Ladies Almanack

Djuna Barnes

• Publisher: NYU Press
• Year: 1992
• Print ISBN: 9780814711804
• eBook ISBN: 9780814789759
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: LGBT Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

"Lesbianism, its flories and sorows, is the subject and quest of this marvelously erverse sentimental journey by Nightwood's author... A striking lesbian mainfesto and a deft parody."
— Library Journal
Blending fiction, myth, and revisionary parody and accompanied by the author's delightful illustrations, Ladies Almanac is also a brilliant modernist composition and arguably the most audacious lesbian text of its time. While the book pokes fun at the wealthy expatriates who were Barnes' literary contemporaries and remains controversial today, it seems to have delighted its cast of characters, which was also the first audience. Barney herself subsidized its private publication in 1928. Fifty of the 1050 copies of the first edition were hand colored by the author, who was identified only as a lady of Fashion: on the title page.

Foreword

This slight satiric wigging, this Ladies Almanack, anonymously written (in an idle hour), fearfully punctuated, and privately printed (in the twenties) by Darantière at Dijon; illustrated, with apologies to ancient chapbooks, broadsheets, and Images Populaires; sometimes coloured by the mudlark of the bankside and gamine of the quai; hawked about the faubourg and the temple, and sold, for a penny, to the people, cherished by de Gaulle as “the indolent and terrible.”

That chronicle is now set before the compound public eye.

Neap-tide to the Proustian chronicle, gleanings from the shores of Mytilene, glimpses of its novitiates, its rising “saints” and “priestesses,” and thereon to such aptitude and insouciance that they took to gaming and to swapping that “other” of the mystery, the anomaly that calls the hidden name. That, affronted, eats its shadow.

It might be well to honour the creature slowly, that you may afford it.

Djuna Barnes
August 1972

LADIES ALMANACK

Now this be a Tale of as fine a Wench as ever wet Bed, she who was called Evangeline Musset and who was in her Heart one Grand Red Cross for the Pursuance, the Relief and the Distraction, of such Girls as in their Hinder Parts, and their Fore Parts, and in whatsoever Parts did suffer them most, lament Cruelly, be it Itch of Palm, or Quarters most horribly burning, which do oft occur in the Spring of the Year, or at those Times when they do sit upon warm and cozy Material, such as Fur, or thick and Oriental Rugs, (whose very Design it seems, procures for them such a Languishing of the Haunch and Reins as is insupportable) or who sit upon warm Stoves, whence it is known that one such flew up with an” Ah my God! What a World it is for a Girl indeed, be she ever so well abridged and cool of Mind and preserved of Intention, the Instincts are, nevertheless, brought to such a yelping Pitch and so undo her, that she runs hither and thither seeking some Simple or Unguent which shall allay her Pain! And why is it no Philosopher of whatever Sort, has discovered, amid the nice Herbage of his Garden, one that will content that Part, but that from the day that we were indifferent Matter, to this wherein we are Imperial Personages of the divine human Race, no thing so solaces it as other Parts as inflamed, or with the Consolation every Woman has at her Finger Tips, or at the very Hang of her Tongue?”

For such then was Evangeline Musset created, a Dame of lofty Lineage, who, in the early eighties, had discarded her family Tandem, in which her Mother and Father found Pleasure enough, for the distorted Amusement of riding all smack-of-astride, like any Yeoman going to gather in his Crops; and with much jolting and galloping, was made, hour by hour, less womanly, “Though never”, said she, “has that Greek Mystery occurred to me, which is known as the Dashing out of the Testicles, and all that goes with it!” Which is said to have happened to a Byzantine Baggage of the Trojan Period, more to her Surprise than her Pleasure. Yet it is an agreeable Circumstance that the Ages thought fit to hand down this Miracle, for Hope springs eternal in the human Breast.

It has been noted by some and several, that Women have in them the Pip of Romanticism so well grown and fat of Sensibility, that they, upon reaching an uncertain Age, discard Duster, Offspring and Spouse, and a little after are seen leaning, all of a limp, on a Pillar of Bathos.

Evangeline Musset was not one of these, for she had been developed in the Womb of her most gentle Mother to be a Boy, when therefore, she came forth an Inch or so less than this, she paid no Heed to the Error, but donning a Vest of a superb Blister and Tooling, a Belcher for tippet and a pair of hip-boots with a scarlet channel (for it was a most wet wading) she took her Whip in hand, calling her Pups about her, and so set out upon the Road of Destiny, until such time as they should grow to be Hounds of a Blood, and Pointers with a certainty in the Butt of their Tails; waiting patiently beneath Cypresses for this Purpose, and under the Boughs of the aloe tree, composing, as she did so, Madrigals to all sweet and ramping things.

Her Father, be it known, spent many a windy Eve pacing his Library in the most normal of Night-Shirts, trying to think of ways to bring his erring Child back into that Religion and Activity which has ever been thought sufficient for a Woman; for already, when Evangeline appeared at Tea to the Duchess Clitoressa of Nates court, women in the way (the Bourgeoise be it noted, on an errand to some nice Church of the Catholic Order, with their Babes at Breast, and Husbands at Arm) would snatch their Skirts from Contamination, putting such wincing Terror into their Dears with their quick and trembling Plucking, that it had been observed, in due time, by all Society, and Evangeline was in order of becoming one of those who is spoken to out of Generosity, which her Father could see, would by no Road, lead her to the Altar.

He had Words with her enough, saying : “Daughter, daughter, I perceive in you most fatherly Sentiments. What am I to do?” And she answered him High enough, “Thou, good Governor, wast expecting a Son when you lay atop of your Choosing, why then be so mortal wounded when you perceive that you have your Wish? Am I not doing after your very Desire, and is it not the more commendable, seeing that I do it without the Tools for the Trade, and yet nothing complain?”

In the days of which I write she had come to be a witty and learned Fifty, and though most short of Stature and nothing handsome, was so much in Demand, and so wide famed for her Genius at bringing up by Hand, and so noted and esteemed for her Slips of the Tongue that it finally brought her into the Hall of Fame, where she stood by a Statue of Venus as calm as you please, or leaned upon a lacrymal Urn with a small Sponge for such as Wept in her own Time and stood in Need of it.

Thus begins this Almanack, which all Ladies should carry about with them, as the Priest his Breviary, as the Cook his Recipes, as the Doctor his Physic, as the Bride her Fears, and as the Lion his Roar!

JANUARY hath 31 days

THIS be the first Month of our Christian calendar, when the Earth is bound and the Seas in the grip of Terror. When the Birds give no Evidence of themselves, and are in the Memory alone recorded, when the Sap lies sleeping and the Tree knows nothing of it, when the bright Herbage and flourishing green things are only hope, when the Plough is put away with the Harrow, and the Fields give their Surface to a Harvest of Snow, which no Sickle garners, and for which no Grange languishes, and which never weighs the home-going Cart of the Farmer, but sows itself alone and reaps itself unrecorded.

Now in this Month, as it is with Mother Earth, so it will appear it is with all things of Nature, and most especially Woman.

For in this Month she is a little pitiful for what she has made of man, and what she has throughout the Ages, led him to expect, cultivating him indeed to such a Pitch that she is somewhat responsible.

Patience Scalpel was of this Month, and belongs to this Almanack for one Reason only, that from Beginning to End, Top to Bottom, inside and out, she could not understand Women and their Ways as they were about her, above her and before her.

She saw them gamboling on the Greensward, she heard them pinch and moan within the Gloom of many a stately Mansion ; she beheld them floating across the Ceilings, (for such was Art in the old Days), diapered in Toile de Jouy, and welded without Flame, in one incalculable Embrace. “And what”, she said, “the silly Creatures may mean by it is more than I can diagnose! I am of my Time my Time’s best argument, and who am I that I must die in my Time, and never know what it is in the Whorls and Crevices of my Sisters so prolongs them to the bitter End? Do they not have Organs as exactly alike as two Peas, or twin Griefs; and are they not eclipsed ever so often with the galling Check-rein of feminine Tides? So what to better Purpose than to sit the Dears on a Stack of Blotters, and let it go at that, giving them in their meantime a Bible and a Bobbin, and say with all Pessimism—they have come to a blind Alley; there will be no Children born for a Season, and what matter it?”

Thus her Voice was heard throughout the Year, as cutting in its Derision as a surgical Instrument, nor did she use it to come to other than a Day and yet another Day in which she said, “I have tried all means, Mathematical, Poetical, Statistical and Reasonable, to come to the Core of this Distemper, known as Girls! Girls! And can nowhere find where a Woman got the Account that makes her such a deft Worker at the Single Beatitude. Who gave her the Directions for it, the necessary Computation and Turpitude? Where, and in what dark Chamber was the Tree so cut of Life, that the Branch turned to the Branch, and made of the Cuttings a Garden of Ecstasy?”

Merry Laughter rose about her, as Doll Furious was seen in ample dimity, sprigged with Apple Blossom, footing it fleetly after the proportionless Persuasions of Senorita Fly-About, one of Buzzing Much to Rome!

“In my time”, said Patience Scalpel, “Women came to enough trouble by lying abed with the Father of their Children. What then in this good Year of our Lord has paired them like to like, with never a Beard between them, layer for layer, were one to unpack them to the very Ticking? Methinks”, she mused, her Starry Eyes aloft, where a Peewit was yet content to mate it hot among the Branches, making for himself a Covey in the olden Formula, “they love the striking Hour, nor would breed the Moments that go to it. Sluts!” she said pleasantly after a little thought, “Are good Mothers to supply them with Luxuries in the next Generation; for they themselves will have no Shes, unless some Her puts them forth! Well I’m not the Woman for it! They well have to pluck where they may. My Daughters shall go amarrying!”

FEBRUARY hath 29 days

THIS be a Love Letter for a Present, and when she is Catched, what shall I do with her? God knows! For ’tis safe to say I do not, and what we know not, is our only proof of Him!

My Love she is an Old Girl, out of Fashion, Bugles at the Bosom, and theredown a much Thumbed Mystery and a Maze. She doth jangle with last Year’s attentions, she is melted with Death’s Fire! Then what shall I for her that hath never been accomplished? It is a very Parcel of Perplexities! Shall one stumble on a Nuance that twenty Centuries have not pounced upon, yea worried and made a Kill of? Hath not her Hair of old been braided with the Stàrs? Her shin half-circled by the Moon. Hath she not been turned all ways that the Sands of her Desire know all Runnings? Who can make a New Path where there be no Wilderness? In the Salt Earth lie Parcels of lost Perfection—surely I shall not loos en her Straps a New Way, Love hath been too long a Time! Will she unpack her Panels for such a Stale Receipt, pour out her Treasures for a coin worn thin? Yet to renounce her were a thing as old ; and saying “Go!” but shuts the Door that hath banged a million Years!

Oh Zeus! Oh Diane! Oh Hellebore! Oh Absalom! Oh Piscary Right! What shall I do with it! To have been the First, that alone would have gifted me! As it is, shall I not pour ashes upon my Head, gird me in Sackcloth, covering my Nothing and Despair under a Mountain of Cinders, and thus become a Monument to No-Ability for her sake?

Verily, I shall place me before her Door, and when she cometh forth I shall think she has left her Feet inward upon the Sill and when she enters in, I shall dream her Hands be yet outward upon the Door—for therein is no way for me, and Fancy is my only Craft.

SAINTS DAYS

THESE are the Days on which Dame Musset was sainted, and for these things.

January

When new whelped, she was found to have missed by an Inch.

February

When but five, she lamented Mid-prayers, that the girls in the Bible were both Earth-hushed and Jewtouched forever and ever.

March

When nine she learned how the Knee termed Housemaid’s is come by, when the Slavy was bedridden at the turn of the scullery and needed a kneeling-to.

April

When fast on fifteen she hushed a Near-Bride with the left Flounce of her Ruffle that her Father in sleeping might not know of the oh!

May

When sweet twenty-one prayed upon her past Bearing she went to the Cockpit and crowed with the best. And at the Full of the Moon in Gaiters and Gloves mooed with the Herd, her Heels with their Hoofs, and in the wet Dingle hooted for hoot with the Quail on the Spinney, calling for Brides Wing and a Feather to flock with.

June

When well thirty, she, like all Men before her, made a Harlot a good Woman by making her Mistress.

July

When forty she bayed up a Tree whose Leaves had no Turning and whose Name was Florella.

August

When fifty odd and a day she came upon that Wind that is labelled the second.

Septembre

When sixty some, she came to no Good as well as another.

October

When Sixty was no longer a Lodger of hers, she bought a Pair of extra far-off, and ultra near-to Opera Glasses, and carried them always in a Sac by her Side.

November

When eighty-eight she said, “It’s a Hook Girl, not a Button, you should know your Dress better.”

December

When just before her last Breath she ordered a Pasty and let a Friend eat it, renouncing the World and its Pitfalls like all Saints before her, when she had no longer Room for them. Prosit!

MARCH hath 31 days

AMONG such Dames of which we write, were two British Women. One was called Lady Buck-and-Balk, and the other plain Tilly-Tweed-In Blood. Lady Buck-and-Balk sported a Monocle and believed in Spirits. Tilly-Tweed-In-Blood sported a Stetson, and believed in Marriage. They came to the Temple of the Good Dame Musset, and they sat to Tea, and this is what they said :

“Just because woman falls, in this Age, to Woman, does that mean that we are not to recognize Morals? What has England done to legalize these Passions? Nothing! Should she not be brought to Task, that never once through her gloomy Weather have two dear Doves been seen approaching in their bridal Laces, to pace, in stately Splendor up the Altar Aisle, there to be United in Similarity, under mutual Vows of Loving, Honouring, and Obeying, while th...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Karla Jay
• Introduction by Susan Sniader Lanser
• Foreword by Djuna Barnes
• Ladies Almanack