The 3A Berkeley Mansions Literary Society, #7

P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster and Jeeves discuss great works of literature

Oscar Wilde “The Picture Of Dorian Grey”

“Jeeves, a question.”

“Yes, sir?”

“If you had a portrait in the attic that grew old, while you stayed young, but the rummy thing is that the portrait would show all of your sins and grow quite unappealing, would you want a portrait like that? Would you?”

“No, sir.”

“Silly of me to ask, really. You don’t commit any sins.”

“None that would be worth memorializing in oils, sir.”

“Huh. I wonder what a portrait of this Wooster would look like. I’ve pinched cow creamers, impersonated friends and others, cheated at billiards — once — that might not be much when stacked against a life of debauchery and murder.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“This Dorian Gray chap does all sorts of terrible things, Jeeves, but most of the time Wilde is so dashed coy about what those terrible things are. He repeatedly mentions this bally book that Dorian has copies of, without the title. It might as well be Milady’s Boudoir. Not that Milady’s Boudoir would lead one to a life of sin. The opposite effect, I should think.”

“The book so obliquely referred to is Against Nature by the French writer Huysmans. It is concerned with the inner life of Jean des Esseintes, a recluse retreating from bourgeois life to contemplate beauty. It was an important portrait of the Aesthetic movement in the late 19th century — “

“Jeeves, enough about Against Nature.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Save it for the long winter nights.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No, don’t. I have no wish to know more.”

“Very good, sir.”

“I don’t know why this Gray chap preferred that novel over a cracking mystery. The inner life of a bally recluse sounds oppressive to the spirit. I wish this Wilde fellow had been more explicit. It’s damned disappointed to read a ‘racy’ novel and find it’s nothing but hints. It’s not fair that the portrait knows more than the reader. It should be the other way round, what?”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I was thinking of commissioning a portrait of myself. But it might be best not to go down that road. Besides, it might be unsettling to look at my face all day.”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Jeeves! Whatever do you mean?”

“Do you require anything else, sir?”

“No, dash it!”