IK LEES ...

Samuel Pepys, een hoge ambtenaar in Londen in de tijd van de pest en de Grote Brand, is vooral beroemd geworden door zijn dagboek, dat één van de meest uitgebreide overgebleven ego-documenten uit die tijd is. Het staat integraal op internet, en er is nu ook iemand bezig om het als een nep-blog, per dag, te publiceren.

Dit boek is het fictieve dagboek van Mrs Pepys. Ik heb ooit het dagboek van Samuel Pepys gelezen -- tenminste, een compilatie ervan -- en kon me er te weinig van herinneren om te kunnen beoordelen hoe waarheidsgetrouw deze fictieve andere kijk op de zaak is. Als ik zo een beetje op die sites óver Pepys neus, denk ik dat het wel heel slim is gedaan. Ik vind dat soort literatuur altijd wel aardig, waarin een bijfiguur uit een roman of uit de geschiedenis zijn/haar kant van het verhaal belicht. Ik vraag me af of er een naam is, voor dat soort verhalen.

Samuel Pepys

"Mrs Pepys"

I was at a wonderful loss upon it, and the girle also, and I endeavoured to put it off, but my wife was struck mute and grew angry, and so her voice come to her, grew quite out of order, and I to say little, but to bed, and my wife said little also, but could not sleep all night, but about two in the morning waked me and cried, and fell to tell me as a great secret that she was a Roman Catholique and had received the Holy Sacrament, which troubled me, but I took no notice of it, but she went on from one thing to another till at last it appeared plainly her trouble was at what she saw, but yet I did not know how much she saw, and therefore said nothing to her. But after her much crying and reproaching me with inconstancy and preferring a sorry girl before her, I did give her no provocation, but did promise all fair usage to her and love, and foreswore any hurt that I did with her, till at last she seemed to be at ease again, and so toward morning a little sleep, and so I with some little repose and rest.

There is no point in trying to talk to a man who is lying in his teeth. I feel shocked and shaken, as though I've been knocked out. We go to bed in silence and he's soon snoring. I get up and sit in my closet with paper and pen, watching the mice. Awful vivid images of screaming at him and her. In between, moments of utter blankness. I go back to our chamber. I want to kill him for sleeping while I suffer. I shake him awake and tell him I've become a Catholic, the most worrying thing I can think of, not true but I want him to be as hurt as I am. And I cry and cry and ask him how he could prefer her to me. And he keeps saying he loves me and is so sorry if he's hurt me but I don't believe him. After a while we stop and he falls asleep again and I stare at the mouldings on the ceiling for an hour.