A bourgeois breakfast

Thomas heads to the dining room and takes his place. As always, his parents are already seated there. The mother sitting at the head, ordering and complaining to the maids about what they should bring for breakfast, speeding them up because "she's late for work, and time is money". Thomas thinks his mother is beautiful, as is everyone around him. And not just because she oozes power and charm. In her fifties, she looks much younger, and though her son doesn't say it out loud, she has a body—albeit thin—completely firm and rigid, like a twenty-year-old girl. It seems that her body froze in time, as if the coldness of her soul overflowed, not just on her white skin, white as snow. However, she is more like a bad stepmother than a snow white. Not for Thomas, for whom she has always been rather cold, but always careful and loving your way. But for his father, for sure.

Jeckyll is looking at his wife. If anyone could read his mind, he would understand how he is admiring her beauty, even as he thinks she is a son of a bitch. To try to ward off the disappointment that is his life, he concentrates on the newspaper, but the bitch doesn't leave him alone.

"Jeckyll dear, don't forget you have to take Sebastian to the vet, he's not okay. It's scheduled for 5pm."

He has to hold on not to scream and turn the tables. With so many employees, why doesn't she have one do it? Even more knowing that today he has the golf championship with friends at this time. He's been training for weeks, and because of Eva's stupid German Shepherd, who he thinks she likes more than her husband, he'll lose the championship. But, he knows he cannot challenge this woman. He takes a deep breath, and shrugs, shrunk even more - in recent years he's even lost a few inches in height, as if his moral flattening has had an effect on his body. With a sigh, he just replies, "Of course, Eva. Don't worry." And he goes back to pretending to focus on the newspaper, but inside he's boiling.

Eva doesn't notice anything. In fact, she hasn't noticed anything that happens to her husband for many years. Dedicated to work only, devoted as if to a single mission - to earn more and more money - she maintains only a human facade, but inside she is more like a calculating machine. She has had no real connection with her husband for years. For years she has doubted whether she really likes this lazy, parasitic, useless man. She hasn't had sex for years. With no one, which is impressive considering how many men would give their souls to have a night with this Greek sculpture.

She gave up sex, carnal pleasures in general. Not even eating she almost does. Her husband thinks she despises him for his little penis - after all, from whom did they think Thomas would inherit his genitals? In fact, she is so devoted to Mammon, to the avidity for money, that there is no room for higher pursuits, not even sins of another nature. It is a very common case of fetishism in the upper classes - in the Freudian sense of transferring sexual impulses away from sexual activities - with the transfer of pleasure through the pursuit of money.

Thomas shivers, as if from the frigid atmosphere at the table right now. After eating in a bit of a hurry, he gets up and announces, "Good morning to both of you. I have to go, or I'm not going to be late for college." He prefers not to mention that he is going to fetch Edward, as he knows that this friendship with a proletarian deeply irritates the snobby mother.

"Stay longer, it's still early. Eat some more, you're thinner than your father."

"I'm sorry Eva, but I'm late."

"You know I prefer you call me Mom. You can go, but I hope you're not rushing to give the secretary's son a ride."

The mother would be even angrier if she knew what kind of ride her son would ultimately like to give the "secretary's son."

Without losing his composure or raising his voice, but with a hard tone that was wrong with his mother, he replied: "Mother, you know his name, it's Edward. He's in fact the son of a secretary, and not just anyone, she's yours secretary. And there's nothing shameful about it. And yes, I'll get him."

To tame the beast, she kisses her mother's forehead, which always softens her a few. A tiny hint of a smile appears at the corner of Eva's mouth. The maid serving a juicer to her would swear after she could hear the crunch of ice, even though she didn't know where it came from.