Jeeves takes the helm
Jeeves Takes Charge (Original Title: Jeeves Takes Charge ) is a short story by the British-American writer PG Wodehouse , which was first published in the United States in The Saturday Evening Post on November 18, 1916 and in the United Kingdom in April 1923 in the edition of Strand Magazines appeared. In 1925 it was published in book form in the short story collection Carry on, Jeeves .
The short story is about the first meeting between the valet Jeeves and Bertram "Bertie" Wooster , from whose perspective the story is told. Both Jeeves and Bertie are among the best-known fictional characters in the narrative work of Wodehouse. Wodehouse had already introduced the character of Jeeves a year earlier in the short story " Extricating Young Gussie ", but only briefly mentioned it there.
In Jeeves takes over the helm , the main character traits of this character are already evident, which Wodehouse relied on until 1974 (in "Aunts Aren't Gentlemen") as a protagonist in stories and novels. In this short story, Jeeves ensures that Bertie's engagement with Florence Craye, an unsuitable partner from Jeeves' point of view, breaks up and Bertie has one less conspicuously checked suit. The protection of Bertie from entering into marital relationships and the cleaning up of Bertie's wardrobe to remove his bad taste decisions are recurring motifs also in later stories and novels.
action
With the first few sentences of the short story, PG Wodehouse makes it clear that Bertie is telling this story in retrospect: Jeeves has been Bertie's valet for about six years, and many of those around Bertie believe that Bertie is now dependent on Jeeves. Bertie's aunt Agatha even goes so far as to mistake Jeeves for a kind of guard for her nephew. Bertie himself admits that from the first week he employed Jeeves as a valet, he left all decisions about his affairs to Jeeves.
Jeeves' commitment
Bertie Wooster has just returned to London from Easeby, the Shropshire country estate of his Uncle Willoughby. The reason for the return is the fact that he needs a new valet. He caught Meadowes, who had previously held this role, stealing silk socks and was forced to fire him. Bertie brought with him to London an important work on the philosophy of religion, namely Types of Ethical Theory by James Martineau . It is not a completely voluntary reading. Lady Florence Craye, recently Bertie's fiancée and eager to raise his level of education, recommended this work to him.
Dutifully, Bertie begins to study the work in his London apartment, but soon feels his head filled with unbearable weight. He is disturbed by the arrival of Jeeves, whom an agency sends over as a possible replacement for the dismissed valet. Bertie is impressed that Jeeves, unlike the flat-footed tramping Meadowes, floats so noiselessly into the apartment “like a healing zephyr ”. Jeeves also immediately grasps Bertie's attacked state of mind. From the kitchen, into which he immediately disappears silently, he brings Bertie a cocktail that contains Worcestershire sauce for the color, a raw egg for strengthening and cayenne pepper for the kick. With Bertie, the effect of this mixture is immediately apparent: to him it feels as if everything in this world is all right again.
“ You are committed! I said as soon as I could speak again. "
Jeeves recognizes Lady Florence Craye in the picture on the mantelpiece and briefly mentions the eccentric nature of her father, Lord Worplesdon, with whom he gave up his job after his lordship insisted on having dinner in suit pants, flannel shirt and hunting skirt. Bertie confesses to Jeeves that Lady Florence is his newly fiancé. Although Jeeves replies politely, Bertie cannot help but notice a certain skeptical attitude in his valet.
Shortly thereafter, Jeeves brings a telegram from Florence, asking Bertie to return to Easeby immediately. Something extraordinarily urgent had happened. Jeeves begins to pack and can't help but suggest that Berties, instead of the chosen, vividly patterned suit , could choose a suit in a brown or blue shade with a subtle twill . Bertie declares this to be an absolutely stupid idea, to which Jeeves only responds politely.
Return to Easeby
In the afternoon, Bertie and Jeeves arrive at Easeby, Bertie's uncle Willoughby's country estate, from whom Bertie receives financial support. Willoughby has a reputation for being a man of the greatest decency and behavior. Bertie knows, however, that his youth was not entirely without dark spots.
Bertie cannot yet explain what makes his return there so urgent. The house butler takes him to see his fiancée as soon as he arrives. As recommended by Bertie, Willoughby had tried to win over her by letting him read his almost finished family story to her. To Willoughby Stolz, this is about to be published.
Willoughby gladly followed Florence's request and presented her with some of his work. However, Florence is horrified to discover that it is less of a family story than a reminder of Willoughby's past, which is not always flawless. Still shimmering, the memoirs also contain numerous detailed histories about people who embody decency and morality in public image. Not only does the venerable Lord Emsworth find unfavorable mention in Willoughby's memories, Lord Worplesdon, Florence's father, also appears in almost every wild story of Willoughby's youth.
Florence is upset by what she learns about her father and is even more afraid of the reactions if these memories become public. Willoughby plans to send the manuscript to Riggs and Ballinger, a publishing house specializing in such scandalous memories, the very next day. She demands that Bertie intercept and destroy the manuscript beforehand - an act that she cannot carry out herself because she has to leave that day. A dispute ensues between the rather hesitant Bertie and Florence, as she assures him that she will never marry him if this manuscript becomes public.
The stolen package
The next day, Bertie carried out Florence's request, at least in part: When his uncle put the package on a table to be taken to the post office, Bertie took the package and locked it in his room in the drawer of a cupboard. He is being watched by Edwin, Florence's younger brother. The lack of the package does not go unnoticed for long; Through a phone call with his publisher, Willoughby soon finds out that no package has arrived there. Buttler Oakshott also confirms that there was no package among the things Willoughby had sent to the post office the day before. There is only one conclusion to Willoughby: someone stole the package, possibly a kleptomaniac, because other things have also disappeared from the house in the past few weeks.
While walking in the garden, Bertie overhears a conversation between Willoughby and Edwin, during which Edwin informs Willoughby that he saw Bertie bring a suspicious package into his room and lock it in a drawer. Willoughby doesn't think Bertie had anything to do with the disappearance of his manuscript. However, Edwin convinces Willoughby that if he claims the previous guest left something there, he could examine the cabinet in question.
Bertie rushes to his room to move the package to another location, but cannot find the key to the drawer. He is still desperately looking for the keys when Willoughby arrives and begins to investigate the room, claiming he is looking for the last guest's cigarette case. The moment he approaches the locked drawer, Jeeves enters the room and brings the missing key. He found it in Bertie's cloakroom the previous evening. Bertie fears that his intervention has now been discovered. Contrary to his expectations, however, the drawer turns out to be empty. After Willoughby leaves the room unsuccessfully, Jeeves informs his employer that he thought it wiser to move the package to another location. Jeeves heard the conversation between Florence and Bertie the night before and therefore knows what is in the package. Bertie decides it is wiser to leave the package in Jeeves' care.
Florence returns
Florence returns to Easeby three days after this incident and uses the first opportunity that arises to ask Bertie about the whereabouts of the package. Willoughby arrives before Bertie can tell her what has happened and proudly tells her that the package with the manuscript has meanwhile reached his publisher. The angry Florence immediately breaks the engagement and accuses Bertie of having acted so hesitantly only because he was worried that Willoughby would turn off the money.
Bertie looks for Jeeves and asks for an explanation. Jeeves informs his employer that he deliberately sent the package with the manuscript to London. In his opinion, both Florence and Bertie overestimate the effect such a life confession would have on the public. As a result of this unauthorized action by his valet, Bertie is forced to dismiss Jeeves immediately from his service. The dismissal gives Jeeves the opportunity to take a more open, but always politely binding position: In his opinion Florence and Bertie are not a match. For a year he had the opportunity to study her character; Florence would not make Bertie happy with her determination and her moods. And Bertie would soon run out of attempts to make him a better, educated person. And Jeeves adds: he heard from a conversation between Florence and another houseguest that he had overheard that she would soon be giving Bertie to Nietzsche to read. And Bertie would not like Nietzsche at all. Bertie orders Jeeves out of his room and goes to bed.
The next morning, Bertie is marked by much less heartache. He dutifully begins to read Types of Ethical Theory and finally comes to the conclusion that Nietzsche must be much worse than that. The dismissed Jeeves appears at that moment with Bertie's morning tea and is immediately hired by Bertie. After a brief moment of hesitation, Bertie questions Jeeves about his vividly patterned suit. He hesitates again when Jeeves describes it as a little too bizarre. Even Bertie's hint that many of his friends were asking about his tailor, Jeeves knows how to refute: They only do it to find out which tailor they absolutely must avoid. After another pensive hesitation, Bertie asks Jeeves to give away the suit and is then informed by Jeeves that he had given it to the auxiliary gardener last night.
Trivia
- In the short story of Jeeves, Bertie Wooster is initially a willing fiancé of Florence Craye, while in later novels and stories he enters into engagements involuntarily and does everything in his power to avoid marriage. An impending re-engagement to Florence Craye is one of the main motifs of the novel, first published in 1946, Without Me, Jeeves! by PG Wodehouse. Bertie Wooster does everything in this novel to ensure that Florence Craye maintains her engagement to his former classmate D'Arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright. Florence Craye, on the other hand, is under the impression that her upbringing efforts have had an effect during her brief engagement at Bertie and that Bertie is currently dealing with Spinoza . For her, this is the reason for her decision to revive the engagement to Bertie should her relationship with D'Arcy Cheesewright fail.
- Much like Bertie before, both Bertie's old friend George 'Boko' Fittleworth was treated with Types of Ethical Theory during his brief engagement to Florence Craye . Something similar happens to D'Arcy 'Stilton' Cheesewright, the current fiancé, who, unlike his predecessors, appreciates these efforts. PG Wodehouse may have had family reasons for this mockery of the text of the philosophy of religion; On the maternal side he was related to the British Cardinal Newman , who profoundly influenced the intellectual life of Great Britain and Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries through his academic and literary work as well as his conversion to Catholicism . Wodehouse's grandmother was born Fourdrinier and sister of Cardinal Newman's mother.
- PG Wodehouse took up the motif of scandalous memoirs in the novels set at Blandings Castle . In Sommerliches Schlossgewitter and Sein und Schwein , it is the memories of the fun- loving Galahad Threepwood , brother of the fuzzy Lord Emsworth and the venerable Lady Constance, whose publication must be prevented. The publication is particularly feared by Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe , the eternal adversary of Lord Emsworth and Sir Galahad - he looks back on a particularly eventful youth. After all, it is Lord Emsworth's favorite pig, the Empress of Blandings , who finds the manuscript in her feeding trough and eats it.
First editions in book form
- PG Wodehouse, Jeeves Takes Charge. In: Carry On, Jeeves, London: Herbert Jenkins, 1925
- PG Wodehouse, Jeeves Takes Charge. In: Carry On, Jeeves, New York: George H. Doran, 1927
literature
- Frances Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . London 1982, ISBN 0-297-78105-7 .
Web links
- Felicitas von Lovenberg: Jeeves had a wooden expression on his face . Review of Woodhouse's work on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his first novel, Frankfurter Allgemeine, September 17, 2002
- Russian Wodehouse Society : Information about Carry on, Jeeves , the short story collection in which Jeeves takes the helm for the first time appeared in book form.