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East of Eden
Mountaineers · 10th–12th
Kate has always seen straight through Joe, yet his lie about Ethel works on her completely. Why does it work this time?
The tension In the morning Kate is rested, “ten years younger,” sure she is “delicate like a steel trap” and planning New York; minutes later Joe’s invented report jolts her “out of control,” and he watches “the apprehension, and then the almost hopeless fear and weariness.”
Kate and Joe, each sure of the other’s weakness, and the breakfast at which the stronger of the two is caught.
The chapter has four numbered sections. The first gives Joe Valery’s history: hatreds built from a neglectful mother and a father who beat him, a protective love for himself, and seven rules, among them “When they make a slip, grab on to it and wait.” He looked for Kate’s weaknesses, found none, and came to serve her out of fear; he believes she makes no mistakes. In the second, Kate lies awake with arthritis. She goes over Faye, whom she killed, and finds no feeling, but Ethel, whom she had framed and run out of the county, brings fear: her own mind tells her that floating Ethel was a mistake. She decides to send Joe to find her. Her hands and her mind growing crooked, she relies on Joe more, trusting him because her files show he is Joseph Venuta, who walked away from a San Quentin road gang. At breakfast she offers him five hundred dollars to find Ethel and bring back only the address, and asks whether Ethel did anything peculiar in court. Joe remembers Ethel asking to see the judge alone, hides it, and invents a story about relatives in San Luis Obispo. Kate ends by asking whether the name Venuta means anything to him. In the third, Joe rides to Monterey instead of Watsonville and drinks alone in a hotel. He reasons that Ethel knows something Kate fears and wonders whether it could be worth the risk of prison. He throws a pen to scare a woman across the air shaft, then weeps for himself until he sleeps. In Watsonville a friend sends him to Santa Cruz, where Hal Mahler tells him over a late steak that Ethel has been found dead; the narrator says the waves had left her half buried in the sand. Hal guesses at a sardine crew. Joe pays him and does not ask to see. The next morning Joe argues with his own caution and decides to play it close. In the fourth, Kate has slept well on a new medicine. She studies her face in a hand mirror, thinks of Aron and of selling out and going to New York, and imagines killing Ethel with sweets as a joke. Joe brings breakfast. He says he traced Ethel to Watsonville, Santa Cruz and San Luis, and that a man named Joe heard her say she was coming back to Salinas to lay low. Kate is startled out of control, then tells him to forget Ethel and says he will get his five hundred. At the door she asks, too casually, to hear anything more. Joe goes to his room pleased with his new weapon. Kate locks herself in the gray room and sits with her eyes closed.
Read the chapter yourself before the lesson. A few things it takes for granted. Kate is Cathy, Adam Trask’s wife, who left him and their newborn twins and now runs a brothel in Salinas; she came to own it after the death of Faye, its old owner, and in this chapter she says plainly to herself that she killed her. Ethel was one of Faye’s girls. In an earlier chapter she came to Kate with a threat; Kate had her framed, over an even hundred dollars, and “floated”: run over the county line. This chapter never says what Ethel saw or what “the glass” is, and the talk should not supply it. Mr. Edwards is a man from Kate’s past, and Charles is Adam’s brother. Aron and Cal are Kate’s twin sons. Kate has seen Aron in church, carrying the cross in a white surplice, a robe worn over the cassock. “Cal had beaten her” refers to an earlier visit in which Cal faced her down. Tantalus, from Greek myth, stood in water that drew back whenever he bent to drink; the water carried in a sieve belongs to another punishment, so Kate half-remembers. The language is the brothel’s and the poolroom’s: hick (a farmer), steer (bring in customers), a stud game (poker), “the clap” (a venereal disease Kate thinks of giving Cal), a physic (a laxative), and slurs for immigrants. Whoever reads aloud should know they are coming. Keep the outcome out. The chapter does not settle how Ethel died. It does not say what Joe will do with what he knows; he has a “weapon” and no plan. It does not show that Kate loves Aron in any plain sense, and it ends with her in the gray room, eyes closed. A teacher who has read on knows more; keep it out of the talk. Slow down three times: Kate’s night, from “Kate wondered where Ethel was” to “That made her hard to handle”; Joe’s morning argument, from “His caution said to him” to the end of the third section; and the second breakfast, from “Joe went into it warily” to the end.
Retell The student tells the chapter back, from Joe’s rules to the gray room. Look for the four sections in order: Joe’s history, rules and fear of Kate; Kate’s sleepless night over Faye and Ethel, the first breakfast, the five hundred dollars and the name Venuta; Joe in Monterey, the pen and the tears, the search, Hal’s news and the argument with his caution; Kate’s rested morning, the mirror and Aron, Joe’s story, her start, and the locked room. Look for nothing added about how Ethel died, what the glass is, or what Joe will do. Then ask which sentence the student thinks turns the chapter.
Imitate the author After copying, the student writes two short passages in the manner of these, about someone who leans more and more on a person they do not trust. The first is four sentences: one that pairs a change in the body and the mind with a single word and then gives three titles for the helper, each opened by the same two words and each darker than the last; one built on “not that” and “but that” with three verbs in a row; one that pairs two slow changes in matching phrases; and one general claim with the same two words near its start and again at its end. The second is four sentences of the person’s own thinking: a question to themselves, a two-word answer, a short sentence about the outside, and a longer one about the inside that breaks off into a question they cannot answer. Read both aloud beside Steinbeck’s.
Debate Take sides on the second written question. One side argues Joe would be right to laugh. It gathers “the almost hopeless fear and weariness”, Kate’s “We’ll forget the old fart,” the “elaborate casualness” at the door, and the locked gray room set against the morning’s “delicate like a steel trap.” The other side argues he would be wrong. It gathers Kate’s “Don’t think. Just tell. I’ll think,” the Venuta file she still holds, Joe’s not knowing “what his weapon was”, and the long nights in which Kate thinks everything through. Each side must answer the other’s strongest piece. Neither may say what becomes of Kate.
Purpose Close on the chapter’s design. Its four sections pass between Joe and Kate: Joe’s rules, Kate’s night, Joe’s night, Kate’s morning. The method that runs Kate’s house, finding the weak place and waiting, comes back to her through the man she keeps for it. The chapter ends on Kate, but through what Joe does not know. Ask why Steinbeck closes there rather than in the room with her. Name the habit it practises: reading a character’s method and testing it against what happens to that character.
Easier Read aloud together Kate’s night from “Kate wondered where Ethel was” to “That made her hard to handle”, and the second breakfast from “Joe went into it warily” to the end. Talk through the first, fifth and sixth discussion questions, then answer the last written question aloud before writing it.
On level Talk through all six discussion questions in order, then write the three written questions as a thesis, the strongest objection and a revised thesis, each with lines from the chapter.
Harder Ask for one argued essay on what the chapter suggests about people who live by reading others’ weakness. Set Joe’s rules beside Kate’s judgment that a man who “thought he was clever” is “the kind easiest to handle”, and use her fear of the girls’ hysteria in the first copywork passage, the Venuta file, Joe’s night in Monterey and the second breakfast. Meet the strongest objection: Kate is caught by her own fear as much as by Joe, so the essay must say how much of the work is his and how much is hers, from this chapter alone.
1. In the night, Kate’s own mind asks her, “Isn’t it because you made a mistake?” Which frightens her more, Ethel or the mistake?Character
What it asks It asks the student to stand inside Kate’s sleepless night and weigh two fears. When the arthritis keeps her awake, she goes over Faye “like a measuring worm” and finds “she had no feeling about Faye”, the woman she killed. Ethel is different: she “always brought a shrinking fear with her”. Kate calls her names, and then her own mind stops her: “Why is she a lousy old bag? Isn’t it because you made a mistake? Why did you float her?” Kate fears that Ethel “would tell about that night and show the glass.” The chapter never says what the glass is, and the answer should not say either. The question touches the hinge: whatever Kate fears most here is what Joe’s story will reach in the morning.
Ethel frightens her more. Ethel is alive, she drinks, and she talks: “Every time Ethel got a beer in her she would be telling somebody.” Kate thinks of an agency and drops it, thinks of sending Joe, plans a night bus to Watsonville, and then knows she “would be afraid to go”. This is fear of a witness, not of a feeling.
Yes, and then Ethel would tell about that night and show the glass.
Suddenly she knew she would be afraid to go to Watsonville.
The mistake frightens her more. Faye, whom she killed, leaves her with no feeling at all, so it is not guilt that keeps her up. What she cannot bear is having been wrong: “If you’d used your head and kept her here”. Ethel is hateful because she is proof of Kate’s error, in a house where Joe believes “Kate don’t make no mistakes”.
She found she had no feeling about Faye.
Why is she a lousy old bag? Isn’t it because you made a mistake?
A strong answer A strong response weighs the two fears and grounds the choice in the night section. One reader says Ethel herself frightens Kate more: a live witness who talks when she drinks and might “show the glass.” Another says the mistake does: Kate feels nothing about Faye, so guilt is not the trouble, and her mind names the real wound, “Isn’t it because you made a mistake?” The best answers notice that the two may be one fear, and claim nothing about the glass.
2. Kate has kept the name Venuta to herself. She was saving it for a day when Joe “got out of hand.” What makes her use it this morning?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to explain when Kate plays her strongest card. She keeps in her files “a notation relating to one Joseph Venuta” who walked away from a San Quentin road gang. She has “never mentioned this to Joe”, and thinks it “might have a soothing influence on him if he got out of hand.” At breakfast she offers him five hundred dollars to find Ethel and bring back only the address. Then she is “wondering whether she should go on”, and she asks whether Ethel did anything “peculiar” in court. Joe remembers Ethel asking to see the judge alone and tries to hide it, but “He had been too late.” He covers with a story about relatives in San Luis Obispo, and Kate “leaned quickly toward him.” She tells him, “I want this quiet.” Then, “not to change the subject”, she asks whether the name Venuta means anything to him, and the words “jarred his stomach loose from his backbone.” The question asks why she says the name now, not why she believes Joe later. The answer should not say what Joe will do with what he knows.
To make sure of him before he goes. She is sending Joe out alone on an errand that matters more than she will say, and she wants it kept quiet. She has just seen something cross his face. The name tells him that whatever he learns out there, she can send him back to San Quentin.
He had been too late.
I want this quiet.
Because she is afraid. Her voice is “edged and anxious,” she has just leaned toward his story, and she reaches for her best card to steady herself. But playing it shows Joe how much this errand matters to her. That night he works it out: “Kate was scared of Ethel.” In a chapter built on waiting for a slip, this may be Kate’s.
Her voice was edged and anxious.
Kate was scared of Ethel.
A strong answer A strong response gives a reason for the timing and grounds it in the first breakfast. One reader says Kate is making sure of Joe before she sends him out alone: she has seen his face change, she wants the job “quiet,” and the name tells him she can send him back to San Quentin. Another says fear makes her play her best card early, and playing it shows Joe how much Ethel matters to her; by night he has worked out that “Kate was scared of Ethel.” The best answers notice the order of the scene and say nothing about what Joe will do.
3. In Monterey, Joe throws a pen to scare a woman, and he enjoys her fear. Then he cries himself to sleep, and the narrator calls that “another pleasure.” How do the two pleasures fit together?Theme
What it asks It asks the student to look hard at the one night the chapter gives Joe alone. Over a full glass of whisky he watches a woman across the air shaft washing her stockings, throws the pen at her window, and “enjoyed the scene of fear and apprehension before the skinny dame yanked her shade down.” Later the narrator says, “Joe had another pleasure he saved for times when he was alone, and he was not aware it was a pleasure.” He goes over his “sullen and miserable childhood” until his lips quiver “with pity for the lonely lost boy he had been”, thinking of other men whose “blinds were pulled down against Joe.” The word “another” counts both as pleasures. Neither scene is a joke; the chapter describes both with care.
They are one feeling turned two ways. The chapter has already said that hate “must have love as a trigger,” and that Joe loves Joe. The tears are that love, and the pen is the hate it licenses. The world pulled its blinds against Joe, so he makes a woman pull her shade against him.
Joe early developed a gentle protective love for Joe.
They were safe and happy and at night their blinds were pulled down against Joe.
They pull in opposite directions. The pen is power: Joe enjoys watching fear on a face, as he will at Kate’s breakfast table when he reads “the apprehension” on hers. The tears are a weakness he cannot see: “he was not aware it was a pleasure.” The man who studies everyone else’s face does not read his own.
He enjoyed the scene of fear and apprehension before the skinny dame yanked her shade down.
Joe had another pleasure he saved for times when he was alone, and he was not aware it was a pleasure.
A strong answer A strong response says how the two pleasures fit and grounds it in the night in Monterey. One reader says they are one feeling turned two ways: Joe’s pity for himself is the love the chapter says hate needs, and the pen is the hate, as a shade comes down against him the way the world’s blinds always did. Another says they pull apart: the pen is the power of watching fear, which he will turn on Kate, and the tears are a pleasure Joe cannot see in himself. The best answers do not make Joe a clown.
4. The narrator breaks into Hal’s dinner talk with a detail about Ethel’s body that “would have bothered” her. Then the narrator says, “She would have liked more dignity.” Why tell us the detail at all?Author's choice
What it asks It asks the student to explain a choice the narrator makes in the middle of Hal’s steak dinner. Hal explains how he heard about the body, and the narrator breaks in: “Ethel was not a bad woman—lazy, sloppy, but good-hearted. She wanted dignity and importance.” Then the narrator tells how she was found, pulled out of the sand where the waves had left her half buried, with her skirts in disarray, and closes, “She would have liked more dignity.” Around it, Hal says she was “too blamed lazy to kill herself” and offers pie, and Joe says, “If you say it’s her, it’s her”. Hal guesses at a sardine crew; the chapter does not settle how she died, and the answer should not.
To give her what no one else in the chapter does. The narrator is the only voice in the chapter that says one kind thing about Ethel: “not a bad woman”, “good-hearted.” Kate calls her names all night, Hal makes a joke of her, and Joe will not even check the body. Saying what she wanted is a kind of respect.
Ethel was not a bad woman—lazy, sloppy, but good-hearted.
She wanted dignity and importance.
To show that no one spares her, not even the narrator. The narrator tells exactly the detail she would have hated, and judges her too: not bright, not pretty, not lucky. Setting her death between rib steaks and pie makes it small. The honesty may be the point, but it is not gentle.
She was just not very bright and not very pretty and, because of these two lacks, not very lucky.
It would have bothered Ethel if she had known
A strong answer A strong response says why the narrator tells the detail and grounds it in the Ethel paragraph and its setting. One reader says it gives her what no one else does: only the narrator calls her “good-hearted” and says what she wanted, while everyone else mocks or ignores her. Another says it shows that no one spares her, not even the narrator, who tells the very detail she would hate and judges her plain, over a steak dinner. The best answers notice that Ethel’s death is what makes Joe’s lie possible, and say nothing about how she died.
5. Joe’s caution tells him to go in, tell Kate, and get his five hundred. Which of his seven rules wins the argument?Character
What it asks It asks the student to hold Joe’s rules up against the moment he decides to gamble. On the morning after Hal’s news, he plans to wear a face that is “disappointed but not too disappointed.” He thinks, “Let her lead. Just follow suit”, and admits he is “scared to death of her.” His caution says, “Just go in and tell her and get your five hundred.” He answers it “savagely”: “Part of the breaks is knowing a break when you get it. Do I want to be a lousy pimp all my life? Just play it close. Let her do the talking.” His caution warns, “She could have you in a cell block in six hours flat.” His last word is, “What breaks did I ever get?” The search through Watsonville and Santa Cruz leads here; it is not filler.
Rule 3 wins, with rule 5 beside it: “When they make a slip, grab on to it and wait”, and “Go at everything roundabout.” Kate’s slip was her fear of Ethel. Joe’s plan is to let her talk, follow suit, and wait. His rules, followed to the letter, are the gamble.
Keep your ears open. When they make a slip, grab on to it and wait.
Just play it close. Let her do the talking.
No rule wins. The caution is the rules: “Don’t stick your neck out”, “Don’t believe nobody.” What beats it is not a rule but the grievance from the night before in Monterey, the lonely lost boy who never got the breaks. Joe gambles out of self-pity and calls it being smart.
Keep your mouth shut. Don’t stick your neck out.
Not if I play ’em close. What I got to lose? What breaks did I ever get?
A strong answer A strong response names the rule, or the force, that wins and tests it against Joe’s argument with his caution. One reader says rule 3 wins, with rule 5: Kate made a slip, and Joe will “play it close” and let her talk. Another says the caution is the rules, “Don’t stick your neck out”, and what beats it is self-pity from the night before: “What breaks did I ever get?” The best answers treat this as the moment Joe chooses, not as plot on the way to Salinas.
6. In the night Kate can call up the word on Mr. Edwards’ suspenders, a word she never even noticed. Why does she have to hunt for her own son’s name?Inference
What it asks It asks the student to notice a gap in a mind that misses very little. In the night Kate builds Mr. Edwards’ face and clothes and “the word that was stamped on the metal clasp of his suspenders”: “She had never noticed it, but she knew the word”. In the morning she thinks of “that other angelic face so like hers—what was his name?—what the hell was his name—Alec?” She asks herself whether anything has ever “really got through” her, answers “Certainly not”, and the wrong name comes back: “this boy Alec—was that his name?” Only later does the right one come: “Aron, that was the name”. Soon after, thinking of his face, “a strange pain—a little collapsing pain—arose in her chest.” The chapter does not show that Kate loves Aron in any plain sense, and the answer should not claim it.
Because to her he is a face, not a person. She thinks of him as her own face again: “so like hers”. She pictures people in New York recognizing them as a pair. What she keeps is what serves her, and his name does not.
Her thought jumped to that other angelic face so like hers
She thought how it would be to stand beside him in a crowd and let people find out for themselves.
Because he is the one thing that gets through. The name slips again just as she tells herself that nothing ever has. When she does think of him clearly, there is a pain she does not name, and she decides she does not want him to know about her. Keeping him blurred may be a way of keeping him out.
Inside she was intact—as clean and bright as this boy Alec—was that his name?
Suddenly she knew that she did not want Aron to know about her.
A strong answer A strong response gives a reason for the lost name and grounds it in the mirror scene. One reader says Aron is a face to Kate, her own face again, so the name does not matter to her. Another says he is the one thing that gets through, so the name slips just as she tells herself nothing has, and later comes “a little collapsing pain”. The best answers use the suspenders as the contrast and do not say she loves him.
1. The narrator says hate “must have love as a trigger,” and in Joe that love is for Joe himself. What love, if any, sets off Kate’s hates?
What it asks It asks the student to take a claim the narrator makes about people and test it on a second case. The chapter opens with Joe’s “stable of hates” and then a rule: “Hate cannot live alone. It must have love as a trigger, a goad, or a stimulant. Joe early developed a gentle protective love for Joe.” Kate’s sections give the student material to test it. She has “no feeling about Faye”, calls Ethel names, admires her own “angelic face” in the mirror, and says inside she is “intact”. She feels “a little collapsing pain” over Aron and thinks, “He couldn’t protect himself.” A few sentences later her thoughts are on Cal, who “had beaten her”, and on teaching him “a lesson.” The student should not claim Kate loves Aron in any plain sense.
The rule holds. Kate’s love is for Kate, like Joe’s for Joe. She looks after herself with care (“no liquor, no drugs”), admires her face, and admires Aron’s as a copy of it. Her hates come from what threatens that self: Ethel, who could “tell about that night”, and Cal, who has “beaten her.”
But then she always took care of herself—no liquor, no drugs, and recently she had stopped drinking coffee.
Cal had beaten her.
None, or Kate runs on something else. She killed Faye and finds no feeling about her at all, neither love nor hate. What Ethel stirs in her is fear, “a shrinking fear,” and the names she calls her come with it. Even her plans to hurt people are a game to her: a murder by chocolates is “comical” to her. Fear and amusement, not love, seem to drive her.
She neither liked nor disliked her or her memory.
Ethel always brought a shrinking fear with her
A strong answer A strong response says what love, if any, drives Kate’s hates, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says it is self-love, as with Joe: Kate admires her face and Aron’s as a copy of it, and her hates fall on whoever threatens that self, Ethel and Cal. The strongest objection is the Faye paragraph: Kate finds no feeling at all, and what Ethel stirs is fear. A good revision might say the rule fits Kate only where her self-love is wounded. The best answers make no claim that Kate loves Aron.
2. The chapter’s last sentence says Joe “would have laughed out loud” if he had known what Kate did. She went into the gray room, locked the door, and sat with her eyes closed. Would he have been right to laugh?
What it asks It asks the student to judge the chapter’s last sentence, which tells us something Joe will never see. After his story, Kate says, “We’ll forget the old fart,” then at the door, with “elaborate casualness”, asks him to let her know if he hears anything, and adds, “It isn’t that important.” Joe goes to his room, smiles, and plans to “let her brood on it till, say, next week.” He “did not know what his weapon was or how he was going to use it.” The chapter closes: “He would have laughed out loud if he had known that Kate had gone to the gray room and locked its door, and that she sat still in the big chair and her eyes were closed.” The answer should not say what becomes of Kate; the chapter stops there.
Yes. Joe saw “the almost hopeless fear and weariness”, and the locked room proves it. In the night Kate had planned to lock her door and slip out to Watsonville; now she locks a door to hide. The woman who is “delicate like a steel trap” in the morning is sitting still with her eyes shut.
Joe read her quick start, the apprehension, and then the almost hopeless fear and weariness.
She smiled to herself—delicate like a steel trap.
No. Minutes earlier Kate told Joe, “Don’t think. Just tell. I’ll think”. Eyes closed may be Kate thinking, as she thinks through every long night. Her casual voice at the door was a performance. Joe does not know what she knows, and she still holds the name Venuta.
Don’t think. Just tell. I’ll think,
He did not know what his weapon was or how he was going to use it.
A strong answer A strong response judges whether Joe’s laugh would be right, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says yes: Joe saw “almost hopeless fear and weariness”, and the locked door is a woman hiding. The strongest objection is Kate’s own “Don’t think. Just tell. I’ll think,” and the Venuta file she still holds: closed eyes may be Kate at work. A good revision might say Joe has won this round without knowing what he has won. The best answers stay inside the chapter’s last sentence.
3. Kate has always seen straight through Joe, yet his lie about Ethel works on her completely. Why does it work this time?
What it asks It asks the chapter’s whole question. Kate has “no illusions about him”; she knows the “dumb bastard thought he was clever” and calls him “the kind easiest to handle.” In the night she reasons that Ethel “might be in Salinas right now” and could “slip in over the line and see her friends”. In the morning the medicine has given “her back her courage”, she looks “ten years younger”, and she is “so filled with amusement at her thoughts that she did not hear Joe’s knocking”. She corrects his grammar “playfully”. Joe plans to “Let her lead.” His story has no name in it but “Guy named Joe, like me”, though at the first breakfast she scolded him for not getting a name. Then she is “startled out of control”, and Joe sees that “she was believing things he had not told her.” The answer should not say what Ethel knows or what Joe will do.
Because the lie is built from Kate’s own fears. She told herself in the night that Ethel might be in Salinas. Joe only says she is coming back. He leaves gaps, as his rules teach, and her mind fills them: she believes “things he had not told her.” Her own way of reasoning does his work.
She might be in Salinas right now.
She had believed him. More than that, she was believing things he had not told her.
Because of when it comes. Joe catches her at her highest: rested, “ten years younger”, so pleased with herself she does not hear him knock. Her guard is down, and the fear she had called sickness comes back all at once. She lets the nameless “Guy named Joe” pass with a joke when she always wants a name.
Wonderful medicine—it not only stopped the arthritic pain, it gave her back her courage.
Kate was so filled with amusement at her thoughts that she did not hear Joe’s knocking on the door.
A strong answer A strong response builds a thesis on why the lie works, meets the strongest objection, and revises. One thesis says the lie is made of Kate’s own fears: she told herself in the night that Ethel “might be in Salinas”, so Joe’s gaps fill themselves. The strongest objection is timing: rested, playful and sure of herself, she drops her guard and lets a nameless source pass. A good revision might say her good mood let the night’s fear in all at once, which is Kate’s own way with people, waiting for a slip, turned on her. The best answers keep both Joe’s method and Kate’s pain in view.
As her hands and her mind grew more crooked, Kate began to rely more and more on Joe Valery as her assistant in chief, as her go-between, and as her executioner.A person who carries messages and dealings between two sides so they need not meet. In Kate’s list it stands between “assistant in chief” and “executioner.” Joe is the one who goes out into the world for her, and that is how he comes to know something she does not.
She had a basic fear of the girls in the house—not that they were more untrustworthy than Joe but that the hysteria which lay very close to the surface might at any time crack through their caution and shatter their sense of self-preservation and tear down not only themselves but their surroundings.The instinct to keep yourself safe from harm. Kate fears that the girls’ hysteria might “shatter” it, and she believes men have “a little stronger wall” against self-destruction, so she turns to Joe. Set the word beside the morning when Kate herself is “startled out of control.”
He felt fine even though her eyes were suited and inspective again.Looking closely in order to examine and judge, the way an inspector does. It is a rare adjective made from inspect, and it turns Kate’s eyes into instruments. The word “again” matters: Joe knows this look. At the second breakfast he is the one who reads a face.
Maybe Ethel might be a hole-card.In stud poker, the card dealt face down that only its holder sees, kept back until it can win the hand. Joe thinks in cards all through the chapter (“draw his hand”, “play ’em close”, “follow suit”). Here he first sees Ethel, a woman he has not yet found, as a card to hold against Kate.
Joe breathed shallowly, afraid that any sound might drag her out of her self-absorption.The state of being so taken up with your own thoughts that you stop noticing what is around you. That morning Kate was “so filled with amusement at her thoughts that she did not hear Joe’s knocking”; now the same inward turn has gone dark, and Joe takes care not to break it.