Ticknor is thinking about Prescott's wife...

*

I have always wanted to reach out and grab her, though I never felt she and I had very much in common. Once when we were younger and Prescott was ill and put up in his bed for a week, he was so foul-mouthed that she was afraid of him whenever he called out to her – though, to forgive him, it was a time of much discomfort and anxiety, and I am not surprised that it was so upsetting, what with his terror of not being able to see and never being able to continue his labours – but he called out to her as though she was merely a helpmate and his own life was ruined. It was at the end of that week after she had been absolutely battered by his calling out and demands that she do all things for him, having fired the help in a fit, that I visited. Prescott wouldn’t see me, ill as he was, but he insisted that I stay and instructed Claire to feed me my dinner downstairs, in the kitchen, and that I was not to worry about being a burden for Claire who had to make dinner anyway. Claire did not say a word and I feared she was annoyed, but then she was famous for her patience with all of Prescott’s friends, and only once in the intervening years did I hear a rumour of her rudely addressing any man, when, at a literary dinner, Prescott went up to receive an award and his executor made a grand gesture from the audience to not forget Claire in his speech, offending Claire deeply. But aside from that one time she was ever aiding in counsel, reviving in troubles, and concealing of nothing but her own sorrow, unless one acknowledges the perpetual grimace which, it seems likely, she lost in the privacy of her bedroom with Prescott, and there is surely no limit to Prescott’s endless demands there.

I sat politely at the counter as she was turned away, continuing to cook at the stove while I sat watching and trying not to watch. But at the time the marriage was not yet old and still I marvelled at my oldest friend’s good American wife, so modest and confiding, and economical with the house, and how Prescott had found himself one who would give herself when only a few years back he had been the darling of his father’s family. I dared not address her as I sat there, trying not to stir. She continued to cook while I waited, watching, occupied only with her wild rump, which was like a whole other being entirely, a lovely creature stuck to her legs. There were only the sounds of Claire’s pots, the bubbling on the stove, and the sight of her rippling behind, while I remained there politely. I would not have attempted anything on her. She was not one of those flaunting, giggling, squandering, peevish, fashion-hunting wives, and never once had Claire taken more than a dutiful interest in me, allowing her hand to be kissed or grasped but no more, and the fact of her making dinner for me was only a way of appeasing Prescott. There was not a hint of anything but resoluteness in it all. I knew this yet I did not know it entirely, for when she turned to approach with my potatoes and meat, she flushed as suddenly as a nun upon seeing my grinning face, then hurried past me without looking back up, up the stairs to her patient, my dinner still in her hand. I sat there in terror, unable to move, unsure of what I’d done, while she was a long time in returning. It is bad merchandise in any department of trade, Prescott advised his friends on his wedding day, to pay a premium for other men’s opinions. In matrimony, the man who selects a wife for the applause or wonder of his neighbours is in a fair way towards domestic bankruptcy. But at that time Claire was still a little beautiful and had not yet lost her figure, though she had long outgrown her coquettishness as a fiancée. Still, cooking for me that night, and as the minutes passed, I began to feel that, though turned away, she had some sense of the pleasure I was taking in watching her, and was aware, as I was, of how it was the first time in all the years of her marriage to Prescott that she and I had been alone together, now in the gently warming kitchen, and keeping herself turned so I could see her backside shift back and forth beneath her dress, I grew so moved at her acquiescence that tears came into my eyes, and come into my eyes today, just thinking of it. No woman has ever accommodated me so, and ashamed as I felt, burning all over, I was at that moment proud of nothing so much in America as our good American wives.