OPINIONS & ‘ii:\s |n’Dear Diary…’nThe lUustrated Pepys: Extracts fromnthe Diary; Edited by Robert Latham;nUniversity of California Press;nBerkeley.nby Ronald BermannSamuel Pepys, Clerk of the Acts tonthe Navy Board, began a diary on thenfirst of January 1660 and continued itnuntil the 31st of May 1669. The originalnmanuscript was, so far as we know,nhardly noticed for the next 150 years.nIn six bound volumes it remained in thenPepys Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.nIt had few readers, even amongnthe learned, because the text was for thenmost part written in Shelton shorthand, ansystem which had been in use in Englandnsince 1626.nIn the 19th century, after transcriptionnof the diary began, Pepys becamenthe interest both of scholars and of thenpublic. Over a 60-year period, fi-om 1825non, editions of the diary began to appear.nBut there was one thing common to all ofnthem: they were intentionally incomplete.nPepys was ruthlessly honest and veryndescriptive about his sex Ufe, and this wasnsimply too difiicult for the 19th centurynto accept So, until 1970, when the wholentext was reproduced by the Universitynof California edition of the diary, any copynof it had strategic omissions.nMost of Pepys’s text is in Shelton shorthand;nsome of it is in longhand; a smallnbut important part of it is in a strangenmixture of Spanish, French, and Englishnthat Pepys used to describe certain moments—^usuallynthose of sexual activity.nThis private language may not have beennintended so much to elude detection asnto distance Pepys himself from embarrassingnmoments. One of the reasonsnwhy the University of California “translation”nof the diary is important is that thenDr. Berman is with the department ofnliterature at the University of California,nSan Diego.nChronicles of Culturenprivate language is for the first time included.nThe Wheatiey edition of 1893-n99, previously the standard edition, willnhave the following entry for 25 Octobern1668:nAt night W. Batelier comes and supsnwith US; and after supper, to have mynhead combed by Deb, which occasionednthe greatest sorrow to me thatnever I knew in this world; for my wife,ncoming up suddenly, did find me imbracingnthe girl I was at a wonderfiilnloss upon it, and the girl also.nPepys was being deloused, a more-orlessnroutine 17th-century practice, andnDeb was his wife’s pretty servant, withnwhom he was rapidly felling in love. Butnthe new version of the episode will replacenellipsis with the line “con my handnsub su coats; and endeed, I was with mynmain in her cunny.”nWhen sex is involved Pepys is bothnopen and secretive. He had what I supposencan best be called a mistress of convenience,na Mrs. Bagwell, whose husbandnwas dependent upon Pepys for promotionnand who seemed to acquiesce nicelynin the arrangement. But even in discussingnthe routine in this evidendy consciousnexchange Pepys slips into hisnpatois: “And did sensa alguna difficultynmonter los degres and lie, comme jo desirednit, upon lo lectum; and there I didnla cosa con much vuluptas.”nAlthough the Diary has the deservednreputation of being one of the world’snnngreatest autobiographical works, it coversna period of only nine years. I thinknthat Boswell is more interesting, butnPepys is more informative. The reasonnthat the Diary has fescinated readersnsince the 19th century even with strategicneditorial censorship is that it tells usnmore about life in general than any othernbook. And I don’t mean by this that itncovers business, law, the arts, etc. Norneven that it matters because of the firsthandndescriptions of the plague and thenGreat Fire of London. The reason thenDiaty is important is that it is a literaryntext.nJ. he Diary is not only a journal ofnevents but a series of reflections on them.nThus it is a story of consciousness. It isndeeply reflective, concerned withndreams, daydreams, and states of mind.nIt is about the dissimulation necessarilyninvolved in modern relationships betweennthe self and the world. It is oftennabout Pepys’s weaknesses—he was hasty,nangry, very stingy, and quintessentiallynlustlul—and even more often about hisnreaction to them. There was a certainnamount of Puritan to Pepys, so that thenrecord of his life is a kind of Pilgrim’snProgress of body and mind. RichardnOllard’s excellent biography, Pepys, examinesnthe whole Bagwell relationship,nwhich reveals so much about Pepys’snwillingness to use his office for sexualnfavors, his meanness, and his opportunisticnuse of place and circumstance:nLike the Impressionists he disdainsnthe neutral tints. The actor-narratornprovides insights of his own that couldnsupport a Marxist indictment ofnbourgeois exploitation, a Christiannexposition of sin, and the more cynicalnview that morality consists in whatnone can get away with Pepys sometimesndesires Mrs. Bagwell, sometimesnpities her, sometimes despises her.nThere is no su^estion of love or tenderness.n. . . higher feelings were inspirednby women of higher class. Ladyn