The Sot-Weed Factor

by John Barth

  While speaking she played distractedly with Ebenezer’s hand, stroking down each bony finger-top with her index nail; at the end she raised her excellent brown eyes, furrowed her brows in whimsical appeal and smiled a little crooked smile. Ebenezer’s cheeks burned; his nose and eyebrows jerked and twitched.

  “Dear lady—” It was time to make a move; he must embrace her at once, or throw himself upon his knees to protest his ardor—but though the feelings so at odds within his breast were strangely different from those he’d known in other passionate impasses, he was unable to bring himself to do what the moment called for. “I beg you, madam: take no offense—”

  Mrs. Russecks drew back. Bewilderment was followed at once in her expression by disbelief, which gave way in its turn to wrath.

  “Prithee, don’t misunderstand—”

  “ ’Tis not likely I shall, d’ye think?” she said furiously. “Or will you tell me thou’rt a Christian saint disguised, that hath such a nice regard for husband’s honor!”

  “He is a boor,” Ebenezer assured her. “What horns he wears, he hath more than earned by’s callous—”

  “Then the truth is plain,” she snapped. “Your friend stole the filly and left you to ride the foundered jade!”

  “Nay, madam, b’m’faith! I’ve no wish to change places with McEvoy, believe me!”

  “Hear the wretch! He finds the pair of us sour to’s taste, nor scruples to tell us so to our faces! And you call my husband callous?”

  Up to this point Ebenezer had spoken gently, even timidly, in his fear of wounding the lady’s pride. But among the curious new emotions that possessed him was a strange self-assurance, such as he’d never felt before in a woman’s presence. He scarcely bothered to wonder where he had acquired it, but on the strength of it caught her hand, held it fast against her efforts to wrench free, and pressed it against his chest. “Feel my heart!” he ordered. “Is that the pulse of a Christian saint? Can you believe I sit here coldly?”

  Mrs. Russecks made no reply; an uncertain, irritated disdain took the place of her initial anger.

  Ebenezer spoke on, still clasping her hand. “Thou’rt no child, Mrs. Russecks; surely you can see you have possessed me with desire! Nay, only twice in my life have I burned so, and both times—i’Christ, the memory scalds me with remorse!—both times I came within an ace of committing rape upon the woman I loved! And ’sblood, thou’rt handsome—by far the comeliest lady I’ve seen in Maryland! Thou’rt the masterwork whereof your Henrietta’s but a copy!”

  In the face of these protestations, the miller’s wife could maintain but a pouting remnant of her ire. “What is’t unmans you then?” She could not restrain a smile, or Ebenezer a blush, when even as she spoke she noticed that he was in a condition far from unmanly. “Or better, since I see for a fact thou’rt ardent, what holds you back? Is’t fear of my husband?”

  Ebenezer shook his head.

  “Then where’s the rub?” Her voice began to show fresh irritation. “Is’t that ye fear I’m poxed like many another strumpet? ’Tis a wondrous prudent ravisher, i’faith, that asks his victims for a bill o’ health!”

  “Stay, you slander yourself, madam! I swear to Heav’n this is the rarest opportunity of my life: who wins thy favors wins a splendid prize; the world must regard him with awe and envy! ’Twere a rare, a singular pleasure to accept so sweet a gift; ’tis a rare and singular pain to say you nay, and would be e’en if my rejection were no insult—” He paused and smiled. “Dear lady, you little dream the whole and special nature your appeal bears for me!”

  His manner was so cordial, his compliment so curious, that Mrs. Russecks’s face softened again. Once more she demanded an explanation, and even threatened in a vague way to denounce the poet to her husband as an impostor if he would not be candid with her, but her tone was more coaxing than annoyed.

  “You upbraid yourself for having been forward,” Ebenezer said, “and declare I contemn you for’t; yet the truth is, lady, thou’rt but the more my conqueror for seizing the initiative. I admire your grace, I savor your beauty, but beyond both—How can I phrase it? Methinks you’ve tact and wisdom enough to deal with my own blundering innocence, which else would make a fiasco of our adventure…”

  “Ah, now, Sir Benjamin, this is no ravisher I hear speaking!”

  “Nay, hear me out! I’ll not disclose my name, if you must have it so, but there’s a thing you must know. ’Tis a thing I’d hide from one less gentle, lest she wound me with’t; but you, lady—ah, belike ’tis folly, but I’ve an image of you surprised, charmed, e’en delighted at the fact—yet infinitely tender and, above all, appreciative. Aye, supremely appreciative, as I should be if—” Bemused by the picture in his mind, Ebenezer would have detailed it further, but the miller’s wife cut him short, declaring candidly that her curiosity was now a match for her ardor, and should he deny her satisfaction of the one as well as the other, he must watch her perish upon the spot and suffer the consequences.

  “Heav’n forfend.” The poet laughed, still marveling at the ease with which he could speak. “The simple truth of’t is, my dear Mrs. Russecks, for all my twenty-eight years of age, I am as innocent as a nursling, and have vowed to remain so.”

  His prediction regarding the effect of this announcement on the miller’s wife was in some measure borne out: she studied his face for evidence of insincerity, and apparently finding none, asked in a chastened voice, “Do you mean to tell me—and thou’rt no priest?”

  “Not of the Roman or any other church,” Ebenezer declared. He went on to explain to her how at the outset, being a shy ungainly fellow, he had come to regard his innocence as a virtue rather from necessity; how not a year past (though it seemed decades!) he had elevated it, along with a certain artistic bent of his, to a style of life, even identifying it with the essence of his being; and how through a year of the most frightful tribulation, and at a staggering expense not only of property but perhaps of human lives, he had managed to preserve it intact. It had been some while since he’d been obliged to consider seriously the matter of his innocence, and though to enlarge upon its virtues and shudder verbally at the prospect of its loss had become second nature for him, he was surprised to find himself dissociated emotionally from his panegyric; standing off, as it were, and listening critically. Indeed, when Mrs. Russecks asked with sharp interest for an explanation of this wondrous innocence, he was obliged to admit, both to her and to himself, that he could call himself innocent no longer except with regard to physical love.

  But the lady was not yet satisfied. “Do you mean you’ve no notion of what your friend and Henrietta have been about this last half hour?”

  Ebenezer blushed, not alone at the reference to the other couple, but also at the realization (which he readily confessed to Mrs. Russecks) that even in the physical sense his innocence had come to be limited to the mere technical fact of his virginity—which fact itself (though he would not elaborate further) was not so unqualified as he might wish.

  “The truth of’t is, then,” Mrs. Russecks persisted, “this precious Innocence you cling to hath been picked at and pecked at till you’ve scarce a tit-bit of’t left.”

  “I must own that is the case, more’s the pity.”

  “And doth that wretched tatter mean so much?”

  Ebenezer sighed. The critical listener in his soul had posed that very question not many moments earlier, during his speech, and had observed by way of answer a startling fact: his loss of the quality of innocence, it suddenly seemed, had been accompanied by a diminution of the value that he placed on it; although he still sang its praises from witless force of habit, he had been astonished to remark, in these moments of dispassionate appraisal, what slight emotion he truly felt now at the thought of losing it altogether. Thus his sigh, and the slight smile with which he replied, “In sooth I have grown indifferent to’t, lady. Nay, more: I am right weary of innocence.”

  “La, then speak no farther!” Her voice was husky, h
er eyes bright; she held out both her hands for him to take. “Hither with thee, and an end to innocence!”

  But though he took her hands to show her that his own were a-tremble with desire and appreciation, Ebenezer would not embrace her.

  “What I prized before hath all but lost its point,” he said gently, “and when I think that soon or late ’twill come, this end you speak of, as sure as death will come, and belike in circumstances by no means so pleasurable as these, why, then I wonder: What moral doth the story hold? Is’t that the universe is vain? The chaste and consecrated a hollow madness? Or is’t that what the world lacks we must ourselves supply? My brave assault on Maryland—this knight-errantry of Innocence and Art—sure, I see now ’twas an edifice raised not e’en on sand, but on the black and vasty zephyrs of the Pit. Wherefore a voice in me cries, ‘Down with’t, then!’ while another stands in awe before the enterprise; sees in the vanity of’t all nobleness allowed to fallen men. ’Tis no mere castle in the air, this second voice says, but a temple of the mind, Athene’s shrine, where the Intellect seeks refuge from Furies more terrific than e’er beset Orestes—”

  “Enough!” Mrs. Russecks protested, but not incordially. “Since ’tis plain you’ll have none of me, I withdraw my invitation. But don’t expect me to fathom this talk of Pits and Castles: speak your piece in Church Creek English, else I’ll never know in what wise I’m insulted!”

  Ebenezer shook his head. “Here’s nobility in sooth, that is rendered gracious by rejection! And here’s a paradox, for this same grace that lends me courage to make clear my resolve, at the same time deals it a nigh-to-mortal blow!”

  “Go to; ’tis a plain account I crave, not flattery.”

  Thus assured, Ebenezer declared that although to present her then and there with the final vestige of his innocence would be a privilege as well as a joy, he was resolved to deny himself a pleasure which, however sublime, would be devoid of a right significance.

  “When erst I entered the lists of Life,” he said, “Virginity was a silken standard that I waved, all bright and newly stitched. ’Tis weatherblast and run now, and so rent by the shocks of combat e’en its bearer might mistake it for a boot rag. Notwithstanding which, ’tis a banner still, and hath earned this final dignity of standards: since I must lose it, I’ll not abandon it by the way, but surrender it with honor in the field.”

  The poet himself was not displeased by this conceit, which he judged to be acceptably free from insult as well as lucid and sincere. Whether the miller’s wife shared his good opinion, however, he never did learn, for even as he prepared to question her she sprang up white-faced from the couch, having heard an instant before be did the sound of running footfalls up the path.

  “Pray God to spare you for the day of that surrender,” she said, in a voice quite shaken with fright. “Here is my husband at the door!”

  14

  Oblivion Is Attained Twice by the Miller’s Wife, Once by the Miller Himself, and Not at All by the Poet, Who Likens Life to a Shameless Playwright

  MRS. RUSSECKS’S FRIGHT, so out of keeping with her character, provoked such terror in Ebenezer that at sight of the miller rushing in with sword held high, he came near to suffering again the misfortune he had suffered at the King o’ the Seas in Plymouth.

  “Mercy, my dear!” Mrs. Russecks cried, umning to her husband. “Whatever is the matter?”

  “Go to, don’t I’ll have thy whoring head along with his!”

  He endeavored to push her aside in order to get at the cowering poet, but she clung to him like a vine upon an oak, so that he could only hobble across the parlor.

  “Stay, Harry, thou’rt mistaken!” she pleaded. “What’re thy suspicions, God smite me dead if there hath been aught ’twixt this man and me!”

  “ ’Tis I shall smite!” the miller cried. “Commissioner or no, there’s guilt writ plain athwart his ugly face!”

  “As Heav’n is my witness, sir!” Ebenezer pleaded, “Madame Russecks and I were merely conversing!” But however true the letter of his protest, his face indeed belied it. He leaped for safety as the miller swung.

  “Hold still, dammee!”

  The miller paused to fetch his wife so considerable a swat with the back of his free hand that she gave a cry and fell to the floor. “Now we’ll see thy liquorous innards!”

  Ebenezer strove to keep the parlor table between himself and dismemberment.

  “Let him go!” Mrs. Russecks shrieked. “ ’Tis the other one you must find, ere he swive Henrietta!”

  These words undoubtedly saved the poet’s life, for Harry Russecks had flung over the table with one hand and driven him into a corner. But the mention of Henrietta, whom he had apparently forgotten, drove the miller nearly mad with rage; he turned on his wife, and for an instant Ebenezer was certain she would suffer the fate he had temporarily been spared.

  “He fetched her into the woods,” Mrs. Russecks said quickly, “and vowed he’d murther her if Sir Benjamin or myself so much as blinked eye at him!”

  Like a wounded boar at scent of his injurer, the miller gave a sort of squealing grunt and charged outdoors.

  “Make haste to the mill!” Mrs. Russecks cried to Ebenezer. “Bid Henrietta slip into the woods where Harry and I can find her, and you and your friend hide yourselves in Mary’s wagon!”

  The poet jumped to follow her instructions, but upon stepping outside, just a few seconds behind the miller, they saw the plan foiled before their eyes. Mary Mungummory, leading the lost Aphrodite, had run puffing and panting into the dooryard just as the miller charged out again; at the same moment, though Ebenezer could not see them from the front steps of the house, either McEvoy or Henrietta or both must have peered out from the mill to see what the commotion was about, for although Russecks was headed in the general direction of the woods, Mary, knowing nothing of the ruse, dropped Aphrodite’s halter and ran as best she could toward the mill, calling “Go back! Here comes Sir Harry!” The miller wheeled about and lumbered after. A scream came from the mill and was answered by another from Mrs. Russecks, who ran a few steps as though to intercept her husband and then, stumbling or swooning, fell to the ground.

  Ebenezer found himself running also, but with no idea at all what to do. He was still somewhat closer to the mill door than was Russecks and could doubtless have headed him off, but with no weapons of his own such a course would have been suicidal as well as ineffective. Yet neither could he simply stand by or look to his own escape while McEvoy, and perhaps the girl too, were done to death. Therefore he simply trotted without object into the yard, and when Russecks charged past without a glance, he turned and followed a safe ten yards behind.

  Mary, meanwhile, had disappeared, but as soon as Russecks entered the mill (whence issued at once fresh screams from Henrietta) she trundled from around the corner, most distraught.

  “God’s blood, Mister Cooke, I did all a body could, but the farther we went, the more jealous he grew, till he swore he’d go no farther for the King himself! Nay, don’t go in, sir; ’tis your life! Ah, Christ, yonder lies Roxie, done to death!”

  She hurried off to the fallen Mrs. Russecks, whom she supposed to have been run through and Ebenezer, ignoring her advice, proceeded quickly into the mill. Already Russecks had started up the ladder that led to the catwalk and grain hopper; McEvoy was scrambling from the upper rungs of the second ladder, which led from the hopper to the loft; and near the edge of the loft itself stood pretty Henrietta, incriminated by the petticoats in which she stood and screamed.

  “Ha! Ye’ll run no farther!” the miller shouted from the platform, and Ebenezer realized that the lovers were trapped.

  “Throw down the ladder!” he cried to McEvoy. The Irishman heard him and leaped to follow his counsel just as Russecks began to climb. But although the ladder was neither nailed nor tied in place, its stringers had been wedged between two protruding floor-joists of the loft, too tightly for McEvoy to free them by hand from his position. The miller climbed
with difficulty to the second rung, the third, and the fourth, holding the cutlass in his hand and watching his quarry’s struggle.

  Now on the platform himself, Ebenezer watched with fainting heart. “Throw something down, John! Knock him off!”

  McEvoy looked wildly about the loft for a missile and came up with nothing more formidable than a piece of cypress studding, perhaps three feet long and three inches on a side. For a moment he stood poised to hurl it; Russecks halted his climb and waited to dodge the blow, growling and jeering. Then, thinking better of it, McEvoy fitted one end of the stud behind the topmost rung of the ladder, and using the edge of the loft for a fulcrum, pulled back upon the other with all his weight. There was a loud crack; Ebenezer caught his breath: but apparently neither rung nor lever had broken, for McEvoy placed a foot against each stringer-top for mechanical advantage and heaved back again. Another crack: Ebenezer saw the ladder move out an inch or so, and the miller, uncertain whether to rush for the top or climb down before he fell, gripped the sides more tightly and cursed. The new angle of the lever afforded McEvoy less of a purchase and tended to lift as well as push the ladder, but Henrietta sprang to his assistance, and on the third try their effort succeeded in freeing the ladder from the joists. Its slight inclination kept it from falling backwards at once, and in the moment required for McEvoy to pull it over sideways, the miller jumped safely to the platform.

  McEvoy laughed. “Love conquers all, Your Majesty! Murther us now, sir!”