Этот неподражаемый Дживс

MODERN РROSE

P. G. WODEHOUSE

THE INIMITABLE  

JEEVES

УДК  372.881.111.1
ББК  81.2 Англ-93
 
В88

ISBN 978-5-9925-1515-2

Вудхаус, Пелам Гренвилл.

В88  
Этот неподражаемый Дживс : книга для чтения на 

английском языке / П. Г. Вудхаус. — Санкт-Петербург : 
КАРО, 2021. — 320 с. — (Modern Рrose).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1515-2.

«Этот неподражаемый Дживс» — юмористические 

истории о молодом аристократе Берти Вустере, который 
постоянно попадает в абсурдные ситуации, но с честью 
выходит из них с помощью своего находчивого камердинера Дживса. В романе вас ждут великолепный английский юмор, неиссякаемый оптимизм и ослепительное 
обаяние колоритных персонажей в декорациях из многочисленных тетушек, лондонских полисменов, деревенских викариев, юных леди на выданье, джентльменов и 
их слуг.

В книге представлен полный неадаптированный 

текст произведения на языке оригинала.

УДК 372.881.111.1
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2021
Все права защищены

CHAPTER I

JEEVES EXERTS THE OLD CEREBELLUM

"Morning, Jeeves," I said.
"Good morning, sir," said Jeeves. He put the good old 

cup of tea softly on the table by my bed, and I took a 
refreshing sip. Just right, as usual. Not too hot, not too 
sweet, not too weak, not too strong, not too much milk, 
and not a drop spilled in the saucer. A most amazing 
cove, Jeeves. So dashed competent in every respect. I've 
said it before, and I'll say it again. I mean to say, take just 
one small instance. Every other valet I've ever had used 
to barge into my room in the morning while I was still 
asleep, causing much misery: but Jeeves seems to know 
when I'm awake by a sort of telepathy. He always floats 
in with the cup exactly two minutes after I come to life. 
Makes a deuce of a lot of difference to a fellow's day.

"How's the weather, Jeeves?"
"Exceptionally clement, sir."
"Anything in the papers?"
"Some slight friction threatening in the Balkans, sir. 

Otherwise, nothing."

"I say, Jeeves, a man I met at the club last night told 

me to put my shirt on Privateer for the two o'clock race 
this afternoon. How about it?"

"I should not advocate it, sir. The stable is not san
guine."

That was enough for me. Jeeves knows. How, I couldn't 

say, but he knows. There was a time when I would laugh 
lightly, and go ahead, and lose my little all against his 
advice, but not now.

"Talking of shirts," I said, "have those mauve ones I 

ordered arrived yet?"

"Yes, sir. I sent them back."
"Sent them back?"
"Yes, sir. They would not have become you."
Well, I must say I'd thought fairly highly of those 

shirtings, but I bowed to superior knowledge. Weak? 
I don't know. Most fellows, no doubt, are all for having 
their valets confine their activities to creasing trousers 
and what not without trying to run the home; but it's 
different with Jeeves. Right from the first day he came to 
me, I have looked on him as a sort of guide, philosopher, 
and friend.

"Mr. Little rang up on the telephone a few moments 

ago, sir. I informed him that you were not yet awake."

"Did he leave a message?"
"No, sir. He mentioned that he had a matter of im
portance to discuss with you, but confided no details."

"Oh, well, I expect I shall be seeing him at the club."
"No doubt, sir."
I wasn't what you might call in a fever of impatience. 

Bingo Little is a chap I was at school with, and we see a lot 
of each other still. He's the nephew of old Mortimer Little, 
who retired from business recently with a goodish pile. 
(You've probably heard of Little's Liniment—It Limbers 
Up the Legs.) Bingo biffs about London on a pretty 
comfortable allowance given him by his uncle, and leads 
on the whole a fairly unclouded life. It wasn't likely that 
anything which he described as a matter of importance 
would turn out to be really so frightfully important. I took 
it that he had discovered some new brand of cigarette 
which he wanted me to try, or something like that, and 
didn't spoil my breakfast by worrying.

After breakfast I lit a cigarette and went to the open 

window to inspect the day. It certainly was one of the 
best and brightest.

"Jeeves," I said.
"Sir?" said Jeeves. He had been clearing away the 

breakfast things, but at the sound of the young master's 
voice cheesed it courteously.

"You were absolutely right about the weather. It is 

a juicy morning."

"Decidedly, sir."
"Spring and all that."
"Yes, sir."

"In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the 

burnished dove."

"So I have been informed, sir."
"Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest 

shoes, and the old green Homburg. I'm going into the 
Park to do pastoral dances."

I don't know if you know that sort of feeling you 

get on these days round about the end of April and the 
beginning of May, when the sky's a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there's a bit of a breeze blowing 
from the west? Kind of uplifted feeling. Romantic, if you 
know what I mean. I'm not much of a ladies' man, but on 
this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask 
me to save her from assassins or something. So that it 
was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young 
Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie 
decorated with horseshoes.

"Hallo, Bertie," said Bingo.
"My God, man!" I gargled. "The cravat! The gent's 

neckwear! Why? For what reason?"

"Oh, the tie?" He blushed. "I—er—I was given it."
He seemed embarrassed, so I dropped the subject. 

We toddled along a bit, and sat down on a couple of 
chairs by the Serpentine.

"Jeeves tells me you want to talk to me about some
thing," I said.

"Eh?" said Bingo, with a start. "Oh yes, yes. Yes."
I waited for him to unleash the topic of the day, 

but he didn't seem to want to get going. Conversation 
languished. He stared straight ahead of him in a glassy 
sort of manner.

"I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour 

and a quarter.

"Hallo!"
"Do you like the name Mabel?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, 

like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?"

"No."
He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered 

up.

"Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fat
headed worm without any soul, weren't you?"

"Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all."
For I realised now that poor old Bingo was going 

through it once again. Ever since I have known him—and 
we were at school together—he has been perpetually 
falling in love with someone, generally in the spring, which 
seems to act on him like magic. At school he had the finest 
collection of actresses' photographs of anyone of his time; 
and at Oxford his romantic nature was a byword.

"You'd better come along and meet her at lunch," he 

said, looking at his watch.

"A ripe suggestion," I said. "Where are you meeting 

her? At the Ritz?"

"Near the Ritz."
He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards 

east of the Ritz there is one of those blighted tea-andbun shops you see dotted about all over London, and 
into this, if you'll believe me, young Bingo dived like a 
homing rabbit; and before I had time to say a word we 
were wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool 
of coffee left there by an early luncher.

I'm bound to say I couldn't quite follow the develop
ment of the scenario. Bingo, while not absolutely rolling 
in the stuff, has always had a fair amount of the ready. 
Apart from what he got from his uncle, I knew that he 
had finished up the jumping season well on the right 
side of the ledger. Why, then, was he lunching the girl 
at this Godforsaken eatery? It couldn't be because he 
was hard up.

Just then the waitress arrived. Rather a pretty girl.
"Aren't we going to wait—?" I started to say to Bingo, 

thinking it somewhat thick that, in addition to asking a 
girl to lunch with him in a place like this, he should fling 
himself on the foodstuffs before she turned up, when I 
caught sight of his face, and stopped.

The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused 

with a rich blush. He looked like the Soul's Awakening 
done in pink.

"Hallo, Mabel!" he said, with a sort of gulp.
"Hallo!" said the girl.
"Mabel," said Bingo, "this is Bertie Wooster, a pal of 

mine."

"Pleased to meet you," she said. "Nice morning."
"Fine," I said.
"You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo.
"It suits you beautiful," said the girl.
Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that 

suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the 
mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old 
Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and 
smirked in the most gruesome manner.

"Well, what's it going to be to-day?" asked the girl, 

introducing the business touch into the conversation.

Bingo studied the menu devoutly.
"I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice 

of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?"

I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been 

a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of 
insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the 
quick.

"Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a 

sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo.

You know, the way love can change a fellow is really 

frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who 
spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons 
and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days 
telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he 
wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet aux 
champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back 
if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly!

A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only 

things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by 
the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for 
people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose 
them, and Mabel hopped it.

"Well?" said Bingo rapturously.
I took it that he wanted my opinion of the female 

poisoner who had just left us.

"Very nice," I said.
He seemed dissatisfied.
"You don't think she's the most wonderful girl you 

ever saw?" he said wistfully.

"Oh, absolutely!" I said, to appease the blighter. 

"Where did you meet her?"

"At a subscription dance at Camberwell."
"What on earth were you doing at a subscription 

dance at Camberwell?"

"Your man Jeeves asked me if I would buy a couple 

of tickets. It was in aid of some charity or other."