This thought occurred to me because she was a stout, ruddy woman,
with a kindly, round, and rather stupid face. Cooks are often like
that. My words evidently did not please her. She repeated:

"A cook--but I don't know how to make bread," said she, and she
laughed. She said that she did not know how; but I saw from the
expression of her countenance that she did not wish to become a cook,
that she regarded the position and calling of a cook as low.

This woman, who in the simplest possible manner was sacrificing every
thing that she had for the sick woman, like the widow in the Gospels,
at the same time, like many of her companions, regarded the position
of a person who works as low and deserving of scorn. She had been
brought up to live not by work, but by this life which was considered
the natural one for her by those about her. In that lay her
misfortune. And she fell in with this misfortune and clung to her
position. This led her to frequent the taverns. Which of us--man or
woman--will correct her false view of life? Where among us are the
people to be found who are convinced that every laborious life is
more worthy of respect than an idle life,--who are convinced of this,
and who live in conformity with this belief, and who in conformity
with this conviction value and respect people? If I had thought of
this, I might have understood that neither I, nor any other person
among my acquaintances, could heal this complaint.

I might have understood that these amazed and affected heads thrust
over the partition indicated only surprise at the sympathy expressed
for them, but not in the least a hope of reclamation from their
dissolute life. They do not perceive the immorality of their life.