The bedrooms surprised us. They were called bedrooms, because nobody had yet thought out any other name for them. We were both loud in praise of their coziness. They were simply full of coziness. There was no room for anything else. Furnished with ledges or bunks as on board ship, they would have been most spacious and agreeable. With beds in them they bulged. Letitia admitted this, when I called her attention to it. She laughed and quoted Ben Jonson's memorable words: "I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie a little further to make thee a room." And, as usual, I kissed her. Her splendid thoughts were independent of mere space. They rose above and superior to close modernity. Thank goodness, again, for the lack of a sense of humor! With it, I might have said things about Chaucer, Spenser, and Beaumont, at which the groundlings, would, perchance, have smiled. The humorists, so-called, would sell their souls for a laugh.
We never once looked at the kitchen. Not for worlds would we have betrayed so mean and petty a spirit. Undoubtedly there are women who would have peered into this food-resort, and have held forth on such disgusting topics as "tubs" and "hot and cold water." Ugh! How nauseating! Letitia simply passed it by with a shrug. It had to be there, of course, but it had nothing to do with our case. Cook would probably know if it were properly appointed. This was what cook was for. The agent had told us that a bedroom for a cook was conveniently adjoining. To which Letitia had replied, in evident amusement, "No doubt. Why not?" I thought it clever, and I believe that the agent did, for he turned his face quickly away.
Aunt Julia had supplied the cooking utensils, I am thankful to say. We had no interest in them. We agreed that they were necessary, but we were willing to pay, and to pay well, for a careful custodian of that sort of thing. But as I began to say before, Aunt Julia, after having wisely dropped the "servant question," became rampant and interfering on the subject of our apartment. She asked distressing questions about "dumb waiters," and "janitors," and "washing."
Letitia was reading Cicero's De Amicitia at the time, I remember, while I was making notes of some incidents in the life of Goethe that I meant to incorporate in my book. I bore with Aunt Julia most patiently. As I could not answer her questions, I parried them very good-naturedly. After all, she was Letitia's only relative, and she was old, and rather infirm. One must be polite, even when it would be excruciatingly exquisite to be otherwise.
"I must say," remarked Aunt Julia, "that you don't seem to have looked at anything. You have taken an apartment, and you know nothing at all about it. You are a couple of silly children."
"Pardon me," I said, "but we have looked at all that it was necessary to look at. I don't expect Letitia to grovel."
"Grovel!" cried Aunt Julia, "grovel! I like that. In my time, a housewife knew what she was doing—"
"That's just it," I interrupted. "In your time, Aunt Julia, there were housewives. I hate the phrase. Housewife—wife of the house. I want my wife for myself, not for my house. In your time, I dare say, women so far forgot themselves—yes, forgot themselves, Aunt Julia—as to discuss the laundry, or the market, with their husbands. That, I may say, is not our idea. I want your dear little niece to stay in her drawing-room—"
"Stay in her—what?" cried Aunt Julia ferociously.
"I repeat: her drawing-room. Oh, I know that you would prefer that I say 'parlor.' I decline to do so. It is a word that grates on my nerves. In England, they have 'parlors' in hovels. You enter the 'parlor' direct from the street. It is quite unnecessary to cast a stigma on a room. Drawing-room sounds much more refined. With us it will be drawing-room."