we had no bookcases as yet. Briney got boards and bricks and set up temporary
shelves… and I learned what my husband liked better than sex.
Books.
Almost any books but what hooked him that weekend were Professor Huxley’s essays…
which I hardly noticed because I had my hands on Father’s Mark Twain collection, Mr
Clemens’ books, for the first time since May 1898 everything of his up to that date,
mostly first editions and four of them signed by Mr Clemens and `Mark Twain’
-‘signed on that great night in January 1898 when I fought to stay awake in order
not to miss any of Mr Clemens’ words.
For perhaps two hours Brian and I took turns touching the other one’s elbow and
saying, ‘Listen to this!’ – then reading aloud. It turned out that Brian had never
read The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg or Some Notes on the Recent Carnival of Crime
in Connecticut. I was astonished. `Dear, I love you – but why did they let you
graduate?’
`I don’t know. The War, probably.’
‘Well, I’ll just have to tutor you. We’ll start with the Connecticut Yankee.’
`I’ve read it. What’s that fat one?’
`That’s not Mark Twain; that’s one of Father’s medical books.’ I handed it to him
and returned to The Prince and the Pauper.
A couple of moments later I looked up when Briney said, `Hey, this plate is not
correct.’
I answered, `Yes, I know. As I know what plate you are looking at. Father says that
any layman who gets his hands on that book invariably looks at that plate first,
Shall I take off my drawers so that you can check it?’
`Quit trying to divert me, wench; I have an excellent memory.’ He thumbed on
through. `Fascinating. One could study these plates for hours.’
‘I know. I have.’
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‘Amazing how much machinery can be packed into one set of skin.’ He went on thumbing
through, then got hooked by a work on obstetrics, shuddered at parts of that one
(Brian was a good jackleg midwife, but he didn’t like blood), put it aside and
picked up another one. ‘Whee!’
‘What is it this time, dear? Oh. What Every Young Girl Should Know.’ (He had picked
up the Forberg etchings, Figuris Veneris. I was startled, too, the first time I
opened it.)
‘That’s not its name. Here’s the title page: Figures of Venus.’
‘Joke, dear. Father’s joke. He had me study it as a sex instruction manual, then we
discussed each picture and he answered any question I asked. Lots of questions, that
is. He said that Mr Forberg’s pictures were anatomically correct… which is more
than we can say about that censored plate you complained about. Father said that
these pictures should be used in school, because they were far superior to the
behind the-barn cartoons or photographs that were the only thing most young people
get to look at – until they were confronted by the real thing and were frightened
and sometimes hurt.’ I sighed. `Father says that this so-called civilisation is sick
throughout but nowhere more so than about sex, every aspect of sex.’
`Your father is dead right, I think. But, Maureen, do I understand that Dr Johnson
gave this to you as an instruction manual? My revered father-in-law endorsed
everything in these pictures? Everything?’
`Oh, heavens, no. Just most of them. But in general Father says that anything two –
or more – people want to do is all right as long as it does no physical harm. He
felt that the words “moral” and “immoral” were ridiculous when applied to sexual
relations. Right and wrong were the correct words, used exactly as they would be
used in any other human relation.’
`Mon beau-père a raison. And my wife is a smart cookie, too:
`I had tutoring by a wise man all my life, until he turned me over to you. At least
I think my father is wise. Here, let me sit beside you and I’ll point out what he
approved of, what he didn’t.’
I moved across beside him, he put his arm around me and I held the book on his lap.