When Stephen first went to New York, he consulted several real-estate agents, and listened to many confusing arguments, about the desirability of this suburb over that, its commuting advantages, its unexcelled schools, its unusually “nice” set of young people. Stephen fully expected that Stella would join him in the spring in some suburb or other best suited to her peculiar susceptibilities. Or if not in the spring, in the summer. It would be unwise, he concluded, to take Laurel out of school until the end of the year. Laurel had just started in at Miss Fillibrown’s in Milhampton, an excellent school for little girls. Stephen had no idea of leaving Stella permanently when he first went to New York.

But until he went to New York, Stephen had no idea what release from Stella would mean to him. He had no idea what possibilities for success, what resources for enjoyment, had been growing in the dark within him, unencouraged, all these years. He went out among people very little the first winter, but he was able to devote himself to work as never before. When he did seek recreation, the freedom to follow whatever whim or fancy his nature dictated was actually exhilarating.

Between October, when he first went to New York, and the New Year, Stephen spent three Sundays with Stella. Each one was an ordeal to him, and each one a more difficult ordeal than the one before. The long period of absence tended to make him more sensitive to Stella’s offenses, he supposed. It seemed to him as if she almost delighted in doing the sort of things he disliked over those week-ends; indulging in all the striking slang of the day; indulging in all the striking styles of the day (she knew how he disliked her in conspicuous clothes); carrying on long giggling conversations over the telephone with “one of the girls,” gossiping, tale-bearing; carrying on long giggling flirtations over the telephone with one of her male admirers, going through a series of smiles and smirks, shrugs and arch expressions, as if the man himself were present to see her, ignoring Stephen behind his book at the other end of the room as if he were a plant or piece of furniture; dashing off for her riding-lesson at ten o’clock Sunday morning with Alfred Munn, while Stephen read the paper or went to church or took a walk by himself. Going back on the train after his third week-end with Stella, Stephen asked himself why he persisted in these self-inflicted periods of torture.