The Hired Girl(46)

I think Miss Himmelrich is cruel and shallow to despise her true lover because he doesn’t want to run a department store. Perhaps she’s like Gwendolen in Daniel Deronda, who is beautiful and heartless. I think I’d like to be beautiful and heartless for a while, just to see what it’s like. It must be very heady to wear lace and pearls and have men admire you but not pay any heed to them. I would be mocking and capricious and wild. But that is the kind of behavior a girl can only get away with if she’s beautiful.

I’m afraid I’m going to have very dull love affairs when I’m grown up — that is, if I have any. If any man ever falls in love with me, he’s going to be one of the dull ones; I just know it. Likely it’s indelicate for me to think about love affairs, but pretending to be eighteen is making me grow up very fast. I’m afraid Miss Chandler would think I’m growing up too fast and that the Rosenbachs are worldly. I know it would sadden her that Mimi talks slang. She used to say that it’s one thing for a young man to talk slang, but it’s unwomanly for a young girl. All the same, I can’t help liking Mimi. On my next day off, she’s going to show me how to catch the streetcar to Rosenbach’s Department Store. She wants me to buy a wire rat for my hair so we can try out a new style. I think it’s ever so kind of her, but I don’t know what Mrs. Rosenbach would say about her daughter going out with the hired girl. Mimi says her mother won’t mind, but I think Malka might, so I haven’t exactly mentioned it to her.

I am so tired tonight. When I first came here, I thought the housework would be easy, because of not having the laundry to do, or sweeping out the ashes from the stove, or cleaning the privy. And it is easier, and far less dirty. I’m getting the knack of managing the gas stove and the electric iron, and it’s ever so much quicker to clean the carpets with a carpet sweeper instead of a dustpan and broom. When I finish cleaning, things look nice, which is so satisfying and so different from the farm.

But in some ways, there’s more work to do, because Malka is so particular. The house is bigger — so many stairs — and we sweep and straighten and dust every morning. The city air is dirty, so the extra dusting is necessary. Then, downstairs, the food is fancier and there’s kashrut to consider. There’s tons more ironing, because the Rosenbachs change for dinner every night. And every week there’s Shabbos, which is like spring cleaning and Thanksgiving dinner put together.

Tomorrow I’m cooking breakfast — hot muffins, salmon cakes, plus peaches with cream, because Mr. Rosenbach likes them. I’m not worried about anything but the fish. I’m afraid of overcooking it. Malka says she can’t watch and tell me how long to cook the cakes because that would be working on Shabbos, and anyone who thinks keeping an eye on me isn’t work doesn’t know from nothing.



Sunday, July the sixteenth, 1911

Today I made my way to Corpus Christi Church, which is very beautiful — the sublime cathedrals in The Picturesque World are not more lovely than Corpus Christi. I wore my blue-with-the-ferns uniform and puffed my hair the way Mimi taught me, but I felt very plain when I got to the church and saw all the well-dressed people getting out of their carriages and automobiles. (I often see automobiles here in Baltimore.) I had to remind myself that the church was God’s house and He would want me to come to Mass; He wouldn’t mind that Ma’s old hat is a disgrace. But of course, I mind. I shall look at new hats on Tuesday.

Inside, the church is as bright as a jewel box. There are glorious stained-glass windows, saints and angels and crowns and goblets, all worked in cunning patterns. Even the floor is patterned, and there are gold mosaics on the walls, and candles burning, and the smell of incense. I remembered to genuflect when I went in — I didn’t have to think about it; my hand went to my forehead and my knees bent. I knew I was in the real Church: one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.

I’d forgotten about the Mass, though. Not how holy and awe-inspiring it is, but how much time you spend looking at the priest’s back without knowing what he’s saying. I need a missal, and that’s one thing I’m afraid a Jewish department store isn’t going to carry. Ma’s missal was buried with her. She didn’t have a Catholic funeral, so the night before she was buried I crept downstairs and slipped the missal into her coffin. I wanted God to know that she was a good Catholic, even if Father wouldn’t allow a funeral Mass. That shows how childish I was, as if God has to look in all the coffins to see who’s Catholic and who isn’t. I guess He knows.