New BroomsMust women give all their time to housework? – How can one copewith housework without modern machinery? – Is an experimentallifestyle compatible with having servants? – What are the advantagesof remaining dirty? – Must one have baths? – Can one admit tothe existence of lavatories? – Must creativity be sacrificed forthe sake of cleanliness and order? – Does domesticity haveany value for the artist?Mrs Beeton described housekeeping as ‘the linch-pin of life’s daily round’. That bible of the middle classes, her Book of Household Management, left nothing to chance in its seventeen hundred pages of domestic commandments:The cleaning of the kitchen, passages, and kitchen stairs must always be over before breakfast.Once a week the stairs will need a thorough clean, the stair-rods must be removed, two or three at a time, and the carpet underneath carefully brushed. Paint-work must be washed, and the banisters and hand-rail polished.It is not enough in cleaning furniture to pass lightly over the surface; the rims and legs of tables, and the backs and legs of chairs and sofas should be rubbed vigorously daily; if there is a bookcase, every corner of every pane and ledge requires to be carefully wiped, so that not a speck of dust can be found in the room.This was an extreme state of affairs, ripe for a revolution, and Bohemia was preparing its subversion with a vengeance.
