The Dishcloth

Detail from the Merode Altarpiece by Robert Campin, 1425.

Women, it seems, enjoy reading about other women or girls doing housekeeping chores, even women who do not think of themselves primarily as housekeepers or homemakers. I have loved to read descriptions of women doing housework ever since I read the following lines in Anne of Green Gables when I was no more than 10 years old:

"You haven't scalded the dishcloth in clean hot water as I told you to do," said Marilla immovably.

These lines burned their way into my 10-year-old mind, and I was surprised last week, when I went to hunt for them, how little time is spent in Anne of Green Gables on descriptions of housekeeping. The line falls early in the book, just before Marilla tells Anne that she and her brother Matthew will not be sending Anne back to the orphanage in exchange for the boy they had been promised. But we already know that Marilla is a very clean housekeeper by Anne's encounter with the upstairs of the house: "The hall was fearsomely clean; the little gable chamber in which she [Anne] presently found herself seemed still cleaner."

However, I was not prepared for scalding the dishcloth, something my grandmother and mother, both of whom I considered clean and neat housekeepers, never did.

Ever since, I have always yearned for books that incorporated descriptions of housekeeping. Is this because I would rather read about someone doing housework than do it myself? Or is it because the description in a book shows an appreciation for domesticity that I also share and also my pleasure in basking in such appreciation for at least my tidy intentions?

I read Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping with eager anticipation, and the first pages on the grandmother did not disappoint: "She had always known a thousand ways to circle them all around with what must have seemed like grace. She knew a thousand songs. Her bread was tender and her jelly was tart, and on rainy days she made cookies and applesauce. In the summer she kept roses in a vase on the piano, huge, pungent roses, and when the blooms ripened and the petals fell, she put them in a tall Chinese jar, with cloves and thyme and sticks of cinnamon. Her children slept on starched sheets under layers of quilts, and in the morning her curtains filled with light the way sails fill the wind.... One day my grandmother must have carried out a basket of sheets to hang in the spring sunlight, wearing her widow's black, performing the rituals of the ordinary as an act of faith."

For books that luxuriate in domestic description, see the early 20th-century writer Grace Livingston Hill. I loved The Honor Girl the best with April Gold a close second, but I have read less than 10 of Hill's books. For wonderful quotes from many of them, see Neat and Dainty as a Flower.

Or does the description of womanly chores elevate the activity, give it a higher aesthetic and moral value? Surely that is the intent and the effect in Tolstoy's description of Kitty caring for her dying brother-in-law in Anna Karenina (read Chapters 16 through 20 of Part V at the link.)

Do you like to read about housekeeping in fiction? If so, I'd love to hear your recommendations.

The Romance of Ironing?

Young Girl Ironing by Louis Leopold Boilly, 1761-1845.
Very few women I know like to iron, and quite a few hate it. So I have found it odd that, relatively speaking, there are a lot of paintings of women ironing--in contrast to the total dearth of paintings of women housecleaning (except for the Dutch). I infer from this that men care more about clean clothes than they do a clean house. Most paintings of women ironing are from France, and this may be because the French laundry was considered in the heyday of the laundry business as the best in the world. In the early 20th century, with the decrease in cheap domestic labor, the laundry came back into the home.

Degas painted quite a few women ironing, as he made a study of laundresses in the 1870s. Here are two such studies, in which these women seem to be both strong and meticulous.




And here are paintings by other artists.
George Luks:


Picasso, 1904, from the Blue Period, a painting Betty Friedan could have used for her diatribes against housework:

Armand Desire Gautier:

Alexandru Ciucurencu, 20th-century Romania:

Mary Whyte, Steam Ironing:

Knitting in Highbridge Park

Knitting in Highbridge Park was painted in 1918 by George Luks. Highbridge Park sits on the Manhattan side of the Harlem River separating northern Manhattan from the Bronx up near 155th to 174th Street, the eastern side of Washington Heights. Judging from the looks of these ladies, at this time, this was an affluent neighborhood, and at this time, Highbridge Park was akin to Central Park further south, although no longer.

Luks called the painting Knitting, but it was soon renamed by the art world as Knitting for the Soldiers, with the assumption being that these ladies were knitting woolens for American boys overseas in World War I. There are five women, who all appear to be of different ages, with two white-haired lady and the perhaps the one on the far right the youngest. It is easy to imagine that these ladies are intent on their work and are speaking only occasionally; knitting is first and conversation second. Then there is a boy who also seems to be intently concentrating and may be knitting (I can't tell).

I just noticed that they are huddling outside in the snow! It is cold. Babies are asleep in the carriages, in keeping with the view that fresh air of all temperatures was best for infant lungs. I know that my mother bundled me up in my carriage for naps on the front porch in December.

Whether knitting for soldiers or not, this painting is an homage to women and their work, a tone set by their bowed heads and the humble head tilt of the lady in the center. Patience, diligence, care, endurance, Luks seems to say, are qualities of these women. I suspect he is right.

Housekeeping in India

Woman cleaning grain outside her home.

The following is taken from Rumer Godden's short story "The Oyster," about a young Indian, Gopal, of the Hindu Brahmin caste, who is happily studying in France and learning all things western. While out to dinner with his French friend, Rene, Gopal suddenly finds himself desperately missing India:

Rene saw the tears and was concerned.... 'What is it, Gopal-ji?' he asked.

'I -- swallowed -- sometthing hot,' said Gopal.

'But you are used to hot things.'

'Yes, chillies,' said Gopal and laughed, but it was not safe to think of such homely thngs as chillies; they made him see a string of them, scarlet, in the kitchen. He saw the kitchen, and his mother's housekeeping, which had often seemed to him old-fashioned and superstitious, now seemed as simple and pure as a prayer; as -- as uncruel, he thought. His mother rose at five and woke the children so that they could make their morning ritual to the sun; ... She saw that the house was cleaned, then did the accounts and then, still early, sent Jai, as the eldest son, to market with the list of household things to buy and the careful allowance of money -- few Indian women shopped in the market. When Jai came back, with a coolie boy carrying the basket on his head, the basket had a load of vegetables, pale green lettuce and lady's fingers, perhaps, or glossy purple eggplants, beans, the pearly paleness of Indian corn still in its sheaf. There would be coconut too, ghee-butter and the inevitable pot of curd made fresh that day.


Woman feeding cabbage to a cow outside her home.

The kitchen was very clean; no one was allowed to go there in shoes or in street clothes, and before Gopal and Jai ate they washed and changed or took off their shirts. The women ate apart, .... All was modesty, cleanliness, quiet -- and it does no hurt, through Gopal, shuddering. All of it had an inner meaning so that it was not -- not just of earth, he thought. Once a month was household day when the pots and sweeping brushes were worshipped. First they were cleaned, the brass scoured with wood-ash until it shone pale gold, the silver made bright, the brushes and dusting-cloths washed, cupboards turned out, everything washed again in running water and dried sun; then prayers were said for the household tools, and marigold flowers and jessamine were put on the shelves. I used to think it was stupid, thought Gopal; I teased my mother and called her ignorant to believe in such things, but they made it all different, quite different!

Doing the laundry in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Photographs by Claude Renault. See many more photos of India in his fascinating and beautiful blog.

Embroidery in India

A woman embroidering in India

From "Rahmin," a short story by Rumer Godden:

In Calcutta, where I lived, the chiken-wallahs worked in rows of booths in the market or out in the nearby villages, whole families stitching away, fulfilling orders--if they were lucky--for monograms, children's dresses, table-linen, underclothes, or, more often, making and embroidering these things. They would then be packed in a thin cotton cloth, made into a neat bundle, and carried to the houses of Europeans or wealthy Indians in the hope of making a sale.

When I visited India I bought some of this handiwork, and my friends in India brought me sweetly embroidered little tops of thin cotton for my daughter when she was a baby. I bought table clothes and bedspreads. In the charming neighborhood where I was staying with friends, a man would come periodically with his embroidered goods wrapped up in a bundle and tied to the back of his bicycle. Often, as it used to be in the USA, in India, the market comes to you.

The picture above was taken by Claude Renault and you can see his marvelous pictures of India on his blog.

Two Young English Girls in India

This past week, quite by accident, I had the great pleasure of reading two novels about young English girls in India. First I read The River by Rumer Godden (1946) followed by The Far Cry by Emma Smith (1949).


Sunset over the Brahmaputra River of India and Bangladesh.

Rumer Godden's The River explores the yearnings of a young girl, who seems to be about 11 years old, in Bengal in the early years of the 20th century. Her father manages a jute factory and her family lives in a big house on the river. The River is broadly autobiographical, since Godden spent the first half of her long life in India, and her father was the manager of a steamship company on the great Brahmaputra River of Bengal. This novel swirls with three themes: the aspirations of Harriet to become a writer, the love of Harriet for her family—her sister, her brother, her parents, and their assorted Indian servants, all of whom have different religions; and her love of India.

The children kept Diwali because it is an irresistible festival and no one could live in the country in which it is held and not be touched by it. Tonight when it is dark, though Harriet, her eyes anywhere but on her work, Ram Prasad will have brought for us a hundred or two hundred lamps. They are made of earthenware, shaped like hearts or tarts or leaves, and they cost two pice each, and in each we shall pour oil and float a wick; then we shall set them all along the roof and at the windows and in rows on the steps and at the gate and over the gate, and we shall light them. Everywhere, on our house, there will be lights, and on the river the boats will have them burning and we shall see them go past, and other lights on rafts will be floated down and the rich Hindus will give feasts and feed the poor and let off fireworks and we shall stay up to dinner to see.

Rumer Godden.

And Harriet luxuriates in the wonderful year-round vegetation India offers. So rich is the variety of flowers and plants that Godden is able to devote two full pages to a description of the family’s garden and its assorted flora and fauna. Later in the book, Godden describes the family home room by room. But the preface to this passage points to the role of the house in our memory of “home:”

“Every family has something, when it has left home, that is for it a symbol of home, that, for it, for ever afterwards, brings home back. It may be a glimpse of the dappled flank of a rocking horse, a certain pattern of curtain, of firelight shining on a brass fender, of light on the rim of a plate; it may be a saying, sweet or sharp, like ‘It will only end in tears,” “Do you think I am made of money?’ “It is six of one and half a dozen of the other,” it may be a song or a sound; the sound of a lawn mower or the swish of water, or of birds singing at dawn; it may be a custom (every family has different customs), or a taste: a special pudding or burnt treacle tart or dripping toast; or it may be scent or a smell: of flowers, or furniture polish or cooking, toffee or sausages, or saffron bread or onions or boiling jam. These symbols are all that are left of that lost world in our new one. There was no knowing what would remain afterwards of hers for Harriet.”

Sunset over Back Street of Old Delhi by Seth Lazar.

In The Far Cry, we are confronted with a far sadder proposition: a child that knows no home, who appears truly alone and at odds with and terrified of the adults around her, beginning with her father, who is referred to throughout the book as “Mr. Digby.” Rejected by her mother, she lives in England with her aunt until her father arrives to take her to her sister’s, who lives with her husband on a tea plantation in Assam. The first two parts of the book explore the rather hateful mindset of this child, as she travels by boat to India, a dreariness of spirit interrupted by Teresa’s keen observations of the sky and sea around her and an English spinster named Miss Spooner. When Teresa first arrives in Bombay, she is so terrified of her new environs that she can hardly speak, and she retreats to her room in the hotel in panic. Then,

Someone tapped at Teresa’s door, a tap so light it was more like a scratch, and a voice cried out: “Oh Missie, Master says, tea is in his room, come quickly. Missie, here is Sam.”
It was on account of these last four words that Teresa opened her door and looked out at the shoddy little figure who said his name was Sam. The moment she saw that confidently grinning face, the wide mouth, the flap ears, the bulging eyes, Teresa’s panic over India was at an end. For Sam was not an enemy, though an Indian. His brown skin added nothing but further comedy to his face. He demanded nothing from Teresa except that she should be affable. This was enough for him to spring inside her room and switch on the fans that she had overlooked. To fetch his friend, dhobie [laundry man]: “Missie, here is dhobie-man.” To bring photographs of himself out from a greasy inner pocket: “I have worked many times for Americans.” To writhe his body about in boneless contortions for her amusement—“I dance for ladies”—and break off his exhibition in a fit of giggles. He became immediately her attendant, admirer, entertainer, bodyguard, and because he was all these things and friendly as well, her friend. Teresa emerged from behind her barricades and proceeded to look about her.

When she and Sam are charged by Mr. Digby with going to market to buy a thermos for their long train ride to Assam, she falls in love with her new country:

“Never had she seen so many people. Never had she dreamed so many people existed. They were everywhere, lying asleep on walls, stretched on the pavements, crouching, walking, dawdling, in topees, in fez, in turbans, … The pavements were loaded with an intricately interwoven mob on foot, as the road was interwoven as intricately with a mob on wheels….
With wide eyes and open mouth Teresa drank in the confusion as though she tasted a new wine and could have enough of it. .. She longed to be occupied by this anonymous turmoil in which she felt to be so safe, for in all these crowds not a single face looked at her threateningly, not a hand touched her except by accident, not a soul knew who she was or cared. And Sam guided her swiftly and surely. She followed him with elation and no alarm.

Emma Smith photographed by Robert Doisneau for Paris Match (see Persephone Books).

The Far Cry is not autobiographical, but based on Smith’s trip to India as part of a filming crew for a documentary on tea-growing in Assam. She says in an interview that she ravaged her diary for the book’s descriptions of Bombay and Assam. She captures the comic of India’s surprises and idiosyncracies. I find it apt that she presents India to us through the eyes of a young person, for to get the most from India, it is best to make yourself young first.

Both these young girls are sorely tested in their respective stories, both experience their first friendships with an adult, and both begin to get a grip on how they might shape their own lives. Although Smith draws the relationships of adults with more subtlety and nuance than Godden, Godden’s prose is perfect, every word saturated with her deep knowledge and love of her subject matter. The River was turned into a film by Jean Renoir, but The Far Cry was rescued from obscurity by Persephone Books. Both books are a sparkling glimpse into the riches of India.

Speaking of Geraniums, What About Sweden?

Carl Larsson's living room--that's a line of pink geraniums in the window.

Whenever I think of geraniums in the window, I also think of Sweden. The photo shows Carl Larrsson's living room, a room I fell in love with when I first saw it in the May 1988 issue of House Beautiful, which was dedicated to Scandinavian country style. I love Swedish interior decorating. I find the Swedes have a genius for beauty through simplicity. Perhaps it is because their environment is dark for so many hours during half the year, that their homes radiate with light and a lightness of spirit that is immediately calming. I also love their reliance on the combination of whites and pastels and the way in which they use color so deftly as an accent. Nothing assaults the eye or the person--nothing grabs you but the totality of a very inviting room. It is uncluttered without being cold, and elegant but affordable.

About a year ago I came across a Swedish blog, called Min Lilla Veranda, with photos from a family's home. I especially loved the Christmas decorations, which centered on greens and white candles--lots of them. One day I decided to check out the blogs listed on Min Lilla Veranda and came across a cornucopia of beautiful blogs created by Swedish women about their homes. Now I have a list of these blogs that I check in all the time, and pull down all kinds of ideas. These ladies have a wonderful knack for taking simple elements and arranging them with artistry and imagination. And they love geraniums.


From Elin's Stuga

Also from Elin's Stuga.


From Guldkant Pa Livet


From Lantliv, Smultronstallen and Loggbokens Recept


From Mias Landliv (in English)


From White Season.