Chapter 4
Mrs. Tiresias opens by stating that her husband left for a walk as a man and returned home as a woman. She describes his typical morning attire—garden kecks, an open‑necked shirt, a Harris tweed jacket she had patched—and his habit of whistling while waiting for the first cuckoo of spring before writing to The Times. She notes hearing a distant thunder and feeling a heat at the back of her knees as he was late returning. While brushing her hair and running a bath, she sees a face beside her own with the same eyes but now bearing breasts in the “shocking V” of his shirt; his feminine voice calls her name, causing her to faint.
To preserve appearances, she claims the change is due to a twin sister staying while he works abroad. She attempts to care for him: blow‑drying his hair, lending clothes, holding his new soft shape at night. Soon he begins menstruating, leading to a week of bed rest, visits from two doctors, and a regimen of three painkillers taken four times daily. He later writes a letter demanding twelve weeks of fully paid menstrual leave per year. She continues to see his pale face looking at the moon through the bathroom window, and he mutters “the curse” and asks her not to kiss him in public to avoid misunderstandings.
After they separate, she glimpses him at upscale restaurants arm‑in‑arm with powerful men—though she doubts any genuine affection—and later on television, where he claims to speak for women because “as a woman himself” he knows how they feel. She is irritated by his voice, which she describes as “a cling peach slithering out from its tin.” Finally, she recounts an encounter with a lover at a glittering ball: under lights and tinkling glass, she watches the lover’s violet eyes, glowing skin, and the gentle hand on her neck; she imagines the lover’s bite on her lips, hears her own red, wet cry, and notes the clash of their sparkling rings and painted nails.