Gaudy Night (Lord Peter Wimsey, #12)

by Dorothy L. Sayers

Persons curious in chronology may, if they like, work out from what they already know of the Wimsey family that the action of the book takes place in 1935; but if they do, they must not be querulously indignant because the King’s Jubilee is not mentioned, or because I have arranged the weather and the moon’s changes to suit my own fancy. For, however realistic the background, the novelist’s only native country is Cloud-Cuckooland, where they do but jest, poison in jest: no offense in the world.

Dorothy Sayers is a bad-ass bitch.

The mouth was the mouth of one who has been generous and repented of generosity; its wide corners were tucked back to give nothing away.

“They can’t take this away, at any rate. Whatever I may have done since, this remains. Scholar; Master of Arts; Domina; Senior Member of this University (statutum est quod Juniores Senioribus debitam et congruam reverentiam tum in privato tum in publico exhibeant); a place achieved, inalienable, worthy of reverence.

I know this feeling. I will always be a midwife, no matter what. And a nurse, and a doctor of nursing practice.

Lambard may be a perverse old idiot, but it’s more dignified not to say so in so many words. A bland and deadly courtesy is more devastating, don’t you think?”

“Talking of drains,” said the Bursar— The conversation took a less personal and more anecdotal turn (for there is no chance assembly of people who cannot make lively conversation about drains),

Hahaha

“If you ask me,” observed the Bursar, “we discuss everything a great deal too much in this university. We argue about this and that and why and wherefore, instead of getting the thing done.” “But oughtn’t we to ask what things we want done,” objected the Dean. Harriet grinned at Betty Armstrong, hearing the familiar academic wrangle begin. Before ten minutes had passed, somebody had introduced the word “values.” An hour later they were still at it. Finally the Bursar was heard to quote: “God made the integers; all else is the work of man.”

Miss Vane—I admired you for speaking as you did tonight. Detachment is a rare virtue, and very few people find it lovable, either in themselves or in others. If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it—still more, because of it—that liking has very great value, because it is perfectly sincere, and because, with that person, you will never need to be anything but sincere yourself.” “That is probably very true,” said Harriet, “but what makes you say it?” “Not any desire to offend you, believe me. But I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.” “Yes,” said Harriet, “but I am one of them. I disconcert myself very much. I never know what I do feel.” “I don’t think that matters, provided one doesn’t try to persuade one’s self into appropriate feelings.”

“We can only know what things are of overmastering importance when they have overmastered us.” Was there anything at all that had stood firm in the midst of her indecisions? Well, yes; she had stuck to her work—and that in the face of what might have seemed overwhelming reasons for abandoning it and doing something different. Indeed, though she had shown cause that evening for this particular loyalty, she had never felt it necessary to show cause to herself. She had written what she felt herself called upon to write;

Do you know any man who sincerely admires a woman for her brains?” “Well,” said Harriet, “certainly not many.” “You may think you know one,” said Miss Hillyard, with a bitter emphasis. “Most of us think at some time or other that we know one. But the man usually has some other little axe to grind.” “Very likely,” said Harriet. “You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of men—of the male character, I mean, as such.” “No,” said Miss Hillyard, “not very high. But they have an admirable talent for imposing their point of view on society in general. All women are sensitive to male criticism. Men are not sensitive to female criticism. They despise the critics.” “Do you, personally, despise male criticism?” “Heartily,” said Miss Hillyard. “But it does damage. Look at this University. All the men have been amazingly kind and sympathetic about the Women’s Colleges. Certainly. But you won’t find them appointing women to big University posts. That would never do. The women might perform their work in a way beyond criticism. But they are quite pleased to see us playing with our little toys.” “Excellent fathers and family men,” murmured Harriet. “In that sense—yes,” said Miss Hillyard, and laughed rather unpleasantly.

And suppose they actually did find a bloody corpse in the buttery, how surprised they would all be. The glory of a college was that nothing drastic ever happened in it. The most frightful thing that was ever likely to happen was that an undergraduate should “take the wrong turning.” The purloining of a parcel or two by a porter had been enough to throw the whole Senior Common Room into consternation. Bless their hearts, how refreshing and soothing and good they all were, walking beneath their ancient beeches and meditating on ὂν καὶ μὴ ὂν and the finance of Queen Elizabeth.

“All right. Don’t worry. I’ll try not to be a nuisance. But if you could put up with me occasionally, as you have done tonight, I should be very grateful to you.” “I don’t think that would be at all fair to you.” “If that’s the only reason, I am the best judge of that.”

Or should the people with brains sit tight and let the people with hearts look after them?” “They frequently do.” “So they do.” For the fifth time he summoned the waiter to pick up Harriet’s napkin for her. “Why do geniuses make bad husbands, and all that? But what are you going to do about the people who are cursed with both hearts and brains?” “I’m sorry I keep on dropping things; this silk’s so slippery. Well, that’s just the problem, isn’t it? I’m beginning to believe they’ve got to choose.” “Not compromise?” “I don’t think the compromise works.”

“I wish,” she said to the friend of the European trip, “he would take a firm line of some kind.” “But he has,” replied the friend, who was a clear-headed person. “He knows what he wants. The trouble is that you don’t. I know it isn’t pleasant putting an end to things, but I don’t see why he should do all your dirty work for you, particularly as he doesn’t want it done. As for anonymous letters, it seems to me quite ridiculous to pay any attention to them.”

The pre-War solemnity and the post-War exhaustion were both gone; the desire now was for an energetic doing of something definite,

We've got so many years of exhaustion built up. Wars since 2001 and now the pandemic...

You expend the trouble and you don’t make any mistakes—and then you experience the ecstasy. But if there’s any subject in which you’re content with the second-rate, then it isn’t really your subject.”

“I think it is, to a large extent. But the big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring. I wish one could teach people nowadays that the doctrine of snatching what one thinks one wants is unsound.”

“No, one can’t,” said Miss de Vine. “However painful it is, there’s always one thing one has to deal with sincerely, if there’s any root to one’s’ mind at all. I ought to know, from my own experience. Of course, the one thing may be an emotional thing; I don’t say it mayn’t. One may commit all the sins in the calendar, and still be faithful and honest towards one person. If so, then that one person is probably one’s appointed job. I’m not despising that kind of loyalty; it doesn’t happen to be mine, that is all.” “Did you discover that by making a fundamental mistake?” asked Harriet, a little nervously. “Yes,” said Miss de Vine. “I once got engaged to somebody. But I found I was always blundering—hurting his feelings, doing stupid things, making quite elementary mistakes about him. In the end I realized that I simply wasn’t taking as much trouble with him as I should have done over a disputed reading. So I decided he wasn’t my job.”

Oh dang.

She smiled. “For all that, I was fonder of him than he was of me. He married an excellent woman who is devoted to him and does make him her job. I should think he was a full-time job. He is a painter and usually on the verge of bankruptcy; but he paints very well.” “I suppose one oughtn’t to marry anybody, unless one’s prepared to make him a full-time job.” “Probably not; though there are a few rare people, I believe, who don’t look on themselves as jobs but as fellow-creatures.” “I should think Phoebe Tucker and her husband were like that,” said Harriet. “You met her at the Gaudy. That collaboration seems to work. But what with the wives who are jealous of their husbands’ work and the husbands who are jealous of their wives’ interests, it looks as though most of us imagined ourselves to be jobs.” “The worst of being a job,” said Miss de Vine, “is the devastating effect it has on one’s character. I’m very sorry for the person who is somebody else’s job; he (or she, of course) ends by devouring or being devoured, either of which is bad for one. My painter has devoured his wife, though neither of them knows it; and poor Miss Cattermole is in great danger of being identified with her parents’ job and being devoured.”

But the reason why I want to—to get clear of people and feelings and go back to the intellectual side is that that is the only side of life I haven’t betrayed and made a mess of.” “I know that,” he said, more gently. “And it’s upsetting to think that it may betray you in its turn. But why should you think that? Even if much learning makes one person mad it need not make everybody mad. All these women are beginning to look abnormal to you because you don’t know which one to suspect, but actually even you don’t suspect more than one.” “No; but I’m beginning to feel that almost any one of them might be capable of it.” “That, I fancy, is where your fears are distorting your judgment.

With tobacco and literature one could face out any situation, provided, of course, that the book was not written in an unknown tongue.

Coffee but sure

But if I give Wilfrid all those violent and lifelike feelings, he’ll throw the whole book out of balance.” “You would have to abandon the jigsaw kind of story and write a book about human beings for a change.” “I’m afraid to try that, Peter. It might go too near the bone.” “It might be the wisest thing you could do.” “Write it out and get rid of it?” “Yes.” “I’ll think about that. It would hurt like hell.” “What would that matter, if it made a good book?” She was taken aback, not by what he said, but by his saying it. She had never imagined that he regarded her work very seriously, and she had certainly not expected him to take this ruthless attitude about it. The protective male? He was being about as protective as a can-opener. “You haven’t yet,” he went on, “written the book you could write if you tried. Probably you couldn’t write it when you were too close to things. But you could do it now, if you had the—the—” “The guts?” “Exactly.” “I don’t think I could face it.” “Yes, you could. And you’ll get no peace till you do. I’ve been running away from myself for twenty years, and it doesn’t work. What’s the good of making mistakes if you don’t use them? Have a shot. Start on Wilfrid.” “Damn Wilfrid! …All right. I’ll try. I’ll knock the sawdust out of Wilfrid, anyhow.” He took his right hand from the paddle and held it out to her, deprecatingly. “‘Always laying down the law with exquisite insolence to somebody.’ I’m sorry.”

“Lord, teach us to take our hearts and look them in the face, however difficult it may be.”

“Hush! there is only one kind of wisdom that has any social value, and that is the knowledge of one’s own limitations.” “Nervous young dons and students have before now been carried out in convulsions through being afraid to say boldly that they did not know.”

“He and I belong to the same world, and all these others are the aliens.”

Just exercise your devastating talent for keeping to the point and speaking the truth.” “That sounds easy.” “It is—for you. That’s what I love you for. Didn’t you know?

She had often wondered, in a detached kind of way, what it was that Peter valued in her and had apparently valued from that first day when she had stood in the dock and spoken for her own life. Now that she knew, she thought that a more unattractive pair of qualities could seldom have been put forward as an excuse for devotion.

Oh hush, that's society talking nonsense in your head.

What one wanted, she thought, standing amid the stuffy perfumes of the hair-dresser’s establishment, was peace, and freedom from the pressure of angry and agitated personalities.

The young were always theoretical; only the middle-aged could realize the deadliness of principles. To subdue one’s self to one’s own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one’s self to other people’s ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltiness of those dead sea apples. Could there ever be any alliance between the intellect and the flesh? It was this business of asking questions and analyzing everything that sterilized and stultified all one’s passions. Experience perhaps had a formula to get over this difficulty: one kept the bitter, tormenting brain on one side of the wall and the languorous sweet body on the other, and never let them meet. So that if you were made that way, you could argue about loyalties in an Oxford common-room and refresh yourself elsewhere with—say—Viennese singers, presenting an unruffled surface on both sides of yourself. Easy for a man, and possible even for a woman, if one avoided foolish accidents like being tried for murder. But to seek to force incompatibles into a compromise was madness; one should neither do it nor be a party to it.

had not exactly a headache, but the sensation that a headache might begin at any moment.

I fucking know this feeling

“Yes. I almost wish he had interfered, instead of being so horribly intelligent. It would be quite a relief to be ridden over rough-shod for a change.” “He will never do that. That’s his weakness. He’ll never make up your mind for you. You’ll have to make your own decisions. You needn’t be afraid of losing your independence; he will always force it back on you. If you ever find any kind of repose with him, it can only be the repose of very delicate balance.”

A marriage of two independent and equally irritable intelligences seems to me reckless to the point of insanity. You can hurt one another so dreadfully.” “I know. And I don’t think I can stand being hurt any more.” “Then,” said Miss de Vine, “I suggest that you stop hurting other people. Face the facts and state a conclusion.

I do know that the worst sin—perhaps the only sin—passion can commit, is to be joyless. It must lie down with laughter or make its bed in hell—there is no middle way