Final discussion

1. Think of a good translation of the quotations below and comment on them.

5. 1) There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse (Quentin Crist).

6. 2) The whole process of homemaking, housekeeping and cooking which ever has been woman’s special province should be looked on as an art and a profession (Sarah Joseph Hale).

7. 3) A house is not a home (Polly Adler).

8. 4) The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it (Ralf W. Emerson).

9. 5) The housewife is the Cinderella of the affluent state… she is wholly dependent on the whim of an individual to give her money for the essentials of life. If she complains she is a nagger – for nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths (Baroness Edith Summerskill).

10. 6) Home is the girl’s prison and the woman’s workhouse (B.Shaw).

11. 7) Creditors have better memories than debtors (B. Franklin).

12. 8) Bargain: something you can’t use at a price you can’t resist (F. P.Jones).

13. 9) Do not buy what you want, buy what you need; what you do not need is dear at a farthing (Cato the Elder).

2. Comment on the proverbs in connection with the topic under discussion.

1. A new broom sweeps clean.

2. No pain no gain.

3. A stitch in time saves nine.

4. Well begun is half done.

5. One hand washes the other.

6. Charity begins at home.

3. Write an essay on one of the following topics (for tips, see SUPPLEMENT).

1. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

2. East or West – home is best.

3. My idea of a home of the future.

4. Men make houses, women make homes.

5. A housewife’s working day.

6. Topical issues of a modern family’s welfare.

7. Benefits of having a family budget.

8. Shopping: a chore, a treat, or an obsession?

9. A welfare society: advantages and disadvantages.

10. Social stratification in modern Britain and Russia compared.

11. Positive discrimination in modern society.

12. Charity: organization or the call of the heart.

UNIT II

FOOD AND DIETING

HEALTH AND HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

Text 1

The three fat women of antibes

(condensed)

One was called Mrs. Richman, a widow. The second was called Mrs. Sutcliffe; she was American and she had divorced two husbands. The third was called Miss Hickson and she was a spinster¹. They were all in the comfortable forties and they were all well off. Mrs. Sutcliffe had the odd first name of Arrow. When she was young and slender she had liked it well enough… She liked it less now that her delicate features had grown muzzy with fat, that her arms and shoulders were so substantial and her hips so massive. It was increasingly difficult to find dresses to make her look as she liked to look. The jests her name gave rise to now were made behind her back and she very well knew that they were far from obliging. But she was by no means resigned to middle age... What she liked about Beatrice Richman and Frances Hickson was that they were both so much fatter than she, it made her look quite slim; they were both older and much inclined to treat her as a little young thing. It was not disagreeable.

“Only you mustn’t get any heavier, darling,” said Mrs. Richman.

They were great friends, Miss Hickson, Mrs. Richman and Arrow Sutcliffe. It was their fat that had brought them together and bridge that had cemented their alliance. They had met first at Carlsbad, where they were staying at the same hotel and were treated by the same doctor who used them with the same ruthlessness.

Beatrice Richman was enormous. She was a handsome woman, with fine eyes, rouged cheeks and painted lips. She was very content to be a window with a handsome fortune. She adored her food. She liked bread and butter, cream, potatoes and sweet puddings, and for eleven months of the year ate pretty well everything she had a mind to, and for one month went to Carlsbad to reduce. But every year she grew fatter.

Nothing impaired their good humour but the scales, and when one or other of them weighed as much as she had the day before neither Frank’s coarse jokes, nor the bonhomie of Beatrice nor Arrow’s pretty kittenish ways sufficed to dispel the gloom. Then drastic measures were resorted to, the culprit went to bed for twenty-four hours and nothing passed her lips but the doctor’s famous vegetable soup which tasted like hot water in which a cabbage had been well rinsed.

Never were the three women greater friends. They would have been independent of anyone else if they had not needed a fourth at bridge… It was for this reason that on the occasion with which this narrative deals Frank invited Lena Finch to come and stay with them at Antibes.

They were spending some weeks there on Frank’s suggestion. It seemed absurd to her, with her common sense, that immediately the cure was over Beatrice who always took off twenty pounds should by giving way to her ungovernable appetite put them all on again. Beatrice was weak. She needed a person of strong will to watch her diet. She proposed then that on leaving Carlsbad they should take a house at Antibes, where they could get plenty of exercise – everyone knew that nothing slimmed you like swimming – and as far as possible could go on with the cure. With a cook of their own they could at least avoid things that were obviously fattening. There was no reason why they should not all lose several pounds more. It seemed a very good idea. Beatrice knew what was good for her, and she could resist temptation well enough if temptation was not put right under her nose. Besides, she liked gambling, and a flutter at the Casino two or three times a week would pass the time very pleasantly.

The plan worked very well. They had a grand time. Two days a week they ate nothing but hard-boiled eggs and raw tomatoes and they mounted the scales every morning with light hearts. Arrow got down to eleven stone and felt just like a girl; Beatrice and Frank by standing in a certain way just avoided the thirteen. The machine they had bought registered kilogrammes, and they got extraordinarily clever at translating these in the twinkling of an eye to pounds and ounces.

One morning when they were sitting in pyjamas on the terrace overlooking the sea, drinking their tea (without milk or sugar) and eating a rusk prepared by Dr. Hudebert and guaranteed not to be fattening, Frank looked up from her letters.

“Lena Finch is coming down to the Riviera,” she said. “She married a cousin of mine. He died a couple of months ago and she’s just recovering from a nervous breakdown. What about asking her to come here for a fortnight?”

“Does she play bridge?” asked Beatrice.

“You bet your life she does,” boomed Frank in her deep voice. “And a damned good game too. We should be absolutely independent of outsiders.”

“How old is she?” asked Arrow.

“Same age as I am.”

“That sounds all right.”

It was settled. Frank met her at the station. She was in deep but not obtrusive mourning for the recent death of her husband. Frank had not seen her for two years. She kissed her warmly and took a good look at her.

“You’re very thin, darling,” she said.

Lena smiled bravely.

“I’ve been through a good deal lately. I’ve lost a lot of weight.”

Frank sighed, but whether from sympathy with her cousin’s loss, or from envy, was not obvious.

A waiter approached them.

“What will you have, Lena dear?” Frank asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, what you have, a dry Martini or a White Lady.”

Arrow and Beatrice gave her a quick look. Everyone knows how fattening cocktails are.

“I daresay you’re tired after your journey,” said Frank kindly.

She ordered a dry Martini for Lena and a mixed lemon and orange juice for herself and her two friends.

“We find alcohol isn’t very good in all this heat,” she explained.

“Oh, it never affects me at all,” Lena answered airily. “I like cocktails.”

Arrow went very slightly pale under her rouge (neither she nor Beatrice ever wetted their faces when they bathed and they thought it absurd of Frank, a woman of her size, to pretend she liked diving) but she said nothing. The conversation was easy, they all said the obvious things with gusto, and presently they strolled back to the villa for lunches.

In each napkin were two little antifat rusks. Lena gave a bright smile as she put them by the side of her plate.

“May I have some bread?” she asked.

A grossest indecency wouldn’t have fallen on the ears of the three women with such a shock. None of them had eaten bread for ten years. Even Beatrice, greedy as she was, drew the line there. Frank, the good hostess, recovered herself first.

“Of course, darling,” she said and turning to the butler asked him to bring some.

“And some butter,” said Lena in that pleasant easy way of hers.

There was a moment’s embarrassed silence.

“I don’t know if there’s any in the house,” said Frank, “but I’ll inquire. There may be some in the kitchen.”

“I adore bread and butter, don’t you?” said Lena turning to Beatrice.

Beatrice gave a sickly smile and an evasive reply. The butler brought a long crisp roll of French bread. Lena slit it in two and plastered it with the butter which was miraculously produced.

A grilled sole was served.

“We eat very simply here,” said Frank. “I hope you won’t mind.”

“Oh, no, I like my food very plain,” said Lena as she took some butter and spread it over her fish. “As long as I can have bread and butter and potatoes and cream I’m quite happy.”

The rest of the luncheon consisted of lamb cutlets, with the fat carefully removed so that Beatrice should not be led astray, and spinach boiled in water, with stewed pears to end up with. Lena tasted her pears and gave the butler a look of inquiry. That resourceful man understood her at once and though powdered sugar had never been served at that table before handed her without a moment’s hesitation a bowl of it. She helped herself liberally. The other three pretended not to notice.

Coffee was served and Lena took three lumps of sugar in hers.

“You have a very sweet tooth,” said Arrow in a tone which she struggled to keep friendly.

“We think saccharine so much more sweetening,” said Frank, as she put a tiny tablet of it into her coffee.

“Disgusting stuff,” said Lena.

Beatrice’s mouth drooped at the corners, and she gave the lump of sugar a yearning look.

Frank was relieved when they could sit down to the bridge table. It was plain to her that Arrow and Beatrice were upset. She wanted them to like Lena and she was anxious that Lena should enjoy her fortnight with them.

They met again just before dinner.

“I hope you’ve been all right, Lena dear,” said Frank. “I was rather conscience-stricken at leaving you with nothing to do all this time.”

“Oh, don’t apologize. I had a lovely sleep and then I had a cocktail. And d’you know what I discovered? You’ll be so pleased. I found a dear little tea-shop where they’ve got the most beautiful thick fresh cream. I’ve ordered half a pint sent every day. I thought it would be my little contribution to the household.” Her eyes were shining. She was evidently expecting them to be delighted.

“How kind of you,” said Frank, with a look that sought to quell the indignation that she saw on the faces of her two friends. “But we never eat cream. In this climate it makes one so bilious.”

“I shall have to eat it all myself then,” said Lena cheerfully.

“Don’t you ever think of your figure?” Arrow asked with icy deliberation.

“The doctor said I must eat.”

“Did he tell you to eat bread and butter and potatoes and cream?”

“Yes. That’s what I thought you meant when you said you had simple food.”

“You’ll get simply enormous,” said Beatrice.

Lena laughed. “No, I shan’t. You see, nothing ever makes me fat. I’ve always eaten everything I wanted to and it’s never had the slightest effect on me.”

The stony silence that followed this speech was only broken by the entrance of the butler.

They talked the matter over late that night, after Lena had gone to bed, in Frank’s room. During the evening they had been furiously cheerful, and they had chaffed one another with a friendliness that would have taken in the keenest observer. But now they dropped the mask. Beatrice was sullen. Arrow was spiteful and Frank was unmanned.

“It’s not very nice for me to sit there and see her eat all the things I particularly like,” said Beatrice plaintively.

“It’s not very nice for any of us,” Frank snapped back.

“You should never have asked her here,” said Arrow.

“How was I to know?” cried Frank.

“I can’t help thinking that if she really cared for her husband she would hardly eat much,” said Beatrice. “He’s only buried two months. I think you ought to show some respect for the dead.”

“Why can’t she eat the same as we do?” asked Arrow viciously.

“Well, you heard what she said. The doctor said she must eat.”

“Then she ought to go to a sanatorium.”

“It’s more than flesh and blood can stand,” moaned Beatrice.

“If I can stand it you can stand it.”

“She’s your cousin, not ours,” said Arrow. “I’m not going to sit there for fourteen days and watch that woman make a hog of herself.”

“It’s so vulgar to attach all this importance to food,” Frank boomed, and her voice was deeper than ever. “After all the only thing that counts really is spirit.”

But human nature is weak. You must not ask too much of it. They ate grilled fish while Lena ate macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter; they ate grilled cutlets and boiled spinach while Lena ate pate de foie gras; twice a week they ate hard-boiled eggs and raw tomatoes, while Lena ate peas swimming in cream and potatoes cooked in all sorts of delicious ways. The chef was a good chef and he leapt at the opportunity afforded him to send up one dish more rich, tasty and succulent than the other.

The three fat women persevered. They were chatty and even hilarious (such is the natural gift that women have for deception) but Beatrice grew limp and forlorn, and Arrow’s tender blue eyes acquired a steely glint. Frank’s deep voice grew more raucous. It was when they played bridge that the strain showed itself. They had always been fond of talking over their hands, but their discussions had been friendly. Now a distinct bitterness crept in and sometimes one pointed out a mistake to another with quite unnecessary frankness. Discussion turned to argument and argument to altercation. Sometimes the session ended in angry silence.

It was all very well for Lena. She had had a square meal and half a bottle of champagne. Besides, she had phenomenal luck. She was winning all their money. The score was put down in a book after each session, and hers mounted up day after day with unfailing regularity. Was there no justice in the world? They began to hate one another. And though they hated her too they could not resist confiding in her. Each of them went to her separately and told her how detestable the others were. Arrow said she was sure it was bad for her to see so much of women so much older than herself. She had a good mind to sacrifice her share of the lease and go to Venice for the rest of the summer. Frank told Lena that with her masculine mind it was too much to expect that she could be satisfied with anyone so frivolous as Arrow and so frankly stupid as Beatrice.

By the time Lena’s fortnight drew to its close the three fat women were barely on speaking terms. They kept up appearances before Lena, but when she was not there made no pretences. They had got past quarrelling. They ignored one another, and when this was not possible treated each other with icy politeness.

Lena was going to stay with friends on the Italian Riviera and Frank saw her off. She was taking away with her a lot of their money.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said, as she got into the carriage. “I’ve had a wonderful visit.”

If there was one thing that Frank Hickson prided herself on more than on being a match for any man it was that she was a gentlewoman, and her reply was perfect in its combination of majesty and graciousness.

“We’ve all enjoyed having you here, Lena,” she said. “It’s been a real treat.”

But when she turned away from the departing train she heaved such a vast sigh of relief that the platform shook beneath her. She flung back her massive shoulders and strode home to the villa.

She changed into her one-piece bathing-suit, put on her espadrilles and a man’s dressing-gown (no nonsense about it) and went to Eden Rock. There was still time for a bath before luncheon. She passed through the Monkey House, looking about to say good morning to anyone she knew, for she felt on a sudden at peace with mankind, and then stopped dead still. She could not believe her eyes.

Beatrice was sitting at one of the tables, by herself; she wore the pyjamas she had bought at Molyneux’s a day or two before, she had a string of pearls round her neck, and Frank’s quick eyes saw that she had just had her hair waved; her cheeks, her eyes, her lips were made up. Fat, nay vast, as she was, none could deny that she was an extremely handsome woman. But what was she doing?

With the slouching gait of the Neanderthal man which was Frank’s characteristic walk she went up to Beatrice. In her black bathing-dress Frank looked like the huge cetacean which the Japanese catch in the Torres Straits and which the vulgar call a sea-cow.

“Beatrice, what are you doing?” she cried in her deep voice.

It was like the roll of thunder in the distant mountains. Beatrice looked at her coolly.

“Eating,” she answered.

“Damn it, I can see you’re eating.”

In front of Beatrice was a plate of croissants and a plate of butter, a pot of strawberry jam, and a jug of cream. Beatrice was spreading butter thick on the delicious hot bread, covering it with jam, and then pouring the thick cream over all.

“You’ll kill yourself,” said Frank.

“I don’t care,” mumbled Beatrice with her mouth full.

“You’ll put on pounds and pounds.”

“Go to hell!” – she actually laughed in Frank’s face.

My God, how good those croissants smelt!

“I’m disappointed in you, Beatrice. I thought you had more character.”

“It’s your fault. That blasted woman. For a fortnight I’ve watched her gorge like a hog. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. I’m going to have one square meal even if I burst.”

Tears welled up in Frank’s eyes. Suddenly she felt very weak and womanly. She would have liked a strong man to take her on his knee and pet her and cuddle her and call her little baby names. Speechless she sank down on a chair by Beatrice’s side.

A waiter came up. With a pathetic gesture she waved towards the coffee and croissants. She listlessly reached out her hand to take a roll, but Beatrice snatched away the plate.

“No, you don’t,” she said. “You wait till you get your own.”

Frank called her a name which ladies seldom apply to one another in affection. In a moment the waiter brought her croissants, butter, jam and coffee. “Where’s the cream, you fool?” she roared like a lioness at bay.

She began to eat. She ate gluttonously. The place was beginning to fill up with bathers coming to enjoy a cocktail or two after having done their duty by the sun and the sea.

Presently Arrow strolled along with Prince Roccamare. She had on a beautiful silk wrap she held tightly round her with one hand in order to look as slim as possible and she bore her head high so that he should not see her double chin. She felt like a girl. He had just told her (in Italian) that her eyes made the blue of the Mediterranean look like pea-soup. He left her to go into the men’s room to brush his sleek black hair and they arranged to meet in five minutes for a drink. Arrow walked on to the woman’s room to put a little more rouge on her cheeks and a little more red on her lips. On her way she caught sight of Frank and Beatrice. She stopped. She could hardly believe her eyes.

“My God!” she cried. “You beasts. You hogs.” She seized a chair. “Waiter.” Her appointment went clean out of her head. In the twinkling of an eye the waiter was at her side.

“Bring me what these ladies are having,” she ordered.

Frank lifted her great heavy head from her plate.

“Bring me some pate de foie gras,” she boomed.

“I’ll have some too,” cried Beatrice.

The coffee was brought and the hot rolls and cream and the pate de foie gras and they set to. They spread the cream on the pate and they ate it. They devoured great spoonfuls of jam. They crunched the delicious crisp bread voluptuously. They did not speak. What they were about was much too serious. They ate with solemn, ecstatic fervour.

“I haven’t eaten potatoes for twenty-five years,” said Frank in a far-off brooding tone.

“Waiter,” cried Beatrice, “bring fried potatoes for three.”

The potatoes were brought. Not all the perfumes of Arabia smelt so sweet. They ate them with their fingers.

“Bring me a dry Martini,” said Arrow.

“You can’t have a dry Martini in the middle of a meal,” said Frank.

“Can’t I? You wait and see.”

“All right then. Bring me a double dry Martini,” said Frank.

“Bring three double dry Martinis,” said Beatrice.

They were brought and drunk at a gulp.

The women looked at one another and sighed. The misunderstandings of the last fortnight dissolved and the sincere affection each had for the other welled up again in their hearts. They could hardly believe that they had ever contemplated the possibility of severing a friendship that had brought them so much solid satisfaction.

They finished the potatoes.

“I wonder if they’ve got any chocolate éclairs,” said Beatrice.

And of course they had. Frank thrust one whole into her huge mouth, swallowed it and seized another, but before she ate it she looked at the other two and plunged a vindictive dagger into the heart of the monstrous Lena.

“You can say what you like, but the truth is she played a damned rotten game of bridge, really.”

“Lousy,” agreed Arrow.

But Beatrice suddenly thought she would like a meringue.

(by William Somerset Maugham)