In her attempts to enhance McTeague-to raise him from the silly animal life to which he had been accustomed in his bachelor days-Trina was tactful enough to move so cautiously and with such slowness that the dentist was unconscious of any means of change. Trina saved his linen clear and mended, doing most of his washing herself, and insisting that he ought to change his flannels-thick red flannels they had been, with huge bone buttons-as soon as per week, his linen shirts twice per week, and his collars and cuffs every second day. He now not went abroad with frayed cuffs about his large purple wrists-or worse, without any cuffs at all. I assumed perhaps”-his hand went to his chin, “that you wouldn’t mind; that-in actual fact, I purchased it for you-as a current. For years I used to hold around an iPod and put headphones on every time I went into public. At occasions she passed the flat and appeared up on the windows of her residence, marked by the huge golden molar that projected, flashing, from the bay window of the “Parlors.” She noticed the open windows of the sitting-room, the Nottingham lace curtains stirring and billowing within the draft, and she caught sight of Maria Macapa’s towelled head as the Mexican maid-of-all-work went to and fro in the suite, sweeping or carrying away the ashes.
Sometimes, even, they noticed each other and waved their fingers gayly in recognition. The dentist saw himself as a venerable patriarch surrounded by kids and grandchildren. For one factor, the dentist started to costume slightly better, Trina even succeeding in inducing him to put on a excessive silk hat and a frock coat of a Sunday. The little animal comforts which for him constituted the enjoyment of life had been ministered to at each turn, or once they have been interfered with-as in the case of his Sunday afternoon’s nap and beer-some agreeable substitute was found. Next he relinquished his Sunday afternoon’s nap and beer in favor of three or four hours spent in the park along with her-the weather allowing. Americans now in favor. What they found shocked them: For months, she´d sent nude photographs and videos of herself to a man they now feared had abducted her. But that tempest of ardour, that overpowering want that had abruptly taken possession of him that day when he had given her ether, again when he had caught her in his arms within the B Street station, and again and again through the early days of their married life, hardly ever stirred him now.
Towards ten o’clock she opened the windows to air the rooms, then placed on her drab jacket, her little spherical turban with its pink wing, took the butcher’s and grocer’s books from the knife basket within the drawer of the kitchen desk, and descended to the road, where she spent a delicious hour-now in the huge market throughout the way, now within the grocer’s retailer with its fragrant aroma of coffee and spices, and now before the counters of the haberdasher’s, intent on a little bit of procuring, turning over ends of veiling, strips of elastic, or slivers of whalebone. The music retailer engaged him as handler at six dollars every week. Already by the top of that winter Trina had begun to make up the deficit of two hundred dollars that she had been forced to expend on the preparations for her marriage. It additionally could be that you’re bringing her the cheap stuff, which tends to make people really feel low-cost in a method that’s sometimes interesting and at different times humiliating. Then, too, the pair had discovered to make concessions, little by little, and all unconsciously they adapted their modes of life to swimsuit one another.
Thus his life could be for years to return. It was a season of great happiness for the McTeagues; the new life jostled itself into its grooves. No doubt, in her concern lest their nice good luck should demoralize them and lead to habits of extravagance, she had recoiled too far in the opposite direction. On the road she rubbed elbows with the good ladies of the avenue in their beautiful dresses, or at intervals she met an acquaintance or two-Miss Baker, or Heise’s lame wife, or Mrs. Ryer. Trina had always been an economical little body, however it was only since her nice profitable in the lottery that she had become especially penurious. By eleven o’clock Trina returned to the flat, her brown net reticule-once her mother’s-full of parcels. McTeague, on his half, by no means requested himself now-a-days whether he cherished Trina the spouse as a lot as he had liked Trina the younger girl. Gradually the dentist improved under the influence of his little wife. Some day, perhaps, he and his wife would have a house of their own. He would have a son, whose name could be Daniel, who would go to High school, and perhaps develop into a prosperous plumber or house painter.