The price of beauty
“‘My dear, I had to laugh,’ she said. ‘D’you know what a man said to me the other day? ‘It’s funny,’ he said, ‘have you ever thought that a girl’s clothes cost more than the girl inside them?”
‘What a swine of a man!’ I said.
‘Yes, that’s what I told him,’ Maudie said. ‘That isn’t the way to talk,’ I said. And he said, ‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You can get a very nice girl for five pounds, a very nice girl indeed; you can even get a very nice girl for nothing if you know how to go about it. But you can’t get a very nice costume for her for five pounds. To say nothing of underclothes, shoes, etcetera and so on.’ And then I had to laugh, because after all it’s true, isn’t it? People are much cheaper than things.’
Jean Rhys
1894-1979
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