DOI article:
Makower, Stanley V.: Three Reflections
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25498#0128
Three Reflections
124
he Countess rose at unearthly hours in the morning to go and
pray, and that she always insisted on having a jug of hot water
before leaving the house ; which of course necessitated Sarah’s
rising at unearthly hours, though I should not think that it caused
her to pray, to judge from the language in which she alluded to
the matter when we were talking it over together.
She admitted that the Countess gave heaps of money to the
poor, but very rightly observed that before indulging in luxuries of
this kind it was only a duty to “ live decent yourself.” She said
that she had no patience with such a woman, and at the same time
gave me to understand that she was putting the Countess through
a course of training by which she might with time acquire that
virtue herself, for she made it a rule never to answer her bell until
it had rung half-a-dozen times or more.
This was information which I might have assumed from my
own experience of Sarah’s character ; so I hastened to lead her to
a department of the matter which should be more fruitful of
interest to me. I asked her whether the Countess was really a
religious woman, and was told with many contemptuous comments
that she mumbled and muttered about her room a great deal, and
spent a great deal of her time with a certain Father Sebastian,
also that she “ made up something dreadful, which I’d be ashamed
to do if I called myself a Christian.” The final taunt, for which
I had been waiting, consisted in the remark that she was only a
foreign woman after all, and what could you expect ?
I was glad of the enlightened view which I was thus enabled to
take of the Countess, and after ascertaining that she might be
fifty, but that she heaped such clouds of powder upon her face that
it was impossible to tell what she really looked like, my curiosity
was appeased, and I resolved to banish the Countess from my
thoughts. Taking everything into consideration, I was glad that
it
124
he Countess rose at unearthly hours in the morning to go and
pray, and that she always insisted on having a jug of hot water
before leaving the house ; which of course necessitated Sarah’s
rising at unearthly hours, though I should not think that it caused
her to pray, to judge from the language in which she alluded to
the matter when we were talking it over together.
She admitted that the Countess gave heaps of money to the
poor, but very rightly observed that before indulging in luxuries of
this kind it was only a duty to “ live decent yourself.” She said
that she had no patience with such a woman, and at the same time
gave me to understand that she was putting the Countess through
a course of training by which she might with time acquire that
virtue herself, for she made it a rule never to answer her bell until
it had rung half-a-dozen times or more.
This was information which I might have assumed from my
own experience of Sarah’s character ; so I hastened to lead her to
a department of the matter which should be more fruitful of
interest to me. I asked her whether the Countess was really a
religious woman, and was told with many contemptuous comments
that she mumbled and muttered about her room a great deal, and
spent a great deal of her time with a certain Father Sebastian,
also that she “ made up something dreadful, which I’d be ashamed
to do if I called myself a Christian.” The final taunt, for which
I had been waiting, consisted in the remark that she was only a
foreign woman after all, and what could you expect ?
I was glad of the enlightened view which I was thus enabled to
take of the Countess, and after ascertaining that she might be
fifty, but that she heaped such clouds of powder upon her face that
it was impossible to tell what she really looked like, my curiosity
was appeased, and I resolved to banish the Countess from my
thoughts. Taking everything into consideration, I was glad that
it