The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  “Why ’tis the original! Thou’rt teasing me!”

  Burlingame shook his head. “ ’Tis two weeks old at most; I could do its like again in five minutes.”

  “I’faith, then, thou’rt the world’s best forger of hands!”

  “Haply I am, but you do me too much honor in this instance.” He smiled: “ ’Twas I that penned the original.”

  “Not so!” cried the poet. “I saw it penned myself!”

  Henry nodded. “I well remember. You fooled and fiddled with the ribbons on your scabbard and had like to piss for very joy.”

  “ ’Twas Baltimore himself—”

  “You have never seen Charles Calvert,” Burlingame said. “Nor hath any stranger lately who comes uncalled for to his door: ’twas one of my duties then to greet such folk and sound them out. When you were announced I begged his lordship to let me disguise myself as him, as was my wont with uncertain guests. ’Twas but a matter of powdering my beard and feigning stiffness in the joints—” He altered his voice to sound exactly like the one that had narrated to Ebenezer the history of the Province. “The voice and hand were childs play to mimic.”

  Ebenezer could not contain his disappointment; his eyes watered.

  “Ah, now, what doth it matter?” Burlingame sat beside him on the bed and placed an arm across his shoulders. “ ’Twas for the same reason I posed as Peter Sayer for a while: to feel you out. Besides, Baltimore heard and seconded all I said. Your commission hath his entire blessing, I swear.” He gave Ebenezer a squeeze.

  “Tell me truly, Henry,” the Laureate demanded, moving clear. “What is your relationship with Anna?”

  “Ah, friend Bertrand again,” Burlingame said calmly. “What do you think it to be, Eben?”

  “I think thou’rt secretly in love with her,” Ebenezer accused.

  “Thou’rt in error, then, for there’s nothing secret in’t.”

  “No trysts or secret meetings? No sweetmeats and honeybees?”

  “Dear friend, control yourself!” Henry said firmly. “Your sister doth me the honor of returning my regard and hath the good sense not to invite her brother’s and her father’s wrath in consequence. As for me, I love her in the same way I love you—no more, no less.”

  “Aye, and what way is that?” the poet asked. “Must we not add Portia to the list, and Dolly at the King o’ the Seas, and Henry More, and the barky boles of trees? Why did my father cashier you at St. Giles?”

  “Thou’rt overwrought,” said Burlingame, still seated on the bed. “Let me calm you.”

  Tears streamed down Ebenezer’s cheeks. “Son of Sodom!” he cried, and sprang upon his tutor. “You’ve had my sister’s maidenhead and now you lust for mine!”

  Though both height and initiative were on his side, the Laureate was no match for Burlingame, who was somewhat heavier, a good deal more co-ordinated, and infinitely more practiced in the arts of combat: in less than a minute he had Ebenezer pinned face down on the bed, his arm twisted up behind his back.

  “The truth is, Eben,” he declared, “I have yearned to have the twain of you since you were twelve, so much I loved you. ’Twas some inkling of this love enraged old Andrew, and he cashiered me. But on my oath, your sister is a virgin yet for all of me. As for yourself, d’you think I could not force you now, if I so chose? Yet I do not, and would not; rape hath its joys, but they are not worth your friendship, or your sister’s love.”

  He released his grip and lay down, turning his back to Ebenezer. The poet, stricken by what he’d learned, made no move to renew the attack or even to change his position.

  “Whate’er could come of a love ’twixt me and Anna?” Burlingame asked. “I have nor wealth, nor place, nor even parentage. D’you think I’d waste my seed on sows, if I could sow a child in Anna Cooke? D’you think I’d flit about the world, if I could take her to wife? Methinks your friend McEvoy spoke the truth, Eben: you know naught of the great real world!”

  The Laureate, in fact, at once felt sorry for his friend’s predicament, but because he wasn’t sure to what extent he ought to be outraged, and because what the disclosures concerning Anna and Lord Baltimore really made him feel was a sort of bitter melancholy, neither his sympathy nor his anger found a voice. He did not see how, in the light of all this, he could endure ever to face Burlingame again, much less sleep in the same bed with him. What could they say to each other now? He felt unspeakably deceived and put upon—a by no means wholly unpleasurable feeling. Face buried in the pillow and eyes wet with pity for himself, he recalled one of the wonderful dreams he had dreamed while senseless in the Poseidon’s fo’c’sle: Burlingame and Anna side by side at the vessel’s rail, waving to him where he swam in the flat, green, tepid sea. So stirring was the vision that he gave himself over to it entirely; closed his eyes, and let the sea wash warmly by his loins and hams.

  23

  In His Efforts to Get to the Bottom of Things the Laureate Comes Within Sight of Malden, but So Far from Arriving There, Nearly Falls Into the Stars

  IT WAS ALREADY WELL into the morning when the Laureate awoke: the thin fall sunshine struck his eyelids, and he was mortified to understand that for the first time since early childhood he had wet the bed. He dared not move, for fear of waking Burlingame and discovering his shame. How to conceal it? He considered accidentally spilling the water pitcher onto the bed, but rejected the scheme as insufficiently convincing. The only other alternative was to absent himself stealthily from the premises, since he could not in any case have further dealings with his friend, and to strike out on his own for Malden before anyone was awake; but he lacked the daring for such a move in the first place, and also had no way of securing food and transportation for himself and Bertrand.

  While considering and rejecting these courses of action he fell asleep again, and this time it was mid-morning when he woke. Burlingame, in the interval, had donned his clothes and left, and on the table with the pitcher and bowl were a piece of soap, a razor, a complete outfit of gentleman’s clothing, including shoes, hat, and sword, and—wonder of wonders—the ledger-book acquired from Ben Bragg at the Sign of the Raven! The Laureate rejoiced to behold the gift, and for all his shock and disappointment of the night just past, he could not but feel a certain warmth for his benefactor. He sprang out of bed, stripped off the clammy, verminous rags he’d worn day and night since his capture by the pirates, and scrubbed himself ferociously from top to toe. Then, before shaving, he could not resist rereading the poems in his notebook—especially the hymn to chastity, which, whether Susan Warren had been lying or not, was given a heightened significance by her mention of Joan Toast and by the Laureate’s late adventure. As he shaved he repeated the stanzas over and over, with a growing sense of physical and spiritual well-being. It was a splendid morning for rededication—high and clear and fresh as April, despite the season. Off came the beard and on went the clothes, which if not a tailored fit were at least of good quality; except for his sunburned face and hands and his somewhat shaggy hair, he looked and felt more like a Laureate when he was done than he had at any time since leaving London. He could scarcely wait to set out for Malden, more particularly since Joan Toast might well be waiting there for him!

  Now his brows contracted, and his features ticked and twitched: there remained still the problem of passing safely out of Captain Mitchell’s clutches and of deciding on an attitude toward Burlingame. The first seemed infinitely simpler than the second, which was complicated not only by his uncertainty about how he should react to his friend’s disclosures, but also by his embarrassment at wetting the bed, which childishness Henry had almost surely observed, and his gratitude for the gift of clothing. In fact, the more he considered possible attitudes to adopt, the more perplexing seemed the problem, and he ended by returning to the window sill and staring distractedly at the twin gravestones down by the riverbank.

  After a while he heard someone mount the stairs and Henry himself thrust his head into the chamber.

  “S
hake a leg, there, Master Laureate, or you’ll miss your breakfast! Hi, what a St. Paul’s courtier!”

  Ebenezer blushed. “Henry, I must confess—”

  “Shhh,” warned Burlingame. “The name is Timothy Mitchell, sir.” He entered the room and closed the door. “They’re waiting belowstairs, so, I must speak quickly. I’ve sent your man off to fetch your trunk in St. Mary’s: he’ll get to Malden before us and make things ready for you. Hark, now: there is an Edward Cooke in Dorchester County, a drunken cuckold of a sot-weed planter; two years ago he complained of his wife’s adulteries in a petition to Governor Copley and was the butt of so much teasing that he hath drowned himself in drink. I have told Bill Mitchell thou’rt this same poor wretch, that in your cups are given to playing the Laureate, and he believes me. Act sober and shamed this morning, and there’s naught to fear. Make haste, now!”

  And without allowing the poet time to protest, Henry led him by the arm toward the stairs, still talking in an urgent, quiet voice:

  “Your friend the swine-girl hath flown the coop, and Mitchell declares she’ll make her way to Cambridge with the silver he thinks you gave her. I’m to take horse at once to find and fetch her; what you must do is beg his pardon and volunteer to aid me in the search by way of making good your sins. We can fetch the rest of the Journal on our way to Malden, and I’ll deliver it to Nicholson when I return.” They approached the dining-room. “ ’Sheart, now, don’t forget: I’m Tim Mitchell and thou’rt Edward Cooke of Dorset.”

  Ebenezer had no opportunity either to assent to or protest the course of events: he found himself propelled into the dining-room, where Captain Mitchell and a few of the previous evening’s guests were breakfasting on rum and a meat identified by Burlingame as broiled rasher of infant bear. They regarded Ebenezer, some with amusement and others with a certain rancor, which, however, observing that he was Timothy’s friend, they did not express overtly. When the two new arrivals were seated and served, Burlingame announced to the group what he had already told Mitchell—that their distinguished visitor was not Ebenezer Cooke the poet, but Edward Cooke the cuckold. The news occasioned some minutes of ribaldry, following which Ebenezer made a pretty speech of apology for his imposture and other unseemly deportment, and volunteered to aid Timothy in his search for the fugitive servant.

  “As’t please ye,” Captain Mitchell grumbled, and gave some last instructions to Burlingame: “Look ye well on old Ben Spurdance’s place, Timmy. ’Tis a den o’ thieves and whores, and belike ’tis there she’s flown again. She aims to join her sister puddletrotters now that Cambridge court is sitting.”

  “That I shall,” smiled Burlingame.

  “Take care ye don’t dally by the way, and fetch Miss Susan hither within the week, for I’ve a word to say to her. I’ll have an end to her drunkenness and leave-takings, by Heav’n! Every simpleton that comes through pays her two pounds for a squint at her backside and swallows her cock-and-bull story into the bargain, and ’tis I must bear the cost o’ fetching her home again!”

  As he spoke he glared at Ebenezer so accusingly that the poet turned crimson, to the merriment of the other guests, and offered further to bear the charge of Timothy’s expedition. He was happy enough to leave the table when the lengthy breakfast was done, although he could not contemplate with pleasure the prospect of setting out for the Eastern Shore with Burlingame. Once on the road, alone with him, it would be necessary to come to some sort of terms with the problem put in abeyance by the urgency of their first encounter that morning: what their future relationship was to be. That it could remain what it had been thitherto, and the revelations of the night before go undiscussed, was unthinkable.

  Yet when near noontime they set out on their journey—Ebenezer riding an ancient roan mare of Captain Mitchell’s and Burlingame a frisky three-year-old gelding of his own—he could think of no gambit for initiating the discussion that he was courageous enough to use, and Burlingame showed no inclination to speak of anything less impersonal than the unseasonably warm day (which he said was called “Indian summer” by the colonials), the occasional planters or Indians whom they encountered on the road, and the purpose of their route.

  “Calvert County is just across the Chesapeake from Dorset,” he explained. “If we sailed due east from here we’d land very near Cooke’s Point. But what we’ll do is sail a bit northeastwards to Tom Smith’s place in Talbot, just above Dorchester; he’s the wight that hath the next piece of the Journal.”

  “Whate’er you think best,” Ebenezer replied, and despite his wish to get matters out in the open, he found himself talking instead about Susan Warren, to whom, he declared, he was grateful for breaking her pledge to him, and whose flight to her father he pleaded with Burlingame not to intercept. Burlingame agreed not to search for the swine-girl at all, and changed the subject to something equally remote from what most occupied the poet’s mind. Thus they rode for two or three hours into the afternoon, their horses gaited to a leisurely walk, and with every new idle exchange of remarks it became increasingly difficult for Ebenezer to broach the subject, until by the time they reached their most immediate destination—a boatlanding on the Chesapeake Bay side of Calvert County—he realized that to introduce the matter now would make him appear ridiculous, and with a sigh he vowed to have it out with his former tutor first thing next morning, if not at bedtime that very night.

  Burlingame hired a pinnace to ferry them and their animals to Talbot, and they made the ten-mile crossing without incident. As they entered the wide mouth of the Choptank River, which divides the counties of Talbot and Dorchester, Burlingame pointed to a wooded neck of land nearly two miles off to starboard and said, “If I not be far wide of the mark, friend, that point o’er yonder is your own Cooke’s Point, and Malden stands somewhere among those trees.”

  “Dear Heav’n!” cried Ebenezer. “You didn’t say we would pass so near! Pray land me there now and join me when your work is done!”

  “ ’Twould be twice imprudent,” Henry replied. “For one thing, thou’rt not yet accustomed to dealing with provincial types, as I am; for another, ’twere unseemly that their Lord and Laureate should arrive alone and unescorted, don’t you think?”

  “Then you must come with me, Henry,” Ebenezer pleaded, and the certain surliness in his voice, which throughout the day had been the only token of his tribulation, finally disappeared. “You can get the Journal later, can you not?”

  But Burlingame shook his head. “That were no less imprudent, Eben. There are two pieces of the Journal yet to find: the one with Tom Smith in Talbot, the other with a William Smith in Dorset. Tom Smith I know by sight, and where he lives; we can get his part tomorrow and be off to Cambridge. But this William Smith of Dorset is an entire stranger to me: in the time ’twill take to find him, Coode could kill and rob the twain. Besides, in Oxford, where we’ll land, there is a barber that shall trim your hair or shave you for a periwig, at my expense.”

  To such reason and graciousness Ebenezer could offer no objection, though his heart sank as they dropped Cooke’s Point astern and turned north up the smaller Tred Avon River to a village called variously Oxford, Thread Haven, and Williamstadt. There they disembarked and paid calls first on the promised barber—whom Ebenezer on a comradely impulse directed to trim his natural hair in the manner of the Province rather than shave it for a periwig—and then to an inn near the wharf, where they dined on cold roast mallard and beer, also at Burlingame’s expense. Assuming that they would sleep there as well, the Laureate vowed to review the whole question of Henry’s relations with Anna as soon as they retired for the night, in order to determine once and for all how he should feel about it; but Henry himself frustrated this resolve by declaring, after supper, that sufficient daylight remained for them to reach the house of Thomas Smith, and proposing that they lose no time in laying hands upon his portion of the Journal.

  “For I swear,” he said, wiping his mouth upon his coat sleeve, “so damning is this evidence f
or Coode, he’ll stop at naught to get it, nor scoff at any hint of its location. Let’s begone.” He rose from the table and started for the horses; not until he was halfway to the door did he look back to see that Ebenezer, instead of following after, still sat before his empty plate, wincing and sighing and ticking his tongue.

  “Ah, then,” he said, corning back, “thou’rt distraught. Is’t that you came so near your estate and did not reach it?”

  Ebenezer shook his head in a manner not clearly either affirmative or negative. “That is but a part of’t, Henry; you go at such a pace, I have no time to think things through as they deserve! I cannot collect my wits e’en to think of all the questions I would ask, much less explore your answers. How can I know what I must do and where I stand?”

  Burlingame laid his arm across the poet’s shoulders and smiled. “What is’t you describe, my friend, if not man’s lot? He is by mindless lust engendered and by mindless wrench expelled, from the Eden of the womb to the motley, mindless world. He is Chance’s fool, the toy of aimless Nature—a mayfly flitting down the winds of Chaos!”

  “You mistake my meaning,” Ebenezer said, lowering his eyes.

  Burlingame was undaunted: his eyes glittered. “Not by much, methinks. Once long ago we sat like this, at an inn near Magdalene College—do you remember? And I said, ‘Here we sit upon a blind rock hurtling through a vacuum, racing to the grave.’ ’Tis our fate to search, Eben, and do we seek our soul, what we find is a piece of that same black Cosmos whence we sprang and through which we fall: the infinite wind of space…”

  In fact a night wind had sprung up and was buffeting the inn. Ebenezer shivered and clutched the edge of the table. “But there is so much unanswered and unresolved! It dizzies me!”

  “Marry!” laughed Henry. “If you saw it clear enough ’twould not dizzy you: ’twould drive you mad! This inn here seems a little isle in a sea of madness, doth it not? Blind Nature howls without, but here ’tis calm—how dare we leave? Yet lookee round you at these men that dine and play at cards, as if the sky were their mother’s womb! They remind me of the chickens I once saw fed to a giant snake in Africa: when the snake struck one of the others squawked and fluttered, but a moment after they were scratching about for corn, or standing on his very back to preen their feathers! How is’t these men don’t run a-gibbering down the streets, if not that their minds are lulled to sleep?” He pressed the poet’s arm. “You know as well as I that human work can be magnificent; but in the face of what’s out yonder”—he gestured skywards—“ ’tis the industry of Bedlam! Which sees the state of things more clearly: the cock that preens on the python’s back, or the lunatic that trembles in his cell?”