WHAT WOULD WAKEFIELD’S WIFE D0?

WHAT WOULD WAKEFIELD’S WIFE DO? I posted several times about E.L. Doctorow’s “Wakefield”, which is a retelling of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s great story “Wakefield.” In each story, a man named Wakefield decides on the spur of the moment to leave his wife, lives near her for an extended period of time, and then returns home. I have recently read O. Henry’s story, “The Thing’s the Play”, which is also involves a man who leaves his wife for a long period of time, although the husband’s circumstances are very different from those of either Wakefield. Both stories about Wakefield consider only the husband’s point of view. O. Henry considered what a wife would do in these circumstances. This is his conclusion: “A husband who steps around the corner for twenty years and then drops in again should not expect to find his slippers laid out too conveniently near nor a match ready lighted for his cigar. There must be expiation, explanation, and possibly execration. A little purgatory, and then, maybe, if he were properly humble, he might be trusted with a harp and crown.”