Life — April 3, 1924 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Breaking It Gently" This illustration from *Life* magazine depicts two women in elegant 1920s attire discussing dining arrangements. One woman informs the other that the bishop will be joining them for dinner, requiring the menu to be "strictly lenten" (meatless foods for religious observance). The satire targets the social hypocrisy of the era: wealthy women performing religious piety for a visiting bishop while maintaining lavish lifestyles. The caption's final line—"Un œuf is as good as a feast"—is a pun on "enough," suggesting that modest lenten fare suffices. The joke mocks both the superficial religiosity of the upper class and the idea that they must perform virtue for clergy, despite their typically indulgent ways.