The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  From across the courtyard came a mocking, almost hysterical laugh, and Burlingame, Spurdance, and Susan Warren all cried out at once, but the judge said, “The Court so rules,” and banged the table with his gavel. “And I shall add, sir, that in all my years upon the bench I have ne’er witnessed such a foolish generosity!”

  Ebenezer bowed. “I thank you. Yet ’twere better the Justice of the sentence be praised, and not its magnanimity. ’Tis a light matter to be generous with another man’s property.”

  The judge made some reply, but it was lost in the uproar of the crowd, who now lifted Ebenezer upon their shoulders and bore him off to the tavern down the street.

  “ ’Tis not I you should honor, but blind Justice,” the poet said to no one in particular. “Howbeit,” he added, “ ’tis gratifying to find myself at last among folk not purblind to the dignity of my office. My esteem for Cambridge hath been restored entire.”

  Indeed there was some murmur of saintliness among the more impressionable of the crowd; one mother held up her infant child for him to kiss, but the Laureate modestly waved the lady away. He glanced about in vain for Burlingame, to savor his reaction to this triumph.

  The erstwhile plaintiff William Smith was already at the inn when they arrived, and at the sight of his benefactor he ordered ale for everyone.

  “How can I thank ye, sir?” he cried, embracing Ebenezer, “Thou’rt the Christianest soul in the Province o’ Maryland, I swear!”

  “Tut, now,” the Laureate replied. “I only hope they will not cheat you of’t yet.”

  “ ’Tis what I fear as well, sir,” Smith agreed, and drew a paper from his shirt. “My lawyer hath just now drawn up this paper, which if you’ll sign, will seal your sentence fast in any court.”

  “Then let’s have done with’t, and to the ale,” laughed Ebenezer. He took quill and ink from the barman, signed the document with a flourish, and returned it to Smith, wishing Burlingame, Anna, and his London friends were present to witness this most glorious hour of his life.

  “Now,” declared Smith, raising his bumper of ale in toast: “To Master Cooke, sirs, our Laureate Poet, that is the grandest gentleman e’er graced Dorset County!”

  “Hear!” cried the others.

  “And to Mr. Smith,” Ebenezer rejoined politely, “that hath no more than just reward for all his trials.”

  “Hear!”

  “Here’s to that painted puss his daughter,” someone shouted from the mob. “May Heav’n preserve us from her—”

  “Nay, rather to Justice,” the Laureate broke in, embarrassed by the reference to Susan. “To Justice, Poetry, Maryland—and, if you will, to Malden, whither I am bound.”

  “Aye, to Malden,” Smith affirmed. “And ye must know, sir, once I’ve sacked that rascal Spurdance for a proper overseer, thou’rt ever welcome there to visit when ye will and be my honored guest however long ye choose.” He laughed and winked his eye. “I’faith, sir, should Lord Calvert’s false commission pay no wage, I’ll hire yourself in Spurdance’s stead to manage Malden. Ye could be no worse a one than he, that cheated ye blind without your knowing aught of’t.”

  Ebenezer frowned in horror. “Dear sir, I do not follow you for a moment!”

  “As well, ’tis no matter now, lad.” Smith grinned and took a fresh glass from the barman. “Many a truth is spoke in ignorance, and many a wrong set right by chance. To Malden!” he said to the crowd, and clearly for the Laureate’s benefit went on: “Now ’tis mine in title, I shall run it as Ben Spurdance never durst!”

  “Hear! Hear! Hear!” they all cried, and quaffed so deeply of ale and enthusiasm that few saw the guest of honor swoon away upon the sawdust floor.

  28

  If the Laureate Is Adam, Then Burlingame Is the Serpent

  WHEN HE RECOVERED his senses Ebenezer found himself on a bench in one corner of the tavern; his feet were elevated on a wooden box, and a wet cloth had been placed across his brow. Remembering why he’d fainted nearly carried him off afresh; he closed his eyes again, and wished he could perish on the instant where he lay rather than face the derision of the crowd and his own shame of the folly of his loss. When at length he dared to look about him, he saw Henry Burlingame sitting alone at the nearest table, smoking a pipe and regarding the carousers at the bar.

  “Henry!” the stricken poet called.

  Burlingame spun around at once. “Not Henry, Eben—Tim Mitchell is my name. I found you laid out on the floor.”

  Ebenezer sat up and shook his head. “Ah, dear Christ, Henry, what have I done? And in the face of your warnings!”

  Burlingame smiled. “You’ve administered innocent Justice, I should say.”

  “Twit me not, in the name of Heaven!” He buried his face in his hands. “Would God I’d stayed in London!”

  “Did old Andrew grant you power of attorney? If not, you had no right to make the gift.”

  “He never should have,” Ebenezer answered, “but he did. I have signed away his estate, and my whole legacy, to that thieving cooper!”

  Burlingame sucked on his pipe. “ ’Twas a fool’s conveyance, but what’s done is done. How doth it feel, to be a pauper like myself?”

  Ebenezer could not reply at once. Tears came to his eyes, and he hung his head. “ ’Twas Anna’s dowry too, the half of it: I shall make over to her my share of the house in Plumtree Street, and beg her pardon. But whate’er will Father say?”

  “Stay, now,” said Burlingame, “don’t preach the funeral ere the patient is quite dead. What do we know of this William Smith? He made his exit when you fell a-swoon.”

  “He is a scoundrel, else he’d not have taken such advantage of my innocence.”

  “That only proves him human, as you shall learn. D’you think he is the William Smith we came for?”

  “How could he be, a simple cooper? I had his history from Susan Warren back at Mitchell’s.”

  But Burlingame frowned. “There is more to him than that, and her as well, but God knows what; one schemer hath an eye for others. ’Twould not at all surprise me to learn he is our man: a secret agent of Lord Baltimore’s.”

  “What boots it if he’s Governor of the Province?” Ebenezer asked gloomily. “Malden is his in any case.”

  “Haply so, haply so. Or haply when he learns our mission be will be more reasonable.”

  Ebenezer brightened at once. “I’God, Henry, do you believe it?”

  Burlingame shrugged. “No behavior is impossible in the world. Leave things to me, and I shall learn what I can. You’d best assume thou’rt penniless for the nonce, as well you may be, and say nothing of our hope. Drown your loss in liquor like the lot of men.”

  By this time the Laureate’s resuscitation had been observed by the other patrons of the inn, who so far from deriding him, invited him to drink at their expense.

  “Don’t they know yet of my loss?” he asked Burlingame.

  “Aye, they know. Some knew it from the first, and only later learned ’twas not intended.”

  “What a ninny they must think me!”

  Again Burlingame shrugged. “Less of a saint and more of a man. You’d as well oblige ’em, don’t you think?”

  Ebenezer started up from the bench, but sank back again in despair. “Nay, great God, how can I stand about and drink when I have thrown away my Malden? ’Tis the pistol I should turn to, not the ale-glass!”

  “There is a lesson in your loss,” his friend replied, “but ’tis not for me to teach it.” He got up from his chair. “Well, now thou’rt landless like myself, will you get drunk as I intend to?”

  Still the poet hesitated. “I fear liquor as I fear fevers, drugs, and dreams, that change a man’s perspective. A man should see the world as it is, for good or ill.”

  “That is a boon you’ve ne’er been vouchsafed yet, my friend. Why hope for’t tonight?”

  “Unkind!” protested Ebenezer. “ ’Tis only that I’ve ne’er been drunk before.”

  “Nor ever a placele
ss pauper,” Henry retorted. “But do as you list.” He turned his back on Ebenezer and went alone to the bar, where he was welcomed familiarly as Tim Mitchell by the other patrons. And Ebenezer, whose objections had been more cautionary than heartfelt, soon joined him—not alone because his loss was too staggering to look at squarely, but also because he did not feel altogether well. Whether owing to the flatulence of the roan, his alarm at Henry’s ill treatment of Father Smith, or—what seemed most likely to him—that same period of “seasoning,” endured by all new arrivals to the colonies, to which his mother had succumbed, his stomach had been uneasy since the morning, and his brow a trifle feverish since noon.

  “Hi, now!” a planter cried at his approach. “Here comes our Christlike Laureate at last!” There was no malice in his tone at all; his greeting was echoed by the others, who made room for him and went so far as to swear to the barman that they would leave in a body if their new comrade were not given free rum at once.

  Their cordiality moistened the poet’s eyes. “ ’Tis not a proper Laureate you see before you, friends,” he began, speaking with some difficulty. “Nay, rather it is the very prince of fools, and yet thou’rt civil to him as to a man of sense. I shan’t forget it.”

  Burlingame looked up with interest at the outset of this speech, but seemed disappointed by its close.

  “One folly doth not make a fool,” someone replied.

  “ ’Twas a princely stupid grant,” another declared, “and you’ve a princely misery in exchange for’t. Methinks thou’rt quits.”

  Ebenezer drank off his rum and was given another. “A fortune poorer and a groatsworth wiser?” He shook his head. “I see no bargain in’t.”

  “That is the way of’t, nonetheless,” said Burlingame, in the accents of Timothy Mitchell. “Unless a man matriculate betimes, Life’s college hath a dear tuition. Besides, thou’rt in a venerable position.”

  “Venerable!” protested the Laureate. “If you mean I’m not the world’s initial ass, then I agree, but I see naught in that to venerate!”

  “Drink up, and I’ll explain.” His tutor smiled and, when Ebenezer complied, he said, “What is your lot, if not the lot of man?”

  “Haply ’tis the rum beclouds me,” Ebenezer interrupted, “for I see nor sense nor rhyme in that remark.” He terminated his statement with a belch, to his new-found friends’ amusement, and called for another drink.

  “I mean ’tis Adam’s story thou’rt re-enacting.” Henry went on. “Ye set great store upon your innocence, and by reason of’t have lost your earthly paradise. Nay, I shall take the conceit e’en farther: not only hath your adventure left ye homeless, but like Adam ye’ve your first bellyful of knowledge and experience; ye’ll pluck easy fruit no more to line your gut with, but earn your bread with guilty sweat, as do the mass of men. Your father, if I know him, will not lose this chance to turn ye out o’ the Garden!”

  Ebenezer laughed as readily as the others at this analogy, if not so heartily, and mug in hand replied, “Such conceits as that are spirited horses, that if not rid with art will take their riders far afield.”

  “Ye do not like it?”

  “The fault is not in the—Hi, there!” In gesturing his dissent Ebenezer had splashed a deal of rum on his shirt. “What waste of brew, sirs! Prithee fill me up. There’s a Christian Dorsetman!” This time he drank off half a glass before he spoke. “What was I saying, now, good friends?” He frowned at his dripping garment. “From the way the water broke, I judge some mighty thought was in travail: another Errare humanum est, for aught you know, or Fiat justitia ruat caelum.”

  “It had to do with horses,” said one of the delighted patrons.

  “With horses!”

  “Aye,” another laughed, “ye were in argument with Tim Mitchell here.”

  “Pray God the jade is windless, then,” Ebenezer said. “I am sick to death from our last contest of wit!”

  Though none but Burlingame really understood this remark, it was received with hilarity by the planters, who now vied with one another to buy the Laureate drinks.

  “ ’Twas Master Tim’s conceit ye took to task,” one said.

  “Indeed? Then let him look to’t, for just as Many can pack the cards that cannot play, so many can turn a rhyme that are not poets. Good rhymes are mere embroidery on the muse’s drawers, but metaphor’s their very warp and woof—if I may say so.”

  “Ye never would have ere this night,” said Burlingame, who seemed not amused.

  “I have’t now!” Ebenezer cried; the company smiled and urged him to drink dry his glass before he spoke.

  “ ’Twas all that likening me to Adam I took issue with.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and leaned his elbow in a puddle on the bar. “Methinks friend Timothy hath forgot old Adam was a sinner, and that his Original Sin was knowledge and experience. Ere he took his sinful bite he was immortal as the beasts, that learn little from experience and know not death; once glutted with the fruit of Learning’s orchard, ’twas his punishment to groan with the heartburn of despair, and to grope his little way in the black foreshadow of his death.”

  Burlingame shrugged. “ ’Twas what I—”

  “Stay,” the Laureate commanded, “I am not done!” For all Burlingame had urged Ebenezer to drink, he was plainly annoyed by his protégé‘s alcoholic eloquence; he turned away to his own glass, and the patrons nudged each other with apprehensive mirth.

  “What you forgot in your o’erhasty trope,” Ebenezer declared: “was just the sort of apple Father Adam bit. What knowledge is it, Timmy, that is root and stem of all? What vile experience sows the seeds of death in men? I’faith, how did it slip your mind, that are so big with seed yourself and have broadcast in the furrows of two hemispheres? ’Twas carnal knowledge, Tim boy, experience of the flesh, that caused man’s fall! If I am Adam, I am Eveless, and Adam Eveless is immortal and unfallen. In fine, sir, my estate is lost, but I am not, and there’s an end on’t!”

  “Your tongue runs over,” Burlingame grumbled.

  “Behold him, citizens of Dorset!” the poet cried, and pointed more or less at Burlingame with one hand while he tipped back his rum-glass with the other. “Ecce signum! Finem respice! If knowledge be sin and death, as Scripture says, there stands a Faustus of the flesh—a very Lucifer!”

  “Nay, poet, ye go too far,” a planter cautioned. “This is no feckless Quaker thou’rt abusing.” Several others echoed his discomfort; some even moved discreetly from the bar to nearby tables, where they could watch without being mistaken for participants.

  Whether aware of the change in their attitude or not, Ebenezer went on undaunted. “This man you see here is more knowledgeable than a squad of Oxford dons, and more versed in carnal lore than Aretino! Beside him old Cartesius is a numbskull, Wallenstein a babe, and Rabelais but a mincing Puritan. Behold his cheeks, that wear the ashy hue of Chaos! Behold his brow, deep-furrowed by the history of the race!”

  “I prithee stay!” someone entreated him.

  “Behold his eyes, sirs, that have read of every unholy deed e’er dreamt of by the tortuous minds of man, and looked on these same deeds done in the flesh! Oh, in particular behold those eyes! Turn round here, Henry—Timothy, I mean!—turn round for us, Timmy, and chill us with those eyes! They are cold and old as a reptile’s, friends—in sooth, in sooth, they are the eyes of Eden’s serpent, that, nested in the Tree of Knowledge, enthralled the earth’s first woman with his winkless stare!”

  “Curb thy tongue,” warned Burlingame. “Thou’rt prating nonsense!”

  But Ebenezer was too far gone in rum and wrath to leave off his tirade. “Oh Lord, good sirs, behold those eyes! How many maids hath that stare rendered helpless, that soon were maids no more! What a deal of innocence have those two hands corrupted!”

  “This is Tim Mitchell ye speak to!” a frightened planter said. “How is’t ye dare abuse him so?”

  “How is’t I dare?” the poet repeated. His gaze never left Burlingame, whose
face betrayed increasing irritation. He set down his glass, and his eyes filled with tears. “Because he hath with his infamous guile bewitched one innocent flower, most precious to my heart of all, a paragon of gentle chastity, and sought by every foul means to possess her!”

  “Stop!” Burlingame commanded.

  “ ’Tis for this alone he feigns to be my friend and makes game of my innocence but takes no umbrage at my abuse: he still pursues his evil end. Yet I am proud to say his craft thus far hath borne no fruit: this flower’s virtue is of hardy stock, and hath not yet succumbed to his vile blandishment. Lookee, how the truth doth gall him! This embodiment of lust—how doth it fret him to see that flower go still unplucked!”

  Burlingame sighed and turned grimly to the company. “Since it is your pleasure to noise these privy matters in a public house, young man, and boast so of my talents to these gentlemen, I must insist ye tell the whole unvarnished truth about this flower.”

  “And what is that?” the Laureate asked, but with some apprehension in his sneer. “You will never know her one tenth as well as I.”

  “Of that I have no doubt, Master Laureate; yet to hear ye speak of her, these gentlemen must think your flower as thorny as the brier rose, or difficult of access as the lofty edelweiss. Yet ten years and more ago, whilst still a bud, she came to me for plucking and bade me be the first to taste her nectar. These eyes of mine, that ye make much of: how often she hath unfolded all her petals for their delight! And with these hands and this mouth, to say no farther, many and many a time I have brought her to the brink of madness—aye, and made her swoon for joy! A little growth or mole she hath—ye know her so well, I need not mention where—which if ye press it such-a-way—”