DOI Artikel:
King, K. Douglas: Lucretia
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26393#0228
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Lucretia
who told her once that this martyr-expression completely spoilt her
natural good looks. Luce did not discontinue to assume it, even
then.
She was a good workwoman, and had been employed as a
forewoman in a large dressmaking establishment, before John
Burnett (as much to his own as to others’ astonishment) carried
her off as his wife to Eastown-by-Line. Her married life
(including the bearing of Burnett’s children, the rearing of them,
and looking after her husband and the house) entailed on her
sufficient work to keep her mind, as well as body, fully occupied
from sunrise to midnight. In the pursuance of her wifely and
motherly duties she allowed her mind to run woefully astray.
That was the fatal crook in her soul; and, in consequence, her
husband’s dinners, the home comfort, and the six Burnett children
(who were a disgrace to their town, so ill-kept were their
persons) suffered severely. If she had been “born a lady” she
would have read “advanced” books, and become an “advanced”
woman. Also, she would have refused the John Burnetts of her
own station who sought her hand in marriage. She would have
known she had a higher duty to perform than to marry a mere
man, and would have acted, generally, according to her convictions
-—which were of a subjective nature.
As she had neither the leisure nor the means wherewith to
cultivate the abnormal in her soul, she asserted her independent
womanhood by an intrigue with another man. This other man
lived alone, in a large, ugly ten-roomed villa, part of whose
garden wall formed the eastern boundary of the Burnett backyard.
The navvy lived in the last of a tiny, frail row of four-roomed
houses, on the outskirts of central Eastown-by-Line. The name
of their street was Aspect Road, most felicitously named since
it overlooked a brickfield at its upper end and the gasworks at
the
Lucretia
who told her once that this martyr-expression completely spoilt her
natural good looks. Luce did not discontinue to assume it, even
then.
She was a good workwoman, and had been employed as a
forewoman in a large dressmaking establishment, before John
Burnett (as much to his own as to others’ astonishment) carried
her off as his wife to Eastown-by-Line. Her married life
(including the bearing of Burnett’s children, the rearing of them,
and looking after her husband and the house) entailed on her
sufficient work to keep her mind, as well as body, fully occupied
from sunrise to midnight. In the pursuance of her wifely and
motherly duties she allowed her mind to run woefully astray.
That was the fatal crook in her soul; and, in consequence, her
husband’s dinners, the home comfort, and the six Burnett children
(who were a disgrace to their town, so ill-kept were their
persons) suffered severely. If she had been “born a lady” she
would have read “advanced” books, and become an “advanced”
woman. Also, she would have refused the John Burnetts of her
own station who sought her hand in marriage. She would have
known she had a higher duty to perform than to marry a mere
man, and would have acted, generally, according to her convictions
-—which were of a subjective nature.
As she had neither the leisure nor the means wherewith to
cultivate the abnormal in her soul, she asserted her independent
womanhood by an intrigue with another man. This other man
lived alone, in a large, ugly ten-roomed villa, part of whose
garden wall formed the eastern boundary of the Burnett backyard.
The navvy lived in the last of a tiny, frail row of four-roomed
houses, on the outskirts of central Eastown-by-Line. The name
of their street was Aspect Road, most felicitously named since
it overlooked a brickfield at its upper end and the gasworks at
the