“My dear, we’re delighted you’re here!”
Hortensia Oeillet came up to her in the company of a group of women—the librarian counted ten of them—who crowded around her and, with astounding speed, settled her on a chair and furnished her with a cup of hot chocolate and two cream cakes. Miss Prim thanked them for the honor, but politely turned down their invitation to say a few words before the chairwoman opened the meeting. As she was introduced to them in turn, she learned that many of the guests were professional women, which seemed perfectly natural at a gathering that advocated female liberation. But she soon noticed something rather odd. The librarian was used to the convention by which, when talking about their occupation, people made reference to their qualifications, whether in medicine, law, finance, or university teaching. At the meeting of the Feminist League, however, conversations took a different course. Each time Miss Prim asked one of the other guests what she did, the reply was not what she was expecting.
“So you’re a pharmacist,” she said to one woman. “Where do you work? I think I’ve seen a pharmacy in the square.”
“Oh yes, I am, but I don’t have a pharmacy. I run a small art school. In San Ireneo one pharmacy is plenty, but when I arrived here there was no one who could teach art, do you see?”
Miss Prim, who certainly did not see, then spoke to an elegant woman who, she had been informed, once ran one of the most expensive and fashionable slimming clinics in the country.
“Tell me,” she said with friendly interest, “how does a professional woman with all your experience come to settle in such a small place?”
“Actually it’s very simple,” the woman replied with a smile, “though I don’t think you’ve been told the whole story. That chapter of my career ended some time ago. You’ve probably seen my bakery, in the square next to Hortensia’s flower shop? Yes, I see you’re surprised. I closed the clinic five years ago, just before moving here. I’d achieved almost everything I set out to do, I no longer had much to occupy me, and at that time I craved a simpler life. And what could be simpler than baking? I must say I’m tremendously lucky that here in San Ireneo I’m mistress of my own time. I’ve been able to specialize so that I only bake for afternoon tea. All I make are buns, choux pastries, cakes, dainty bites.”
“It must take great courage to make such an extreme change to your life,” murmured Miss Prim without great conviction before resuming her seat by the fireplace.
She had just sat down when a tall, heavy blond woman came up to her and shook her hand energetically.
“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Clarissa Waste, proprietor of theSan Ireneo Gazette. You may already have met my business partner, Herminia.”
Miss Prim replied that she hadn’t yet had that pleasure, adding that she’d never spoken to a journalist before.
“Well, I think you’ll have to wait a little longer. I’m not a journalist. Let’s say I’m more of a small-business woman. Emma Giovanacci, that curvy woman you see with Hortensia, is a journalist, or at least she was before she came here. Now she’s concentrating on setting up our Institute for Research into Medieval Iconography, as well as teaching around twenty village children at her home. Don’t ask me how she manages; it’s a mystery.”
Miss Prim agreed that, indeed, the capacity for multitasking of some members of their sex was a mystery, which, in her opinion, had yet to be fully studied by scientists. She then asked the woman what she had done before working in the newspaper business.
“I was a busy housewife. I still am; it’s not something I want to give up, but I combine it with running the newspaper. Before coming to live here, that would have been unthinkable. Oh, but I see you don’t know! It’s an evening paper. We put it together in the mornings, while the children are attending Miss Mott’s school or your employer’s wonderful classes on Homer and Aeschylus. You see, here our philosophy is that everything important happens in the morning.”
“And what if something important happens in the afternoon?” she asked, surprised.
“Well, we’d have to report it in the following evening’s edition. What else could we do?”
Intrigued, Miss Prim continued to move around the room. In this way she found out that many families in San Ireneo invested all their time and expertise—in some cases, very finely specialized—in personally seeing to their children’s education and giving classes to the children of others as well, an activity that provided great social prestige. Many of the women there owned their own businesses, small establishments that were almost all located on the ground floor of their houses so as not to disrupt family life too much. Working hours didn’t seem to be a problem. Everyone was of the opinion that women, if anything more than men, should be able to organize their time freely. This meant that no one was surprised that the bookshop opened from ten till two, the solicitor’s office was open from eleven till three, and the dentist’s surgery began its day at twelve and ended it on the dot of five in the afternoon.
Miss Prim had just poured herself a third cup of hot chocolate when Hortensia Oeillet’s voice rose above the hubbub.
“Ladies, ladies, please take your seats! We must begin, it’s almost five thirty.”
All the guests—the librarian counted nearly thirty of them—sat down to listen to the chairwoman, who began by reading out the agenda from a sheet of paper.
“The first matter we need to deal with is the untenable situation of our dear Amelia and Judge Bassett.”
A murmur of approval went around the room. The woman beside Miss Prim whispered that young Amelia was in a position of semi-slavery at the house of a retired magistrate whom she’d been helping to complete his memoirs for the past six years.
“Imagine, the girl’s working over eight hours a day. It’s anachronistic and intolerable.”
Hearing this, it dawned on the librarian for the first time that her own working day, at the house of the Man in the Wing Chair, never lasted longer than five or six hours. In the beginning she had attributed the relaxed timetable to her employer’s eccentricity, but she was now starting to see that it was a core value in San Ireneo.
“Our friend Amelia,” Hortensia was saying, “is obliged to work hours that are unacceptable according to the principles we in San Ireneo hold dear. The judge has been warned on several occasions, but he turns a deaf ear. As you know, the girl is getting married in April next year”—another murmur, this time of congratulation, ran around the room—“and will no doubt soon become a mother. It is therefore urgent that we do all we can to resolve the situation.”
Applause accompanied by a few cheers greeted the chairwoman’s words. Next, a slight woman with large eyes and an extraordinarily expressive face stood up to speak.
“That’s Herminia Treaumont,” whispered Miss Prim’s neighbor, “the editor of theSan Ireneo Gazette. Before settling here she held the Chair in Elizabethan Poetry at the University of Pennsylvania.”
Herminia spoke in a clear, calm, and well-modulated voice.
“Dear friends, I think our chairwoman has clearly explained Amelia’s situation. As some of you know, I’ve often been her confidante and I’m fully aware of the problems she faces at the judge’s house, though I also know that she’s very fond of him. Not only is it impossible for her to have a social life while working such hours, but she has also been unable to devote any time to reading and study which, as you know, is one of the main principles upon which our small community is based.”
The speaker paused for a sip of water before continuing.
