What does " took a knife to the rest of the loaf." mean?

Question

There was soup in the pot. ‘Soup means lots!’ Dexter would say when he

came in. Where were they? She propped the Kabalevsky open on the piano

and tried again. She had laboured through a dozen bars when the car slid

down the driveway outside the kitchen window. More than two doors

banged. She got up from the piano and took a knife to the rest of the loaf.

Does it mean: He took a knife to cut the rest of the loaf?

Vivian · Accepted Answer

It means that "She took a knife to cut the rest of the loaf (after getting up from the piano)", for "She" being instead of "He".

Gypsyfish · Answer

Dexter is the one driving up in the car. "She" is waiting for him, knowing that he will be happy about having soup for dinner. She practices the piano. She hears a car- two doors slam, so there's more than one person. She cuts more slices off the bread to serve with the soup because Dexter brought someone home with him to dinner.

Anonymous · Answer

Used the knife to cut the rest of the loaf.

Anonymous · Answer

It means that she cut the remainder of the loaf into slices for whoever had just pulled up in the car outside the house.

The woman has cooked soup and since the writer specifically used the word "rest" meaning "remainder" here it's inferred that she's already cut slices from the loaf to serve with the soup.  When you text starts dinner is almost done and the woman is killing time while waiting for the people she's cooked for to arrive by playing the piano.  When the car carrying those people arrive she can hear the doors open and close.  She was expecting two people to arrive.  When she hears the sound of an extra door slamming she can tell that there's an extra person, so she gets up to slice more bread because the soup must now feed more people than she'd intended.

"To take a knife to something" means to cut it.

What does " took a knife to the rest of the loaf." mean?

4 Answers