Summary
The woman had hoped to acknowledge her former lover with only a casual nod. However, he notices her and they instead make small talk with each other. They acknowledge that time has brought “great surprises,” recognizing that their respective situations have changed since their past relationship. The woman envisions a thought bubble above his head that reads “but for the grace of God...”, implying that she believes he pities her.
Analysis
The introduction of the former lover in the second stanza disrupts the monotonous, passive tone of the first stanza. It is “too late” for the woman to “feign indifference” to her lover’s presence, implying that she is emotionally stirred by him—her indifference would be purposefully cultivated and a lie, as indicated by the word “feign.” Furthermore, this line indicates that the woman wishes to avoid conversing with her lover, thematically pointing to her shame and exhaustion at dealing with the all-consuming pressures and demands of motherhood. She hopes to isolate herself and prevent her lover from seeing her new life. The lover is implied to have known her before these demands, perhaps when her clothes were new and fashionable rather than “out of date.” Furthermore, the lovers acknowledge that "[t]ime holds great surprises,” implying a contrast between the woman’s life now and her life when she was with the former lover. While the reader is given minimal insight into the lover himself, he is described as “neat,” contrasting with the woman’s “out of date” style. The lover therefore symbolizes the woman’s life and sense of identity prior to her children; this depiction contrasts with the first stanza, which described her only in relation to her children.
This theme of a contrast between the woman’s current identity as an exhausted mother and her former self who was defined in relation to her fashionable lover is supported by the conversation described in line 6, in which the characters avoid mutually acknowledging each other's reality in any emotional depth. Most of the content of this conversation is concealed by and encompassed within the phrase “et cetera,” which signifies “a list that is too tedious and clichèd to give in full.” In other words, the narrator signals that this conversation is so meaningless that it is not worth relaying within the limited space of a fourteen-line sonnet. Even the lines that are given from this conversation —“How nice” and “time holds great surprises”—are deliberately meaningless cliches that indicate the shallowness and falsity of the conversation. The depth of the woman’s emotional pain is concealed behind this thin wall of banal, upbeat conversation. The lover’s “casual nod” and the pleasant exchanges belie the depths of the woman’s suffering, as she imagines thought bubbles above her former lover’s head that point to her own inadequacy. As a reader, we see both the surface-level conversation and the woman’s rumination underneath.
This rumination specifically consists of an allusion, a reference designed to call something external to the poem to the reader’s mind. The lover’s presumed reflection “but for the grace of God...” alludes to the idiom, “There but for the grace of God go I.” This saying is used to acknowledge that if circumstances were different, one could be in the same difficult situation that others are in. It is used to convey pity towards others and gratitude for one’s own circumstances. For example, a rich man walking by a homeless person could say, “There but for the grace of God go I.” As this example indicates, although this idiom conveys gratitude and even piety, it is also condescending to the person in the unfortunate circumstances: the other person is indicating their thankfulness that they don’t have to deal with that person’s troubles. This captures the woman’s attitude toward her own position: she imagines that her lover is grateful that he does not have to deal with the exhausting demands of motherhood. Notably, due to the third-person limited perspective, the reader cannot be sure that this thought is indeed what the lover is thinking. Instead, the woman is making her own conclusion about the lover’s thoughts. The word “unquestionably” is ironic, because the woman is only assuming the lover’s attitude toward her. The idiom therefore captures the woman’s own attitude toward herself—she views herself as someone to be pitied by others, especially by her former lover. The man’s presumed thoughts thus serve as a window onto the woman’s own attitude toward her position in society and toward gender roles. She assumes that the man is glad he does not have to endure her experience as a woman. Indeed, the allusion can be read in two ways. It could be seen as the woman’s belief that her former lover is specifically glad he is no longer with her; he is happy that he is not married to her and does not have children with her. However, it could also represent a broader critique of gender roles—the former lover is glad that he is male and is not confined by social expectations to taking care of children, since the woman looks so exhausted by this task.
