The Documents in the Case by Dorothy L. Sayers Read Free Book Online Page A

what you think. I don’t want us to end in a ghastly sort of muddle.
    I know you will say that you understand, but you don’t. You have an idea — all women have — that you can enter into a man’s point of view. You can’t; any more than I can enter into a woman’s point of view. Don’t, for God’s sake, tell me to cheer up and it will be all right. Don’t be sweet and understanding — be brutal, if you like — I shall not take offence at anything you may say, but I want you to realise what you are in for.Yours ever, Jack
    P.S. This is arrant hypocrisy. I am bound to take offence, whatever you say, and we shall have one of those painful and acrimonious arguments. If you say nothing, I shall be offended at that, too. But for God’s sake don’t chuck me, Bungie.
The Same to the Same
    15a, Whittington Terrace, Bayswater 26.10.28
    Dearest and most wonderful Bungie,
    Forgive me for writing such a foul letter, and bless you for answering it so promptly. The alarming list of faults which you have produced in answer to mine relieves my mind a good deal. Thank Heaven for a woman with a sense of humour. I was feeling rather awful that day, being thoroughly fagged, and had, I suppose, a grouch against civilisation. But I quite agree about the innocent ‘animal’ business; I can imagine nothing more tedious. All the same, I feel very strongly, in my more honest moments, that love has got to be happy, for fear it should become all-important. I can’t expect you to understand this, and you would be an unnatural woman if you did, and I should hate you for it. But I do feel that the old ‘not long will his love stay behind him’ attitude is degrading and horrible. I don’t want to feel that anybody’s life and happiness is bound up with mine. What dignity is there in life if one is not free to take one’s own risks? It doesn’t matter whether it’s a wife or a parent or a child or a brother — people should set their own value on themselves and not ‘live for others’ or ‘live only in their children’, or whoever it is. It’s beastly. And yet — if I heard you say that — I don’t know, but I expect I should go off the deep end like poor old Harrison.
    I think Lathom is rather getting on my nerves. If I had known he was such a gregarious devil I don’t think I should have agreed to set up housekeeping with him. Fortunately, as he is merely an acquaintance, and not my wife or my father or my brother, I can more or less ignore his vagaries. He is always ‘running down’ to see the Harrisons, and having them up here. You can’t get on with your work when people are everlastingly coming in and out. I just chuck it now, and sit tight in my own room, and let them get on with it.
    I like the old boy, though — and, by jove, he does know how to cook! Yes, cook! He has a passion for cookery as a fine art. I must get him to show me how to make omelettes — I don’t believe you know anything about it, do you? Also rump-steak, on which his views are very sound. He also has a fungus complex — thinks the poor peasant ought to go forth and cull his grub from the hedgerow, and all that. He knows a tremendous lot about edible toadstools, and delivers lectures on them to Lathom, for whom he has taken a great fancy. As a matter of fact, Lathom is one of those offensively healthy people who shovel down anything that is set before them, but Harrison doesn’t see that, and enthuses mildly on in a sort of resistless river of speech that forces itself past all interruptions. Mrs H. yawns, Miss Milsom yawns, Lathom yawns and I do my best not to yawn, because I’m the only person here who has any real sympathy with the subject, so it’s up to me. I’m not sure, though, that his monologues aren’t better than her intense duets. However, Harrison has now gone away into the country on his lonesome, so perhaps we shall be free of visitors for a bit.
    I have been round to see Merritt & Hopkins, and this time saw the great Man of Merritt himself. He was very genial, and