“She said that we deserved the best of everything, and that, even in straitened circumstances, we should always conduct ourselves properly. It was almost as though she thought we were some kind of displaced royalty, you know . . . the family of a deposed tsar or an overthrown monarch or something. I tried so hard, but I never managed to look and behave the way she thought I should, to behave appropriately. That made her very unhappy, and very angry. Mind you, it wasn’t just me. No one was ever good enough.
Hmm
