If my so-called employee had read Bleak House, would she have gone straight?  (N.B.  Who coined the phrase “gone straight”?  Did Edward G. Robinson say it in a crime movie?)

 Dickens’s masterpiece Bleak House is a satire of the  legal system. At the center is Jarndyce v Jarndyce, an inheritance suit which has gone on for decades, driving some family members mad and one to suicide.  Middle-aged John Jarndyce has withdrawn from the suit: he has seen too much collateral damage.  And he is devastated when his charming young ward, Richard Carstone, decides to quit his job because he believes there will a verdict soon and he will be rich. 

Nevertheless,  Bleak House did not teach me everything.  Here’s what I wish I’d learned: Do NOT hire a former hippie to do legal work when she asks for the job.  At the commune she doubtless baked whole wheat bread, played the lute, and made enough homemade tomato sauce to open an Italian restaurant.  But, no, even if she’s the spawn of a friend or relative – it will be a hassle to deal with her! 

It was, of course, an unwise decision to hire her. After a year, very little progress had been made. We scheduled phone conferences. We offered to assist her, and  gave her tips for finishing the job.

And then one day she telephoned Mr. Nemo at his office and wasted an hour of his time telling him I was a bad person.

“But what on earth did she say?”

“She’s a hysterical bitch,”  he said. 

I was crushed, because I had tried to help this woman.  No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.  I should have emulated Esther Summerson in Bleak House,  the sensible, charming, beloved diarist who befriends everyone and helps the rich as well as the poor, but understands that some people, like the charming parasite Mr. Skimpole, are not worth your time, and indeed cannot be helped..