders to clean of carbon and he listened to the purring of the torpid liver and the heart.
The doctor explained that the cause was in a sense of depression. The stomach interference caused irritation and sleeplessness, and disturbed indigestion meant that careful dieting would be the only remedy.
I’ll bet Lena came home much improved after four weeks’ stay! Again, I cannot help but marvel at David’s incapacity to imagine his wife’s existence: living in emotional isolation with a mute husband, caring single-handedly for their four children, gaining recognition for her housework and little more.
And men are not envious? This is a trope “from the ages” I think, about women and money and clothes and jewelry. How does it fit into our picture of David re: women? Was he progressive at all regarding Lena? I think that his voice when he talked about his mother Leah was very supportive of her and critical of how her father was treating her.
Does David mean “to clean all Lena’s cylinders of carbon”? Strange image, I must say, let alone syntax.
These recurring nuggets of sexism really jump out as gratuitous editorializing, but are certainly useful in illuminating David’s world view!
David’s face was an open book of agony, the sort of pain that quivers, and raw suffering and torture, yet ready to snap in two if touched. His tone was grave and reflective, the tone of a man who makes a revelation for which he hopes to find sympathy. He kept his gaze fixed in the opposite direction with a serious stare. Her jaw dropped and momentarily she was speechless and unaffected.
“Yes,” he mused. “It so often happens that when we feel the strongest, a mustard seed of reason dropped by one who differs will crop up after many days of pallid bitterness. Such seed has been dropped by some unknown friend.”
One evening Lena stared into the mirror at her reflection and perceived her face was set and quite calm. Suddenly she said, “Oh heck—”
Men are above envy, apparently. Pride, however, must be permissible; David has no compunction about describing his fine new home.
Why is David in agony? Does he have his own medical problems or is he angry with Lena because he distrusts her illnesses or resents her legitimate illnesses?
The mustard seed paragraph — I’m not sure how or if this relates to the various biblical parables — seems to mean that David thinks he is proven right in thinking that overeating is Lena’s problem.
“Comfortably plumpish and matronly lady”: Is that a compliment? Fascinating to see that Lena is WORKING in the store and the family is living BEHIND the store. This would be a definite class marker for the entire family. Oh, now he is getting insulting about her body and even retroactively negative: “never conscious of being young.” He likes her domestic practices, but that seems to be about all he likes.
Cooking seems to be one area where Lena felt respected and was rewarded with something like love — from Belle’s friends and Abe Calmenson, anyway. Even David complimented her cooking. Lena could, in a sense, express herself through culinary art.
“The maid” is an interesting choice of terms! After the preceding paragraphs, he hasn’t conjured up an image of a young, robust maid, but a “fat and forty” maidservant.
Lena at 40 was a comfortably plumpish and matronly lady and felt proud of it. When she felt good she was a machine and automaton that went through the same actions daily. She stood passively in the store, her head a great mushroom of cinnamon hair. Her broad shoulders and short arms dropped forward. She looked like a woman “fat and forty,” one who accepts middle age without protest because she was never conscious of being young.
When she felt well her life seemed to vary but little at the same hour each day. She was a glutton for work. Cooking and baking were her delight. No morning too early, nor night too late to feed the crowd. Whenever she planned to give a party her silver was always polished to a gleaming brightness. Her kitchen pantry was always full. Through the kitchen door a fresh, warm and delicious smell of frying pancakes mingled with the aroma of good coffee. The maid beating eggs, preparing gefilte fish. Capable arms rolling out dough for piecrusts; beautiful crisply gold brown loaves of bread that were so tasty.
“Comfortably plumpish and matronly lady”: Is that a compliment? Fascinating to see that Lena is WORKING in the store and the family is living BEHIND the store. This would be a definite class marker for the entire family. Oh, now he is getting insulting about her body and even retroactively negative: “never conscious of being young.” He likes her domestic practices, but that seems to be about all he likes.
Cooking seems to be one area where Lena felt respected and was rewarded with something like love — from Belle’s friends and Abe Calmenson, anyway. Even David complimented her cooking. Lena could, in a sense, express herself through culinary art.
“The maid” is an interesting choice of terms! After the preceding paragraphs, he hasn’t conjured up an image of a young, robust maid, but a “fat and forty” maidservant.
Little Mose was a lovely child to the eye. He had beautiful blond hair like that of a child painted by a sentimental master. Mose, in his red double-breasted coat with golden buttons and a red cap to match, and his golden hair, with his little song which his sister Belle taught him, was Lena’s showpiece. She surely felt proud of her youngster. He would run like a squirrel upon a tree. Lena made as much of him as if he was a rarity, petting him constantly before taking him in her arms. He was all pleasure to her.
On May 28, 1909, while Mose was playing sailor on a plank in a nearby creek, he fell in. It was his pal Jimmy Seeger who pulled him out from water four feet deep and saved him from drowning and brought him into the house. Lena was all excited over her darling baby. She was shocked seeking him all wet and scared. It was the first time in his life that he was so frightened but he didn’t know why. It just had to happen. He was thrilled in his childish way.
But all Lena said was that she was sorry he was too late for dinner. She was not angry with him. She soothed him. “Just be quiet. Don’t cry.”
Mose is only four or five years old here.
What was the matter with her? Does he believe that she was really sick, or is he complaining that she was neurotic?