Читать книгу Mrs. Bridge - Evan S. Connell - Страница 16

10 • TABLE MANNERS

Mrs. Bridge said that she judged people by their shoes and by their manners at the table. If someone wore shoes with runover heels, or shoes that had not been shined for a long time, or shoes with broken laces, you could be pretty sure this person would be slovenly in other things as well. And there was no better way to judge a person’s background than by watching him or her at the table.

The children learned it was impolite to talk while eating, or to chew with the mouth open, and as they grew older they learned the more subtle manners—not to butter an entire slice of bread, not to take more than one biscuit at a time, unless, of course, the hostess should insist. They were taught to keep their elbows close to their sides while cutting meat, and to hold the utensils in the tips of their fingers. They resisted the temptation to sop up the gravy with a piece of bread, and they made sure to leave a little of everything—not enough to be called wasteful, but just a little to indicate the meal had been sufficient. And, naturally, they learned that a lady or a gentleman does not fold up a napkin after having eaten in a public place.

The girls absorbed these matters with greater facility than Douglas, who tended to ask the reason for everything, sometimes observing that he thought it was all pretty silly. He seemed particularly unable to eat with his left hand lying in his lap; he wanted to leave it on the table, to prop himself up, as it were, and claimed he got a backache with one arm in his lap. Mrs. Bridge told him this was absurd, and when he wanted to know why he could not put his elbow on the table she replied, “Do you want to be different from everyone else?”

Douglas was doubtful, but after a long silence, and under the weight of his mother’s tranquil gaze, he at last concluded he didn’t.

The American habit of switching implements, however, continued to give him trouble and to make him rebellious. With elaborate care he would put down the knife, reach high across his plate and descend on the left side to pick up the fork, raising it high over the plate again as he returned to the starting position.

“Now stop acting ridiculous,” she told him one day at lunch.

“Well, I sure bet the Egyptians don’t have to eat this way,” he muttered, giving “Egyptians” a vengeful emphasis.

“I doubt if they do,” she replied calmly, expertly cutting a triangle of pineapple from her salad, “but you’re not an Egyptian. So you eat the way Americans eat, and that’s final.”