Джером К. Джером
The Angel and the Author, and Others
CHAPTER XIII
How to be Healthy and Unhappy
“They do say,” remarked Mrs. Wilkins, as she took the cover off the dish and gave a finishing polish to my plate with the cleanest corner of her apron, “that ’addicks, leastways in May, ain’t, strictly speaking, the safest of food. But then, if you listen to all they say, it seems to me, we’d have to give up victuals altogether.”
“The haddock, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied, “is a savoury and nourishing dish, the ‘poor man’s steak’ I believe it is commonly called. When I was younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could secure a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions. In the halcyon days of youth, when one’s lexicon contained not the word failure (it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the word it was found was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much comfort and support to me, a very present help in time of trouble. In those days a kind friend, without intending it, nearly brought about my death by slow starvation. I had left my umbrella in an omnibus, and the season was rainy. The kind rich friend gave me a new umbrella; it was a rich man’s umbrella; we made an ill-assorted pair. Its handle was of ivory, imposing in appearance, ornamented with a golden snake.
The unsympathetic Umbrella
“Following my own judgment I should have pawned that umbrella, purchased one more suited to my state in life, and ‘blued’ the difference. But I was fearful of offending my one respectable acquaintance, and for weeks struggled on, hampered by this plutocratic appendage. The humble haddock was denied to me. Tied to this imposing umbrella, how could I haggle with fishmongers for haddocks. At first sight of me – or, rather, of my umbrella – they flew to icy cellars, brought up for my inspection soles at eighteenpence a pound, recommended me prime parts of salmon, which my landlady would have fried in a pan reeking with the mixed remains of pork chops, rashers of bacon and cheese. It was closed to me, the humble coffee shop, where for threepence I could have strengthened my soul with half a pint of cocoa and four “doorsteps” – satisfactory slices of bread smeared with a yellow grease that before the days of County Council inspectors they called butter. You know of them, Mrs. Wilkins? At sight of such nowadays I should turn up my jaded nose. But those were the days of my youth, Mrs. Wilkins. The scent of a thousand hopes was in my nostrils: so they smelt good to me. The fourpenny beefsteak pie, satisfying to the verge of repletion; the succulent saveloy, were not for the owner of the ivory-handled umbrella. On Mondays and Tuesdays, perhaps, I could enjoy life at the rate of five hundred a year – clean serviette a penny extra, and twopence to the waiter, whose income must have been at least four times my own. But from Wednesday to Saturday I had to wander in the wilderness of back streets and silent squares dinnerless, where there were not even to be found locusts and wild honey.
“It was, as I have said, a rainy season, and an umbrella of some sort was a necessity. Fortunately – or I might not be sitting here, Mrs. Wilkins, talking to you now – my one respectable acquaintance was called away to foreign lands, and that umbrella I promptly put ‘up the spout.’ You understand me?”
Mrs. Wilkins admitted she did, but was of opinion that twenty-five per cent., to say nothing of the halfpenny for the ticket every time, was a wicked imposition.
“It did not trouble me, Mrs. Wilkins,” I replied, “in this particular instance. It was my determination never to see that umbrella again. The young man behind the counter seemed suspicious, and asked where I got it from. I told him that a friend had given it to me.”
“‘Did he know that he had given it to you?” demanded the young man.
“Upon which I gave him a piece of my mind concerning the character of those who think evil of others, and he gave me five and six, and said he should know me again; and I purchased an umbrella suited to my rank and station, and as fine a haddock as I have ever tasted with the balance, which was sevenpence, for I was feeling hungry.
“The haddock is an excellent fish, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “and if, as you observe, we listened to all that was said we’d be hungrier at forty, with a balance to our credit at the bank, than ever we were at twenty, with ‘no effects’ beyond a sound digestion.”
A Martyr to Health
“There was a gent in Middle Temple Lane,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “as I used to do for. It’s my belief as ’e killed ’imself worrying twenty-four hours a day over what ’e called ’is ’ygiene. Leastways ’e’s dead and buried now, which must be a comfort to ’imself, feeling as at last ’e’s out of danger. All ’is time ’e spent taking care of ’imself – didn’t seem to ’ave a leisure moment in which to live. For ’alf an hour every morning ’e’d lie on ’is back on the floor, which is a draughty place, I always ’old, at the best of times, with nothing on but ’is pyjamas, waving ’is arms and legs about, and twisting ’imself into shapes unnatural to a Christian. Then ’e found out that everything ’e’d been doing on ’is back was just all wrong, so ’e turned over and did tricks on ’is stomach – begging your pardon for using the word – that you’d ’ave thought more fit and proper to a worm than to a man. Then all that was discovered to be a mistake. There don’t seem nothing certain in these matters. That’s the awkward part of it, so it seems to me. ’E got ’imself a machine, by means of which ’e’d ’ang ’imself up to the wall, and behave for all the world like a beetle with a pin stuck through ’im, poor thing. It used to give me the shudders to catch sight of ’im through the ’alf-open door. For that was part of the game: you ’ad to ’ave a current of air through the room, the result of which was that for six months out of the year ’e’d be coughing and blowing ’is nose from morning to night. It was the new treatment, so ’e’d explain to me. You got yourself accustomed to draughts so that they didn’t ’urt you, and if you died in the process that only proved that you never ought to ’ave been born.
“Then there came in this new Japanese business, and ’e’d ’ire a little smiling ’eathen to chuck ’im about ’is room for ’alf an hour every morning after breakfast. It got on my nerves after a while ’earing ’im being bumped on the floor every minute, or flung with ’is ’ead into the fire-place. But ’e always said it was doing ’im good. ’E’d argue that it freshened up ’is liver. It was ’is liver that ’e seemed to live for – didn’t appear to ’ave any other interest in life. It was the same with ’is food. One year it would be nothing but meat, and next door to raw at that. One of them medical papers ’ad suddenly discovered that we were intended to be a sort of wild beast. The wonder to me is that ’e didn’t go out ’unting chickens with a club, and bring ’em ’ome and eat ’em on the mat without any further fuss. For drink it would be boiling water that burnt my fingers merely ’andling the glass. Then some other crank came out with the information that every other crank was wrong – which, taken by itself, sounds natural enough – that meat was fatal to the ’uman system. Upon that ’e becomes all at once a raging, tearing vegetarian, and trouble enough I ’ad learning twenty different ways of cooking beans, which didn’t make, so far as I could ever see, the slightest difference – beans they were, and beans they tasted like, whether you called them ragoût à la maison, or cutlets à la Pompadour. But it seemed to please ’im.
He was never pig-headed
“Then vegetarianism turned out to be the mistake of our lives. It seemed we made an error giving up monkeys’ food. That was our natural victuals; nuts with occasional bananas. As I used to tell ’im, if that was so, then for all we ’ad got out of it we might just as well have stopped up a tree – saved rent and shoe leather. But ’e was one of that sort that don’t seem able to ’elp believing everything they read in print. If one of those papers ’ad told ’im to live on the shells and throw away the nuts, ’e’d have made a conscientious endeavour to do so, contending that ’is failure to digest them was merely the result of vicious training – didn’t seem to ’ave any likes or dislikes of ’is own. You might ’ave thought ’e was just a bit of public property made to be experimented upon.
“One of the daily papers interviewed an old gent, as said ’e was a ’undred, and I will say from ’is picture as any’ow ’e looked it. ’E said it was all the result of never ’aving swallowed anything ’ot, upon which my gentleman for a week lives on cold porridge, if you’ll believe me; although myself I’d rather ’ave died at fifty and got it over. Then another paper dug up from somewhere a sort of animated corpse that said was a ’undred and two, and attributed the unfortunate fact to ’is always ’aving ’ad ’is food as ’ot as ’e could swallow it. A bit of sense did begin to dawn upon ’im then, but too late in the day, I take it. ’E’d played about with ’imself too long. ’E died at thirty-two, looking to all appearance sixty, and you can’t say as ’ow it was the result of not taking advice.”
Only just in time
“On this subject of health we are much too ready to follow advice,” I agreed. “A cousin of mine, Mrs. Wilkins, had a wife who suffered occasionally from headache. No medicine relieved her of them – not altogether. And one day by chance she met a friend who said: ‘Come straight with me to Dr. Blank,’ who happened to be a specialist famous for having invented a new disease that nobody until the year before had ever heard of. She accompanied her friend to Dr. Blank, and in less than ten minutes he had persuaded her that she had got this new disease, and got it badly; and that her only chance was to let him cut her open and have it out. She was a tolerably healthy woman, with the exception of these occasional headaches, but from what that specialist said it was doubtful whether she would get home alive, unless she let him operate on her then and there, and her friend, who appeared delighted, urged her not to commit suicide, as it were, by missing her turn.
“The result was she consented, and afterwards went home in a four-wheeled cab, and put herself to bed. Her husband, when he returned in the evening and was told, was furious. He said it was all humbug, and by this time she was ready to agree with him. He put on his hat, and started to give that specialist a bit of his mind. The specialist was out, and he had to bottle up his rage until the morning. By then, his wife now really ill for the first time in her life, his indignation had reached boiling point. He was at that specialist’s door at half-past nine o’clock. At half-past eleven he came back, also in a four-wheeled cab, and day and night nurses for both of them were wired for. He also, it appeared, had arrived at that specialist’s door only just in time.
“There’s this appendy – whatever they call it,” commented Mrs. Wilkins, “why a dozen years ago one poor creature out of ten thousand may possibly ’ave ’ad something wrong with ’is innards. To-day you ain’t ’ardly considered respectable unless you’ve got it, or ’ave ’ad it. I ’ave no patience with their talk. To listen to some of them you’d think as Nature ’adn’t made a man – not yet: would never understand the principle of the thing till some of these young chaps ’ad shown ’er ’ow to do it.”
How to avoid Everything
“They have now discovered, Mrs. Wilkins,” I said, “the germ of old age. They are going to inoculate us for it in early youth, with the result that the only chance of ever getting rid of our friends will be to give them a motor-car. And maybe it will not do to trust to that for long. They will discover that some men’s tendency towards getting themselves into trouble is due to some sort of a germ. The man of the future, Mrs. Wilkins, will be inoculated against all chance of gas explosions, storms at sea, bad oysters, and thin ice. Science may eventually discover the germ prompting to ill-assorted marriages, proneness to invest in the wrong stock, uncontrollable desire to recite poetry at evening parties. Religion, politics, education – all these things are so much wasted energy. To live happy and good for ever and ever, all we have to do is to hunt out these various germs and wring their necks for them – or whatever the proper treatment may be. Heaven, I gather from medical science, is merely a place that is free from germs.”
“We talk a lot about it,” thought Mrs. Wilkins, “but it does not seem to me that we are very much better off than before we took to worrying ourselves for twenty-four ’ours a day about ’ow we are going to live. Lord! to read the advertisements in the papers you would think as ’ow flesh and blood was never intended to ’ave any natural ills. ‘Do you ever ’ave a pain in your back?’ because, if so, there’s a picture of a kind gent who’s willing for one and sixpence halfpenny to take it quite away from you – make you look forward to scrubbing floors, and standing over the wash-tub six ’ours at a stretch like to a beanfeast. ‘Do you ever feel as though you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning?’ that’s all to be cured by a bottle of their stuff – or two at the outside. Four children to keep, and a sick ’usband on your ’ands used to get me over it when I was younger. I used to fancy it was just because I was tired.
The one Cure-All
“There’s some of them seem to think,” continued Mrs. Wilkins, “that if you don’t get all you want out of this world, and ain’t so ’appy as you’ve persuaded yourself you ought to be, that it’s all because you ain’t taking the right medicine. Appears to me there’s only one doctor as can do for you, all the others talk as though they could, and ’e only comes to each of us once, and then ’e makes no charge.”
CHAPTER XIV
Europe and the bright American Girl
“How does she do it?”
That is what the European girl wants to know. The American girl! She comes over here, and, as a British matron, reduced to slang by force of indignation, once exclaimed to me: “You’d think the whole blessed show belonged to her.” The European girl is hampered by her relatives. She has to account for her father: to explain away, if possible, her grandfather. The American girl sweeps them aside:
“Don’t you worry about them,” she says to the Lord Chamberlain. “It’s awfully good of you, but don’t you fuss yourself. I’m looking after my old people. That’s my department. What I want you to do is just to listen to what I am saying and then hustle around. I can fill up your time all right by myself.”
Her father may be a soap-boiler, her grandmother may have gone out charing.
“That’s all right,” she says to her Ambassador: “They’re not coming. You just take my card and tell the King that when he’s got a few minutes to spare I’ll be pleased to see him.”
And the extraordinary thing is that, a day or two afterwards, the invitation arrives.
A modern writer has said that “I’m Murrican” is the Civis Romanus sum of the present-day woman’s world. The late King of Saxony, did, I believe, on one occasion make a feeble protest at being asked to receive the daughter of a retail bootmaker. The young lady, nonplussed for the moment, telegraphed to her father in Detroit. The answer came back next morning: “Can’t call it selling – practically giving them away. See Advertisement.” The lady was presented as the daughter of an eminent philanthropist.
It is due to her to admit that, taking her as a class, the American girl is a distinct gain to European Society. Her influence is against convention and in favour of simplicity. One of her greatest charms, in the eyes of the European man, is that she listens to him. I cannot say whether it does her any good. Maybe she does not remember it all, but while you are talking she does give you her attention. The English woman does not always. She greets you pleasantly enough:
“I’ve so often wanted to meet you,” she says, “must you really go?”
It strikes you as sudden: you had no intention of going for hours. But the hint is too plain to be ignored. You are preparing to agree that you really must when, looking round, you gather that the last remark was not addressed to you, but to another gentleman who is shaking hands with her:
“Now, perhaps we shall be able to talk for five minutes,” she says. “I’ve so often wanted to say that I shall never forgive you. You have been simply horrid.”
Again you are confused, until you jump to the conclusion that the latter portion of the speech is probably intended for quite another party with whom, at the moment, her back towards you, she is engaged in a whispered conversation. When he is gone she turns again to you. But the varied expressions that pass across her face while you are discussing with her the disadvantages of Protection, bewilder you. When, explaining your own difficulty in arriving at a conclusion, you remark that Great Britain is an island, she roguishly shakes her head. It is not that she has forgotten her geography, it is that she is conducting a conversation by signs with a lady at the other end of the room. When you observe that the working classes must be fed, she smiles archly while murmuring:
“Oh, do you really think so?”
You are about to say something strong on the subject of dumping. Apparently she has disappeared. You find that she is reaching round behind you to tap a new arrival with her fan.
She has the Art of Listening
Now, the American girl looks at you, and just listens to you with her eyes fixed on you all the time. You gather that, as far as she is concerned, the rest of the company are passing shadows. She wants to hear what you have to say about Bi-metallism: her trouble is lest she may miss a word of it. From a talk with an American girl one comes away with the conviction that one is a brilliant conversationalist, who can hold a charming woman spell-bound. This may not be good for one: but while it lasts, the sensation is pleasant.
Even the American girl cannot, on all occasions, sweep from her path the cobwebs of old-world etiquette. Two American ladies told me a sad tale of things that had happened to them not long ago in Dresden. An officer of rank and standing invited them to breakfast with him on the ice. Dames and nobles of the plus haut ton would be there. It is a social function that occurs every Sunday morning in Dresden during the skating season. The great lake in the Grosser Garten is covered with all sorts and conditions of people. Prince and commoner circle and recircle round one another. But they do not mix. The girls were pleased. They secured the services of an elderly lady, the widow of an analytical chemist: unfortunately, she could not skate. They wrapped her up and put her in a sledge. While they were in the garde robe putting on their skates, a German gentleman came up and bowed to them.
He was a nice young man of prepossessing appearance and amiable manners. They could not call to mind his name, but remembered having met him, somewhere, and on more than one occasion. The American girl is always sociable: they bowed and smiled, and said it was a fine day. He replied with volubility, and helped them down on to the ice. He was really most attentive. They saw their friend, the officer of noble family, and, with the assistance of the German gentleman, skated towards him. He glided past them. They thought that maybe he did not know enough to stop, so they turned and skated after him. They chased him three times round the pond and then, feeling tired, eased up and took counsel together.
“I’m sure he must have seen us,” said the younger girl. “What does he mean by it?”
“Well, I have not come down here to play forfeits,” said the other, “added to which I want my breakfast. You wait here a minute, I’ll go and have it out with him.”
He was standing only a dozen yards away. Alone, though not a good performer on the ice, she contrived to cover half the distance dividing them. The officer, perceiving her, came to her assistance and greeted her with effusion.
The Republican Idea in practice
“Oh,” said the lady, who was feeling indignant, “I thought maybe you had left your glasses at home.”
“I am sorry,” said the officer, “but it is impossible.”
“What’s impossible?” demanded the lady.
“That I can be seen speaking to you,” declared the officer, “while you are in company with that – that person.”
“What person?” She thought maybe he was alluding to the lady in the sledge. The chaperon was not showy, but, what is better, she was good. And, anyhow, it was the best the girls had been able to do. So far as they were concerned, they had no use for a chaperon. The idea had been a thoughtful concession to European prejudice.
“The person in knickerbockers,” explained the officer.
“Oh, that,” exclaimed the lady, relieved: “he just came up and made himself agreeable while we were putting on our skates. We have met him somewhere, but I can’t exactly fix him for the moment.”
“You have met him possibly at Wiesman’s, in the Pragerstrasse: he is one of the attendants there,” said the officer.
The American girl is Republican in her ideas, but she draws the line at hairdressers. In theory it is absurd: the hairdresser is a man and a brother: but we are none of us logical all the way. It made her mad, the thought that she had been seen by all Dresden Society skating with a hairdresser.
“Well,” she said, “I do call that impudence. Why, they wouldn’t do that even in Chicago.”
And she returned to where the hairdresser was illustrating to her friend the Dutch roll, determined to explain to him, as politely as possible, that although the free and enlightened Westerner has abolished social distinctions, he has not yet abolished them to that extent.
Had he been a commonplace German hairdresser he would have understood English, and all might have been easy. But to the “classy” German hairdresser, English is not so necessary, and the American ladies had reached, as regards their German, only the “improving” stage. In her excitement she confused the subjunctive and the imperative, and told him that he “might” go. He had no wish to go; he assured them – so they gathered – that his intention was to devote the morning to their service. He must have been a stupid man, but it is a type occasionally encountered. Two pretty women had greeted his advances with apparent delight. They were Americans, and the American girl was notoriously unconventional. He knew himself to be a good-looking young fellow. It did not occur to him that in expressing willingness to dispense with his attendance they could be in earnest.
There was nothing for it, so it seemed to the girls, but to request the assistance of the officer, who continued to skate round and round them at a distance of about ten yards. So again the elder young lady, seizing her opportunity, made appeal.
What the Soldier dared not do
“I cannot,” persisted the officer, who, having been looking forward to a morning with two of the prettiest girls in Dresden, was also feeling mad. “I dare not be seen speaking to a hairdresser. You must get rid of him.”
“But we can’t,” said the girl. “We do not know enough German, and he can’t, or he won’t, understand us. For goodness sake come and help us. We’ll be spending the whole morning with him if you don’t.”
The German officer said he was desolate. Steps would be taken – later in the week – the result of which would probably be to render that young hairdresser prematurely bald. But, meanwhile, beyond skating round and round them, for which they did not even feel they wanted to thank him, the German officer could do nothing for them. They tried being rude to the hairdresser: he mistook it for American chic. They tried joining hands and running away from him, but they were not good skaters, and he thought they were trying to show him the cake walk. They both fell down and hurt themselves, and it is difficult to be angry with a man, even a hairdresser, when he is doing his best to pick you up and comfort you.
The chaperon was worse than useless. She was very old. She had been promised her breakfast, but saw no signs of it. She could not speak German; and remembered somewhat late in the day that two young ladies had no business to accept breakfast at the hands of German officers: and, if they did, at least they might see that they got it. She appeared to be willing to talk about decadence of modern manners to almost any extent, but the subject of the hairdresser, and how to get rid of him, only bored her.
Their first stroke of luck occurred when the hairdresser, showing them the “dropped three,” fell down and temporarily stunned himself. It was not kind of them, but they were desperate. They flew for the bank just anyhow, and, scrambling over the grass, gained the restaurant. The officer, overtaking them at the door, led them to the table that had been reserved for them, then hastened back to hunt for the chaperon. The girls thought their trouble was over. Had they glanced behind them their joy would have been shorter-lived than even was the case. The hairdresser had recovered consciousness in time to see them waddling over the grass. He thought they were running to fetch him brandy. When the officer returned with the chaperon he found the hairdresser sitting opposite to them, explaining that he really was not hurt, and suggesting that, as they were there, perhaps they would like something to eat and drink.
The girls made one last frantic appeal to the man of buckram and pipeclay, but the etiquette of the Saxon Army was inexorable. It transpired that he might kill the hairdresser, but nothing else: he must not speak to him – not even explain to the poor devil why it was that he was being killed.
Her path of Usefulness
It did not seem quite worth it. They had some sandwiches and coffee at the hairdresser’s expense, and went home in a cab: while the chaperon had breakfast with the officer of noble family.
The American girl has succeeded in freeing European social intercourse from many of its hide-bound conventions. There is still much work for her to do. But I have faith in her.
