“Of course I should,” she answered. “You admitted yourself, you know, that it was a fine work.”
“It is a fine work,” I said, “and I am not so dogmatic as to profess that there is only one right theory of art in the world. But every fox looks after his own skin, says the proverb; and dislikes, adds I, the having it flayed from him to adorn a rival.”
And so ended our first disputation—which was by no means our last—on the subject. If I was heckled and browbeaten, it was also agreeably clear to me that I had got no fool for my housemate.
Fifine, come out of her shell of apathy, was a surprise indeed.
CHAPTER VI
Very early I made a strange discovery: Fifine was doing the housework. It did not, perhaps, amount to much, which was likely the reason that the fact was impressed upon me gradually; but, when at length conviction came, I was immensely surprised and interested. The little domestic bienséances, obligatory even in Bohemia, came one by one to be appropriated to meeter hands than mine, so that by and by I was altogether without the occupations which, to speak truth, had served me hitherto as an excuse for much self-malingering in the matter of my professional work.
It began, properly enough, perhaps, with Fifine’s quiet intimation that I was to regard her bedroom as her own exclusive property and care; and it ended by her every day making my bed, sous ce nom-là, as well as her own. That was sufficiently gratifying; and so was it to find her cleaning up the plates and dishes after meals; but, when it came to her offering to take my place at the electric stove, I was inclined to kick a little.
“It would go against my social conscience,” I said, “to accept such a return for the little hospitality I can offer you.”
“But I should like it.”
“But I should not.”