{"id":142,"date":"2024-10-21T09:43:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/?p=142"},"modified":"2024-10-21T09:43:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:43:17","slug":"polite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/polite\/","title":{"rendered":"Polite"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

M<\/span>me El is not one to stand on ceremony, neither does <\/span>L\u00e9onine, it is this or that or yes or no, full stop. We <\/span>were proceeding from her room to the salon, the <\/span>daily exercise, and she told me to fetch her reading glasses for <\/span>her. This made nearby L\u00e9onine tell her in a far-reaching voice <\/span>and in no uncertain terms to be \u2018polite\u2019, to say \u2018please\u2019 and <\/span>\u2018thank you\u2019, use the appropriate tone! I protested that I hadn\u2019t <\/span>taken anything amiss.<\/span>
It has to be \u2018thank you\u2019 for a detested glass of water which <\/span>Mme El then downs with contempt<\/span> \u2013 in order not to uphold <\/span>the delivery of her dinner.<\/span>
In the past I witnessed Mme El trying more than once to <\/span>be polite by saying \u2018thank you\u2019 when the afternoon coffee <\/span>was being served, but she gave up in the end for lack of any <\/span>detectable reaction I don\u2019t blame her.<\/span>
Mme El doesn\u2019t say \u2018thank you\u2019 nor \u2018please\u2019, never has done, <\/span>she tells me, as little as she \u2018pardons\u2019.<\/span>
If nowadays L\u00e9onine demands obedience, so did Mme El <\/span>and this from everyone under her sway, I\u2019m sure, in her time, <\/span>issuing commands straight to the point, in clear language <\/span>and no fussing around, dispensing with niceties, always and <\/span>everywhere the young generation had to do as told by the <\/span>old one. Where the commands unreasonable? They must <\/span>have been related to the running of the house and the farm,<\/span>
Mme El\u2019s priority. She herself had never been allowed by her <\/span>grandmother to go out, join the others when there was a <\/span>dance or merry-making somewhere \u2013 she told me more than <\/span>once that she didn\u2019t have a \u2018youth\u2019 in the sense of enjoyment <\/span>or gaiety \u2013 , but her own youngsters liked to go out to musical <\/span>events and didn\u2019t they come back late sometimes?! Yet the <\/span>work in the morning couldn\u2019t wait and she mercilessly stirred <\/span>them out of bed, she explained how: with the broomstick <\/span>against the ceiling knock, knock, knock!<\/span>
There is a different regime, now, a different commander in <\/span>charge and obviously grandchildren and animals must do as <\/span>told.<\/span>
Mme El was attached to their cows, she said, but the family <\/span>didn\u2019t eat them, they were sold and that was the last they <\/span>saw of them. I ask, was she attached to their pigs. Yes, she <\/span>was, is the answer, more so than her husband who, wary of <\/span>mischief, never went near them without a stick, as opposed <\/span>to her father who wasn\u2019t afraid. But you were willing to eat <\/span>those, I point out. She smiles, no doubt at the thought of <\/span>delicious hams and p\u00e2t\u00e9s, those were the times and a pig\u2019s <\/span>a pig. What about horse meat then? She says that\u2019s a very <\/span>nice meat, in fact preferable to beef. Her father loved it and <\/span>regularly brought it home, but \u2018M\u00e9m\u00e9\u2019, her grandmother, <\/span>wouldn\u2019t have to be told, she would have refused to eat it, <\/span>much as she loved meat and big portions of it, too, she liked <\/span>her food, Mme El tells me raising her eye-brows.<\/span>
I gave her the prepared lunch, L\u00e9onine being absent, and <\/span>soon after she complained about being \u2018hungry\u2019. However, I <\/span>was able to prove to her that this was impossible and that <\/span>really she simply liked eating! She couldn\u2019t counter that. Her <\/span>next option is to be combed, she loves the massage, can\u2019t get <\/span>enough of it and says that it takes her mind off other things.\u00a0<\/span>
Talking about life and its less pleasant aspects, she ended <\/span>her observations with the Oc<\/span> \u2018<\/span>cal rigola!\u2019- We must take it with <\/span>humour ! I thought this was good enough to be written down <\/span>in her diary which she did, asking me to spell cal for her.<\/span>
I had joined my hands and she wondered was it to pray. I <\/span>said it wasn\u2019t and pointing to her joined hands returned the <\/span>question. She answered \u2018je ne sais pas prier\u2019- I can\u2019t pray. Eh <\/span>ben, tant pis!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mme El is not one to stand on ceremony, neither does L\u00e9onine, it is this or that or yes or no, full stop. We were proceeding from her room to the salon, the daily exercise, and she told me to fetch her reading glasses for her. This made nearby L\u00e9onine tell her in a far-reaching […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}