Death of a Doxy (Crime Line)

On the other hand, it is with Julie Jaquette, Isabel's best friend, that we observe a rare phenomenon. At the conclusion of their initial interview, Wolfe says, "I have the impression that your opinion of our fellow beings and their qualities is somewhat similar to mine." And then he does something almost unprecedented in the Stout oeuvre: "He got to his feet. He almost never stands for comers or goers, male or female. And he actually repeated it. 'I wish you well, madam.'" From Wolfe, this is more than a compliment; it is a lavish tribute. Later, when Julie's life is threatened and she takes refuge in the old brownstone, she spends two hours with Wolfe in the plant rooms among the orchids. Need it be said that Stout is subtle, that orchids have long been held as a symbol of sexuality, that the image of Wolfe and Julie Jaquette in the hot, humid plant rooms for two hours with all that rich dark soil and all those orchids is particularly evocative? And when she comes down she is calling him Nero! Of course, nothing happened, because later Julie complains to Wolfe, "You get on my nerves because you haven't got any." Or did it happen on a purely subliminal level, the kind of seduction, after all, to which Wolfe would be most susceptible? And did he later rebuff her? This is not the misogynistic Nero Wolfe we've come to know and love.

It is clear that what Nero Wolfe is afraid of concerning women is in himself. Wolfe says in Over My Dead Body, "I used to be idiotically romantic. I still am, but I've got it in hand." And later in the same book, "I have skedaddled, physically, once in my life, from one person, and that was a Montenegrin woman." In Too Many Cooks he says, "Not like women? They are astounding and successful animals. For reasons of convenience, I merely preserve an appearance of immunity which I developed some years ago under the pressure of necessity." If Wolfe has issues with members of the opposite sex, isn't he, in this regard at least, little different from most of us? That he takes his fear to the extreme of an aversion is merely consistent with his grandiose nature, and that he can state the reasons for this aversion strongly and literately is not, de facto, sexism. We, however, from our superior perspective of 1995 enlightenment, can recognize his foolish position for what it is, for we ourselves are above it, right? Speak up, I can't hear you!