The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “Aye!” said Ben, and crooked his finger at her. “Come along now, sweetmeat.”

  “As ye be a man and a poet, Eben Cooke.” Joan scolded, jumping to her feet and shouting in his ear, “I lay it upon ye to match this rascal’s gold with your own and have done with’t. If ye will not speak up and act the man, I’m Ben’s and be damned t’ye!”

  Ebenezer gave a slight start and suddenly stood up, blinking as if just roused from bed. His features twitched, and he alternately blushed and paled as he opened his mouth to speak.

  “I had five guineas but this morning by messenger from my father,” he said weakly.

  “Thou’rt a fool,” said Dick Merriweather. “She asks but three, and had you spoke sooner ’twould’ve cost you but two!”

  “Will ye raise him two bob, Ben?” asked John McEvoy, who had been watching the proceedings serenely.

  “Indeed he shan’t!” snapped Joan. “Is this a horse auction, then, and I a mare to be rid by the high bidder?” She took Ebenezer’s arm fondly. “Only match Ben’s three guineas, ducky, and speak no more of’t. The night’s near done, and I am ill o’ this lewd raillery.”

  Ebenezer gawked, swallowed, and shifted his weight.

  “I cannot match it here,” he said, “for I’ve but a crown in my purse.” He glanced around him wildly. “The money is in my rooms,” he added, teetering as if to swoon. “Come with me there, and you shall have’t all.”

  “Hello, the lad’s no fool!” said Tom Trent. “He knows a thing or two!”

  “ ’Sblood, a very Jew!” agreed Dick Merriweather.

  “Better a fowl in hand than two flying,” Ben Oliver laughed, and jingled his three guineas.

  “ ’Tis a hoax and fraud, to lure honest women to their ruin! What would your father say, Ebenezer, did he get wind of’t? Shame, shame!”

  “Pay the great ass no heed,” said Joan.

  Ebenezer swayed again, and several of the company tittered.

  “I swear to you—” he began.

  “Shame! Shame!” cried Ben once more, wagging a fat finger at him to the company’s delight.

  Ebenezer tried again, but could do no more than raise his hand and let it fall.

  “Stand off!” someone warned uneasily. “He is starching up again!”

  “Shame!” roared Ben.

  Ebenezer goggled at Joan Toast for a second and then lurched full speed across the room and out of the winehouse.

  7

  The Conversation Between Ebenezer and the Whore Joan Toast, Including the Tale of the Great Tom Leech

  AS A RULE Ebenezer would after such a bumble have been in for some hours of motionless reflection in his room. It was his habit (for such rigidities as this at Locket’s were not new to him) upon recovering himself to sit at his writing-desk, looking-glass in hand, and stare fish-eyed at his face, which only during such spells was still. But this time, though he did indeed take up his vis-à-vis, the face he regarded was anything but vacant: on the contrary, where typically he’d have seen a countenance blank as an owl’s, now he saw a roil as of swallows round a chimney pot; whereas another time he’d have heard in his head but a cosmic rustle, as though his skull were a stranded wentletrap, now he sweated, blushed, and dreamed two score ragged dreams. He studied the ears Joan Toast had touched, as though by study to restore their tingle, and when he could by no means succeed, he recognized with alarm that it was his heart she now had hands on.

  “Ah God,” he cried aloud, “that I’d risen to the wager!”

  The manly sound of his voice arrested him. Moreover, it was the first time he’d ever spoken to himself aloud, and he failed to be embarrassed by it.

  “Had I but another chance,” he declared to himself, “ ’twould be no chore to snatch the moment! Lord, into what ferment have those eyes put me! Into what heat those bosoms!”

  He took up the glass again, made himself a face, and inquired, “Who art thou now, queer fellow? Hi, there is a twitch in thy blood, I see—a fidget in thy soul! ’Twere a right manly man Joan Toast would taste, were the wench but here to taste him!”

  It occurred to him to return to Locket’s to seek her out, on the chance she’d not have succumbed to Ben Oliver’s entreaties. But he was reluctant to confront his friends so soon after his flight, in the first place, and in the second—

  “Curse me for my innocence!” he railed, pounding his fist upon some blank papers on the writing-desk. “What knowledge have I of such things? Suppose she should come with me? ’Sblood! What then?

  “Yet ’tis now or never,” he told himself grimly. “This Joan Toast sees in me what no woman hath before, nor I myself: a man like other men. And for aught I know she hath made me one, for when else have I talked to myself? When else felt so potent? To Locket’s,” he ordered himself, “or go virgin to the grave!”

  Nevertheless he did not get up, but lapsed instead into lecherous, complicated reveries of rescue and gratitude; of shipwreck or plague and mutual survivorship; of abduction, flight, and violent assault; and, sweetest of all, of towering fame and casual indulgence. When at length he realized that he was not going to Locket’s at all, he was overcome with self-loathing and returned, in despair, once more to the mirror.

  He calmed at the sight of the face in it.

  “Odd fellow, there! Ooo-ooo! Hey-nonny-nonny! Fa-la!”

  He leered and mouthed into the glass until his eyes brimmed with tears, and then, exhausted, buried his face in his long arms. Presently he fell asleep.

  There came, an uncertain time later, a knocking at the entrance door below, and before Ebenezer was awake enough to wonder at it, his own door was opened by his servant, Bertrand, who had been sent to him just a few days earlier by his father. This Bertrand was a thin-faced, wide-eyed bachelor in his later forties whom Ebenezer knew scarcely at all, for Andrew had hired him while the young man was still at Cambridge. With him, when he had come from the St. Giles establishment, he had brought the following note from Andrew, in an envelope sealed with wax:

  Ebenezer,

  The Bearer of this note is Bertrand Burton, my Valet since 1686, and now yours, if you want him. He is a diligent enough fellow, if something presumptuous, and will make you a good man if you hold him to his place. Mrs Twigg and he got on ill together, to the point where I had either to sack him or lose her, without whom I could scarce manage my house. Yet deeming it a hard matter to sack the fellow outright, whose only fault is, that though he never forgets his work, he oft forgets his place, I have promoted him out of my service into yours. I shall pay him his first quarters wage; after that, if you want him, I presume your post with Paggen will afford him.

  Though his current wage from Peter Paggen, which was precisely what it had been in 1688, was barely adequate to keep himself, Ebenezer nonetheless had welcomed Bertrand’s service, at least for the three months during which it was to cost him nothing. Luckily, the room adjoining his own was unoccupied at the time, and he had arranged with his landlord for Bertrand to lodge there, where he was always within call.

  Now the man stepped into the room in nightshirt and cap, all smiles and winks, said, “A lady to see you, sir,” and, to Ebenezer’s great surprise, ushered Joan Toast herself into the room.

  “I shall retire at once,” he announced, winking again, and left them before Ebenezer could recover sufficiently to protest. He was extremely embarrassed and not a little alarmed at being alone with her, but Joan, not a whit disturbed, came over to where he still sat at the writing table and bussed him lightly upon the cheek.

  “Say not a word,” she ordered, taking off her hat. “I know well I’m tardy, and I ask your pardon for’t.”

  Ebenezer sat dumb, too astonished to speak. Joan strode blithely to the windows, closed the curtains, and commenced undressing.

  “ ’Tis your friend Ben Oliver’s to blame, with his three guineas, and his four guineas, and his five guineas, and his great hands both a-clench to lay hold on me! But a shilling o’er your five he couldn’t offer
, or wouldn’t, and since ’twas you first offered it, I’m quit o’ the brute with conscience clear.”

  Ebenezer stared at her, head afire.

  “Come along now, sweet,” Joan said presently, and turned to him entirely unclothed. “Put thy guineas upon the table and let’s to bed. Faith, but there’s a nip in the air this night! Brrr! Jump to’t, now!” She sprang to the bed and snuggled under the coverlets, drawing them up around her chin.

  “Come along!” she said again, a bit more briskly.

  “Ah God, I cannot!” Ebenezer said. His face was rapturous, his eyes were wild.

  “Ye what?” Joan cried, throwing back the covers and sitting up in alarm.

  “I cannot pay thee,” Ebenezer declared.

  “Not pay me! What prank is this, sir, ye make me butt of, when I have put off Ben Oliver and his five gold guineas? Out with thy money now, Master Cooke, and off with thy breeches, and prank me no pranks!”

  “ ’Tis no prank, Joan Toast,” said Ebenezer. “I cannot pay thee five guineas, or four guineas, or three. I cannot pay thee a shilling. Nay, not so much as a farthing.”

  “What! Are ye paupered, then?” She gripped his shoulders as if to shake him. “Marry, sir, open wide those great cow’s eyes, that I may claw them from out their sockets! Think ye to make a fool o’ me?” She swung her legs over the side of the bed.

  “Nay, nay, lady!” Ebenezer cried, falling to his knees before her. “Nay, I have the five guineas, and more. But how price the priceless? How buy Heaven with simple gold? Ah, Joan Toast, ask me not to cheapen thee so! Was’t for gold that silver-footed Thetis shared the bed of Peleus, Achilles’ sire? Think thee Venus and Anchises did their amorous work on consideration of five guineas? Nay, sweet Joan, a man seeks not in the market for the favors of a goddess!”

  “Let foreign bawds run their business as’t please ’em,” Joan declared, somewhat calmer. “ ’Tis five guineas the night for this one, and pay ere ye play. Do ye reckon it cheap, then pleasure in thy bargain: ’tis all one to me. What a temper ye put me in with thy not a farthing! I had near leaped ye! Come along, now, and save thy conceits for a love sonnet in the morning.”

  “Ah, dear God, Joan, wilt thou not see?” said Ebenezer, still down upon his knees. “ ’Tis not for common sport I crave thee, as might another: such lechery I leave to mere gluttonous whoremongers like Ben Oliver. What I crave of thee cannot be bought!”

  “Aha,” smiled Joan, “so ’tis a matter o’ strange tastes, is’t? I’d not have guessed it by the honest look o’ ye, but think not so quickly ’tis out o’ the question. Well do I know There’s more ways to the woods than one, and if’t work no great or lasting hurt, why, ’tis but a matter o’ price to me, sir. Name me thy game, and I’ll fix thee thy fee.”

  “Joan, Joan, put by this talk!” cried Ebenezer, shaking his head. “Can you not see it tears my heart? What’s past is past; I cannot bear to think on’t, how much the less hear it from thy sweet lips! Dear girl, I swear to thee now I am a virgin, and as I come to thee pure and undefiled, so in my mind you come to me; whate’er hath gone before, speak not of it. Nay!” he warned, for Joan’s mouth dropped open. “Nay, not a word of’t, for ’tis over and done. Joan Toast, I love thee! Ah, that startles thee! Aye, I swear to Heaven I love thee, and ’twas to declare it I wished thee here. Speak no more of your awful trafficking, for I love thy sweet body unspeakably, and that spirit which it so fairly houses, unimaginably!”

  “Nay, Mr. Cooke, ’tis an unbecoming jest ye make, to call thyself virgin,” Joan said doubtfully.

  “As God is my witness,” swore Ebenezer, “I have known no woman carnally to this night, nor ever loved at all.”

  “But how is that?” Joan demanded. “Why, when I was but a slip of a thing, not yet fourteen and innocent of the world’s villainy, I recall I once cried out at table how I had commenced a queer letting of blood, and what was I ill of? And send quick for the leeches! And everyone laughed and made strange jests, but none would tell me what was the cause of’t. Then my young bachelor uncle Harold approached me privily, and kissed me upon the lips and stroked my hair, and told me ’twas no common leech I wanted, for that I was letting much blood already; but that anon when I had stopped I should come to him in secret, for he kept in his rooms a great torn leech such as I had ne’er yet been bit by, the virtue of which was, that it would restore by sweet infusions what I had lost. I believed without question all that he had told me, for he was a great favorite o’ mine, more brother than uncle to me, and therefore I said naught to anyone, but directly the curse left me went straight to his bedchamber, as he had prescribed. ‘Where is the great torn leech?’ I asked him. ‘I have’t ready,’ said he, ‘but it fears the light and will do its work only in darkness. Make thyself ready,’ said he, ‘and I’ll apply the leech where it must go. ‘Very well,’ said I, ‘but ye must tell me how to ready myself, Harold, for I know naught of leeching.’ ‘Disrobe thyself,’ said he, ‘and lie down upon the bed.’

  “And so I stripped myself all naked, simple soul that I was, right before his eyes, and lay down upon the bed as he directed—a skinny pup I, as yet unbreasted and unfurred—and he blew out the candle. ‘Ah, dear Harold!’ I cried. ‘Come lie beside me on the bed, I pray, for I fear the bite o’ thy great torn leech in the dark!’ Harold made me no answer, but shortly joined me upon his bed. ‘How is this?’ I cried, feeling his skin upon me. ‘Do you mean to take the leech as well? Did you too lose blood?’ ‘Nay,’ he laughed, ‘ ’tis but the manner whereby my leech must be applied. I have’t ready for ye, dear girl; are ye ready for’t?’ ‘Nay, dear Harold,’ I cried, ‘I am fearful! Where will it bite me? How will it hurt?’ ‘ Twill bite where it must,’ said Harold, ‘and ’twill pain ye a mere minute, and then pleasure ye enough.’ ‘Ah, then,’ I sighed, ‘let us get by the pain and hasten the pleasure with all speed. But prithee hold my hand, lest I cry out at the creature’s bite.’ ‘Ye shan’t cry out,’ Harold said then, ‘for I shall kiss ye.’

  “And straightway he embraced me and kissed my mouth tight shut, and, while we were a-kissing, suddenly I felt the great torn leech his fearful bite, and I was maiden no more! At first I wept, not alone from the pain he’d warned of, but from alarm at what I’d learned o’ the leech’s nature. But e’en as Harold promised, the pain soon flew, and his great torn leech took bite after bite till near sunup, by which time, though I was by no means weary o’ the leeching, my Harold had no more leech to leech with, but only a poor cockroach or simple pismire, not fit for the work, which scurried away at the first light. ’Twas then I learned the queer virtue o’ this animal: for just as a fleabite, the more ye scratch it, wants scratching the more, so, once this creature had bit me, I longed for further bites and was forever after poor Harold and his leech, like an opium eater his phial. And though since then I’ve suffered the bite of every sort and size—none more fearsome or ravenous than my good John’s—yet the craving plagues me still, till I shiver at the thought o’ the great torn leech!”

  “Stop, I beg thee!” Ebenezer pleaded. “I cannot hear more! What, ‘Dear Uncle,’ you call him, and ‘Poor Harold’! Ah, the knave, the scoundrel, to deceive you so, who loved and trusted him! ’Twas no leechery he put thee to, but lechery, and laid thy maiden body forever in the bed of harlotry! I curse him, and his ilk!”

  “Ye say’t with relish,” smiled Joan, “as one who’d do the like with fire in his eye and sweat on his arse, could he find himself a child fond as I. Nay, Ebenezer, rail not at poor dear Harold, who is these several years under the sod from an ague got swiving ardently in cold chambers. Says I, ’tis but the nature o’ the leech to bite and of the leeched to want biting, and ’tis a mystery and astonishment to me, since so many crave leeching and the best leech is so lightly surfeited, how yours hath gone starved, as ye declare, these thirty years! What, are ye a mere arrant sluggard, sir? Or are ye haply o’ that queer sort who lust for none but their own sex? ’Tis a thing past grasping!”

  “
Nor the one nor the other,” replied Ebenezer. “I am man in spirit as well as body, and my innocence is not wholly my own choosing. I have ere now been ready enough, but to grind love’s grain wants mortar as well as pestle; no man dances the morris dance alone, and till this night no woman e’er looked on me with favor.”

  “Marry!” laughed Joan. “Doth the ewe chase the ram, or the hen the cock? Doth the field come to the plow for furrowing, or the scabbard to the sword for sheathing? ’Tis all arsy-turvy ye look at the world!”

  “That I grant,” sighed Ebenezer, “but I know naught of the art of seduction, nor have the patience for’t.”

  “Foeh! There’s no great labor to the bedding of women! For the most, all a man need do, I swear, is ask plainly and politely, did he but know it.”

  “How is that?” exclaimed Ebenezer in astonishment. “Are women then so lecherous?”

  “Nay.” said Joan. “Think not we crave a swiving pure and simple at any time as do men always—’tis oft a pleasure with us. but rarely a passion. Howbeit, what with men forever panting at us like so many hounds at a salt-bitch, and begging us out by our virtue and give ’em a tumble, and withal despising us for whores and slatterns if we do; or bidding us be faithful to our husbands and yet losing no chance to cuckold their truest friends; or charging us to guard our chastity and yet assaulting it from all quarters in every alleyway, carriage, or sitting room; or being soon bored with us if we show no fire in swiving and yet sermoning us for sinners if we do; inventing morals on the one hand and rape on the other; and in general preaching us to virtue whilst they lure us on to vice—what with the pull and haul of all this, I say, we women are forever at sixes and sevens, all fussed and rattled and torn ’twixt what we ought and what we would, and so entirely confounded, that we never know what we think on the matter or how much license to grant from one minute to the next; so that if a man commence the usual strut, pat, and tweak, we may thrust him from us (if he do not floor us and have at us by main strength); and if he let us quite alone, we are so happy of the respite we dare not make a move; but should e’er a man approach us in all honest friendship, and look upon us as fellow humans and not just a bum and a bosom, from eyes other than a stud-stallion’s, and after some courteous talk should propose a cordial swiving as one might a hand of whist (instead of inviting us to whist as lecherously as though to bed)—if, I say, e’er a man should learn to make such a request in such a manner, his bed would break ’neath the weight of grateful women, and he would grow gray ere his time! But in sooth ’twill never happen,” Joan concluded, “forasmuch as ’twould mean receiving a partner and not taking a vassal: ’tis not mere sport a man lusts after, ’tis conquest—else philanderers were rare as the plague and not common as the pox. Do but ask, Ebenezer, cordially and courteously, as ye would ask a small favor from a good friend, and what ye ask shall rarely be refused. But ye must ask, else in our great relief at not being hard pressed for’t, we shall pass ye by.”