The 3A Berkeley Mansions Literary Society, #8
P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster and Jeeves discuss great works of literature
Charles Dickens “A Tale Of Two Cities”
“Jeeves, once again, I have been misled! You must give our bookseller a stern talking-to!”
“Indeed, sir?”
“This Tale Of Two Cities, Jeeves. It’s got a corking plot, with old Manette going mad and Darnay being framed and Sydney Carton…Sydney Carton getting drunk and soliloquizing and all. I must say, Jeeves, Carton’s soliloquies are a dashed sight more eloquent than any of my friends could manage when that far under the surface.”
“I fail to understand, then, how you feel misled. It would seem to meet all of your requirements for leisurely reading. Including murder, as when the Marquis St. Evrémonde is killed in revenge for his carriage running over Gaspard’s unfortunate son.”
“Jeeves, not all of the aristocracy is like that, I mean to say! Bertram might not be the best motorist in the country, but he wouldn’t run over a commoner’s child.”
“No, sir.”
“The old marquis getting it in the neck is quite satisfying.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The dramatic bits are all excellent without a doubt, the romantic bits are a bit drippy but one expects that with Dickens. Blathering about Angel’s Wings and the breath of heaven over a kid’s ‘garden tomb’, well, that makes me think of all of the rot they pushed down our throats at Magdalen every Sunday. But — but there’s an awful lot of blood, Jeeves. And it’s all from the aristocracy!”
“Sir, if I may speak freely?”
“Sound your trumpets, my good man.”
“In the Catholic ritual of communion, the priest consecrates a cup of wine and it becomes the blood of Christ, whose entombment and miraculous ascent to heaven on Easter Day have rendered him a symbol of resurrection in Christian tradition.”
“I know that, Jeeves. Back in my university days I was a bit miffed the C. of E. didn’t allow for the blood of the old Only Begotten. It would have made those bally sermons seem shorter!”
“Dickens uses the Christian association of blood, wine, and resurrection, sir. He suggests that as Christ shed his blood before he was entombed and resurrected, so should the blood of the aristocracy flow before the citizens can take up their new lives.”
“Precisely, Jeeves, precisely! Am I to infer that my blood should flow so that you can take up a new life?”
“Precisely, Jeeves, precisely! Am I to infer that my blood should flow so that you can take up a new life?”
“I do not wish to take up a new life, sir.”
“What happens when those tumbrel-thingies show up at the front door? Do I go off to the guillotine? It is a far, far awful thing to happen to this Wooster and he does not intend to have ever done it! You may take that as read!”
“In the unlikely event that a tumbrel should come for you, sir, I would not allow it.”
“Do you promise me, Jeeves?”
“I promise you, sir.”
“Thank you, Jeeves! The sun never sets on the British Empire. Nor shall it ever set on the British marvel of a valet.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“A brandy and soda, if you would.”
“Very good, sir.”
“In that case, I shall enjoy a far, far better rest than I would have done otherwise, as old Charles says.”
“Indeed, sir.”
“
