Pointed roofs : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 1 — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Pointed roofs : $b Pilgrimage, Volume 1
John Stuart Mill · en
Certainly it was wrong to listen to sermons ... stultifying ... unless
they were intellectual ... lectures like Mr. Brough's ... that was as
bad, because they were not sermons.... Either kind was bad and ought not
to be allowed ... a homily ... sermons ... homilies ... a quiet homily
might be something rather nice ... and have not _Charity_--sounding
brass and tinkling cymbal.... Caritas ... I have _none_ I am sure....
Fräulein Pfaff would listen. She would smile afterwards and talk about a
"schöne Predigt"--certainly.... If she should ask about the sermon?
Everything would come out then.
What would be the good? Fräulein would not understand. It would be
better to pretend. She could not think of any woman who would
understand. And she would be obliged to live somewhere. She must pretend
to somebody. She wanted to go on, to see the spring. But must she always
be pretending? Would it always be that ... living with exasperating
women who did not understand ... pretending ... grimacing?... Were
German women the same? She wished she could tell Eve the things she was
beginning to feel about women. These English girls were just the same.
Millie ... sweet lovely Millie.... How she wished she had never spoken
to her. Never said, "Are you fond of crochet?" ... Millie saying, "You
must know all my people," and then telling her a list of names and
describing all her family. She had been so pleased for the first moment.
It had made her feel suddenly happy to hear an English voice talking
familiarly to her in the saal. And then at the end of a few moments she
had known she never wanted to hear anything more of Millie and her
people. It seemed strange that this girl talking about her brothers'
hobbies and the colour of her sister's hair was the Millie she had first
seen the night of the Vorspielen with the "Madonna" face and no feet.
Millie was smug. Millie would smile when she was a little older--and she
would go respectfully to church all her life--Miriam had felt a horror
even of the work-basket Millie had been tidying during their
conversation--and Millie had gone upstairs, she knew, feeling that they
had "begun to be friends" and would be different the next time they met.
It was her own fault. What had made her speak to her? She was like
that.... Eve had told her. She got excited and interested in people and
then wanted to throw them up. It was not true. She did not want to throw
them up. She wanted them to leave her alone.... She had not been excited
about Millie. It was Ulrica, Ulrica ... Ulrica ... Ulrica ... sitting up
at breakfast with her lovely head and her great eyes--her thin fingers
peeling an egg.... She had made them all look so "common." Ulrica was
different. Was she? Yes, Ulrica was different ... Ulrica peeling an egg
and she, afterwards like a mad thing had gone into the saal and talked
to Millie in a vulgar, familiar way, no doubt.