A kindly act by a local girl helping Lawrence Durrell with his housekeeping during his idyllic two year stay on the island of Rhodes immediately after the war.  I consider her treatment of potentially bad news to be laudable, if inconvenient. 

Also love her reaction when she is upraided for doing no more than protect her boss. 

The peasant girl from Cos makes an admirable servant but she shares the superstitions of her people.  It is unlucky, for example, to be the bringer of bad luck or bad news.  Telegrams almost always contain bad news.  Therefore rather than give me the telegram which arrived this morning she tore it up and put it down the lavatory.  ‘I was afraid it was bad news,’ she says.   When I scold her she throws her apron over her head and roars like a bull.  What is one to do? 

Source: Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), p. 100

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