...of a snub

Now, baths and washing are one of Lolo's favourite topics, and Lola rated them even more highly, indeed she liked talking about them almost as much as she liked talking about her 'mama', and on the way here she had already made such statements as 'I wouldn't be able to live without a shower', and 'I don't know how anyone can live in a town without having two baths a day', and 'my mama puts lemon juice in her bath' and 'my mama goes to Karlsbad every year'. So, when Fuchs mentioned the subject, it immediately set Lola loloing. She said that if she were in the Sahara she would use her last glass of water to wash, 'because water for washing is more important than water for drinking, and wouldn't you do the same, Lolo?' etc. In the midst of all this chatter she must have noticed, as I did, that the word 'bath' was unpleasantly related to Jadeczka. Not that Jadeczka was not clean. But she had a special kind of self-centredness that reminded me of Fuch's statement on another occasion that 'one is what one is.' In relationship to her own body, she behaved as if (like certain smells) it were tolerable only to its owner, and consequently she created the impression of being a person uninterested in baths. Lola, after sticking out her little nose and behaving as if she could sniff something from that quarter, continued harping on the theme. 'If I miss my bath for any reason, I feel ill,' etc., etc., she said, and Lolo followed suit, and so did Leo, Fuchs, Louis, and Lena, as is usual in such circumstances, in order not to be suspected of indifference in relation to water. Jadeczka and Tolo, however, remained silent.
The result of this talkativeness on the one hand and the silence on the other was a tacit implication that Jadeczka did not take baths. Hence the feeling that 'one is what one is.'
There was a whiff coming from her direction, not a physical smell, but the whiff of an unpleasing personality; and Lola, backed up by Lolo, with the most innocent air in the world, was like a bloodhound on the trail. Jadeczka, however, behaved exactly as before, that is, she remained silent and did not take part - except that her withdrawal into herself now became associated with insufficient familiarity with water; and Tolo's silence was even worse, because he was obviously a perfect swimmer and was in his element in water, so why not open his mouth? Did he not want to leave her alone in her silence?

[Cosmos, Gombrowicz, W.]