Whose Body? - Dorothy L. Sayers (motivational books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
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Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
By leaning his head down, it seemed to Lord Peter that he could hear them, very faintly, lipping and gurgling somewhere in the darkness. But where? He felt quite sure that somebody had told him once, only he had forgotten.
He roused himself, threw a log on the fire, and picked up a book which the indefatigable Bunter, carrying on his daily fatigues amid the excitements of special duty, had brought from the Times Book Club. It happened to be Sir Julian Frekeâs âPhysiological Bases of the Conscience,â which he had seen reviewed two days before.
âThis ought to send one to sleep,â said Lord Peter; âif I canât leave these problems to my subconscious Iâll be as limp as a rag tomorrow.â
He opened the book slowly, and glanced carelessly through the preface.
âI wonder if thatâs true about Levy being ill,â he thought, putting the book down; âit doesnât seem likely. And yetâDash it all, Iâll take my mind off it.â
He read on resolutely for a little.
âI donât suppose Motherâs kept up with the Levys much,â was the next importunate train of thought. âDad always hated self-made people and wouldnât have âem at Denver. And old Gerald keeps up the tradition. I wonder if she knew Freke well in those days. She seems to get on with Milligan. I trust Motherâs judgment a good deal. She was a brick about that bazaar business. I ought to have warned her. She said something onceââ
He pursued an elusive memory for some minutes, till it vanished altogether with a mocking flicker of the tail. He returned to his reading.
Presently another thought crossed his mind aroused by a photograph of some experiment in surgery.
âIf the evidence of Freke and that man Watts hadnât been so positive,â he said to himself, âI should be inclined to look into the matter of those shreds of lint on the chimney.â
He considered this, shook his head and read with determination.
Mind and matter were one thing, that was the theme of the physiologist. Matter could erupt, as it were, into ideas. You could carve passions in the brain with a knife. You could get rid of imagination with drugs and cure an outworn convention like a disease. âThe knowledge of good and evil is an observed phenomenon, attendant upon a certain condition of the brain-cells, which is removable.â That was one phrase; and again:
âConscience in man may, in fact, be compared to the sting of a hive-bee, which, so far from conducing to the welfare of its possessor, cannot function, even in a single instance, without occasioning its death. The survival-value in each case is thus purely social; and if humanity ever passes from its present phase of social development into that of a higher individualism, as some of our philosophers have ventured to speculate, we may suppose that this interesting mental phenomenon may gradually cease to appear; just as the nerves and muscles which once controlled the movements of our ears and scalps have, in all save a few backward individuals, become atrophied and of interest only to the physiologist.â
âBy Jove!â thought Lord Peter, idly, âthatâs an ideal doctrine for the criminal. A man who believed that would neverââ
And then it happenedâthe thing he had been half-unconsciously expecting. It happened suddenly, surely, as unmistakably, as sunrise. He rememberedânot one thing, nor another thing, nor a logical succession of things, but everythingâthe whole thing, perfect, complete, in all its dimensions as it were and instantaneously; as if he stood outside the world and saw it suspended in infinitely dimensional space. He no longer needed to reason about it, or even to think about it. He knew it.
There is a game in which one is presented with a jumble of letters and is required to make a word out of them, as thus:
C O S S S S R I
The slow way of solving the problem is to try out all the permutations and combinations in turn, throwing away impossible conjunctions of letters, as:
S S S I R C
or
S C S R S O
Another way is to stare at the inco-ordinate elements until, by no logical process that the conscious mind can detect, or under some adventitious external stimulus, the combination:
S C I S S O R S
presents itself with calm certainty. After that, one does not even need to arrange the letters in order. The thing is done.
Even so, the scattered elements of two grotesque conundrums, flung higgledy-piggledy into Lord Peterâs mind, resolved themselves, unquestioned henceforward. A bump on the roof of the end houseâLevy in a welter of cold rain talking to a prostitute in the Battersea Park Roadâa single ruddy hairâlint bandagesâInspector Sugg calling the great surgeon from the dissecting-room of the hospitalâLady Levy with a nervous attackâthe smell of carbolic soapâthe Duchessâs voiceâânot really an engagement, only a sort of understanding with her fatherââshares in Peruvian Oilâthe dark skin and curved, fleshy profile of the man in the bathâDr. Grimbold giving evidence, âIn my opinion, death did not occur for several days after the blowââindia-rubber glovesâeven, faintly, the voice of Mr. Appledore, âHe called on me, sir, with an anti-vivisectionist pamphletââall these things and many others rang together and made one sound, they swung together like bells in a steeple, with the deep tenor booming through the clamour:
âThe knowledge of good and evil is a phenomenon of the brain, and is removable, removable, removable. The knowledge of good and evil is removable.â
Lord Peter Wimsey was not a young man who habitually took himself very seriously, but this time he was frankly appalled. âItâs impossible,â said his reason, feebly; âcredo quia impossibile,â said his interior certainty with impervious self-satisfaction. âAll right,â said conscience, instantly allying itself with blind faith, âwhat are you going to do about it?â
Lord Peter got up and paced the room: âGood Lord!â he said. âGood Lord!â He took down âWhoâs Whoâ from the little shelf over the telephone and sought comfort in its pages:
FREKE, Sir Julian, Kt. cr. 1916; G.C.V.O. cr. 1919; K.C.V.O. 1917; K.C.B. 1918; M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., Dr. en MĂ©d. Paris; D. Sci. Cantab.; Knight of Grace of the Order of S. John of Jerusalem; Consulting Surgeon of St. Lukeâs Hospital, Battersea. b. Gryllingham, 16 March, 1872, only son of Edward Curzon Freke, Esq., of Gryll Court, Gryllingham. Educ. Harrow and Trinity Coll., Cambridge; Col. A.M.S.; late Member of the Advisory Board of the Army Medical Service. Publications: Some Notes on the Pathological Aspects of Genius, 1892; Statistical Contributions to the Study of Infantile Paralysis in England and Wales, 1894; Functional Disturbances of the Nervous System, 1899; Cerebro-Spinal Diseases, 1904; The Borderland of Insanity, 1906; An Examination into the Treatment of Pauper Lunacy in the United Kingdom, 1906; Modern Developments in Psycho-Therapy: A Criticism, 1910; Criminal Lunacy, 1914; The Application of Psycho-Therapy to the Treatment of Shell-Shock, 1917; An Answer to Professor Freud, with a Description of Some Experiments Carried Out at the Base Hospital at Amiens, 1919; Structural Modifications Accompanying the More Important Neuroses, 1920. Clubs: Whiteâs; Oxford and Cambridge; Alpine, etc. Recreations: Chess, Mountaineering, Fishing. Address: 282, Harley Street and St. Lukeâs House, Prince of Wales Road, Battersea Park, S.W.11.
He flung the book away. âConfirmation!â he groaned. âAs if I needed it!â
He sat down again and buried his face in his hands. He remembered quite suddenly how, years ago, he had stood before the breakfast table at Denver Castleâa small, peaky boy in blue knickers, with a thunderously beating heart. The family had not come down; there was a great silver urn with a spirit lamp under it, and an elaborate coffee-pot boiling in a glass dome. He had twitched the corner of the tableclothâtwitched it harder, and the urn moved ponderously forward and all the teaspoons rattled. He seized the tablecloth in a firm grip and pulled his hardestâhe could feel now the delicate and awful thrill as the urn and the coffee machine and the whole of a SĂšvres breakfast service had crashed down in one stupendous ruinâhe remembered the horrified face of the butler, and the screams of a lady guest.
A log broke across and sank into a fluff of white ash. A belated motor-lorry rumbled past the window.
Mr. Bunter, sleeping the sleep of the true and faithful servant, was aroused in the small hours by a hoarse whisper, âBunter!â
âYes, my lord,â said Bunter, sitting up and switching on the light.
âPut that light out, damn you!â said the voice. âListenâover thereâlistenâcanât you hear it?â
âItâs nothing, my lord,â said Mr. Bunter, hastily getting out of bed and catching hold of his master; âitâs all right, you get to bed quick and Iâll fetch you a drop of bromide. Why, youâre all shiveringâyouâve been sitting up too late.â
âHush! no, noâitâs the water,â said Lord Peter with chattering teeth; âitâs up to their waists down there, poor devils. But listen! canât you hear it? Tap, tap, tapâtheyâre mining usâbut I donât know whereâI canât hearâI canât. Listen, you! There it is againâwe must find itâwe must stop it.... Listen! Oh, my God! I canât hearâI canât hear anything for the noise of the guns. Canât they stop the guns?â
âOh, dear!â said Mr. Bunter to himself. âNo, noâitâs all right, Majorâdonât you worry.â
âBut I hear it,â protested Peter.
âSo do I,â said Mr. Bunter stoutly; âvery good hearing, too, my lord. Thatâs our own sappers at work in the communication trench. Donât you fret about that, sir.â
Lord Peter grasped his wrist with a feverish hand.
âOur own sappers,â he said; âsure of that?â
âCertain of it,â said Mr. Bunter, cheerfully.
âTheyâll bring down the tower,â said Lord Peter.
âTo be sure they will,â said Mr. Bunter, âand very nice, too. You just come and lay down a bit, sirâtheyâve come to take over this section.â
âYouâre sure itâs safe to leave it?â said Lord Peter.
âSafe as houses, sir,â said Mr. Bunter, tucking his masterâs arm under his and walking him off to his bedroom.
Lord Peter allowed himself to be dosed and put to bed without further resistance. Mr. Bunter, looking singularly un-Bunterlike in striped pyjamas, with his stiff black hair ruffled about his head, sat grimly watching the younger manâs sharp cheekbones and the purple stains under his eyes.
âThought weâd had the last of these attacks,â he said. âBeen overdoinâ of himself. Asleep?â He peered at him anxiously. An affectionate note crept into his voice. âBloody little fool!â said Sergeant Bunter.
Mr. Parker, summoned the next morning to 110 Piccadilly, arrived to find the Dowager Duchess in possession. She greeted him charmingly.
âI am going to take this silly boy down to Denver for the week-end,â she said, indicating Peter, who was writing and only acknowledged his friendâs entrance with a brief nod. âHeâs been doing too muchârunning about to Salisbury and places and up till all hours of the nightâyou really shouldnât encourage him, Mr. Parker, itâs very naughty of youâwaking poor Bunter up in the middle of the night with scares about Germans, as if that wasnât all over years ago, and he hasnât had an attack for ages, but there! Nerves are such funny things, and Peter always did have nightmares when he was quite a little boyâthough very often of course it was only a little pill he wanted; but he was so dreadfully bad in 1918, you know, and I suppose we canât expect to forget all about a great war in a year or two, and, really, I ought to be very thankful with both my boys safe. Still,
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