Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  “Oh, it’s Emerson and that lot. Ragged children. Swarms, quotha. You may as well have been delay’d by a flock of Ducks. Really, Trent, these excuses grow more and more enfeebl’d, and tiresome pari passu. . . . What are you up to, honestly, when I leave you alone with this lovely Machine? Hmm? Trent? Come, come, you can tell Her Ladyship all.” With an athletic readiness that surprizes the young Lurker, she vaults up into the quilted black velvet interior, and Trent swings shut the Door and climbs smirking to his seat. Through the Window she leans then to stare back out, unmistakably and directly at Dixon, and calls, “Perhaps another time, Jeremiah.” They are gone,— horses, perfect Shine, curves and all, leaving Dixon’s nape and shoulders mantl’d in unearthly cold.

  That is how he remembers first hearing of Emerson, though the Legend by then was well under way in Durham. Though he keeps chuckling it away, Dixon also suspects he sought out Emerson from his Desire to be one of those ragged Kids, and that “another Time” happen some Evening when he and Lady Barnard were both aloft. Down here she held too much advantage. Altitude might help his odds. He didn’t know whether he was planning seduction, or combat,— these, at fourteen, being the only categories of Pleasure he recogniz’d. That it might have been something else altogether would never occur to him until years later, at Castle Lepton, in the wilderness of America, well entangl’d in gambling debts, Romantick Intriguing, and political jiggery-pokery, all punctuated by a Liver Episode he may have worried himself into, unless ’twas all that Drinking he was doing. “Ah Mason,” he cried, tho’ Mason, who in fact was not doing too much better, lay snoring in a Corner,— “she has it all,— Beauty, Money, . . . um . . . whatever else there is. . . .”

  Whilst yet in the steep Mountains, they take to Sledding in the Year’s early snow-Falls, upon folded pieces of Tent-Canvas. One day, just as they start down a long slope neither can remember from earlier, coming the other way and climbing, an Autumnal Squall comes snapping up like a Blanket being shaken into a Spread of chill Cloud, and Snow begins abruptly, it seems, to fall. Both Surveyors feel their Velocity increasing ominously.

  “Ehp, Dixon? Still over there? Can you see where we’re going?”

  “Snow’s coming down too thick!” Dixon calls from someplace, because of the change of acousticks between them, unmeasurable.

  Both shrill with the Predicament, blind, together, separate, they plunge down the imperfectly remember’d Steep. They pass the Commissary-Waggon, and one, then two more Supply-Waggons, each brak’d in its Snowy Descent by a late-fell’d Tree dragged behind, the Drivers looking ’round wildly, the Horses beginning to grow anxious, till Mason and Dixon are swept once again behind the stinging Curtain of Snow-Crystals. They hear voices ahead, then are suddenly zooming out of Invisibility, in among the Axmen, who, believing them pitiless crazy predators in this place lonely as any in Ulster or the Rhineland, scatter for their Lives back into the Trees. The Day is medium-lit, the Snow more Fall than Storm. The look of all things, thro’ the white Descent, is amplified,— the Brass of Instruments back beneath Canvas, the drop pings of the Horses, the glow of a clay pipe-ful of Tobacco. . . . Each is aware of how easily a Tree unfell’d, even a Stump left high enough to protrude from the Snow, rearing too quickly to swerve ’round, might mark their personal Termini.

  “Dixon! Can you hear me?”

  “I’m just here, tha’ don’t have to shout . . . ?”

  “Look ye, I am going entirely too fast, and as the First Derivative ’round here shows no sign of lessening, what I thought I’d do is self-brake,— that is, lean over gradually like this, until I fall o-o-o-ve-r-r-r! . . . ,” his voice abruptly fading behind, leaving Dixon alone to face whatever continues to rush upon him a Snowflake’s breadth ahead of his Nose.

  “Eeh, thah’s a bonny Pickle tha’ve put me in, for fair. . . .” His Reflections are interrupted by the seemingly miraculous Advent, directly in his Path, of a Pile of Cushions, usually located ’neath the Waggon-Canopy, where they intervene ’twixt the Instruments and the excursions of the secular Road-way, but here rather set in the Snow-fall to air out, lest the tell-tale Aura of Tobacco-Smoak testify to a slothful and indeed unacceptable proximity of Instrument-Bearers to Instruments. “Fate is Fate . . . ?” he supposes aloud, opening his arms to embrace this by no means discomfort-free heap of Upholstery.

  “Stogies, I believe . . . ?” when all has subsided to a Halt.

  “Sir,” replies the Waggoner, Frederick Schess, “my personal Opinion of Tobacco,— ”

  “Freddie, consider the Crossing of Paths here,— why, it has likely sav’d my Life . . . ? Miraculous, for fair . . . ? How can I report thee? yet at the same time, how can I commend thee for it?”

  “Cash is acceptable,—” calls Tom Hickman.

  “Jug of Corn now and then’d be pleasant,” adds Matty Marine.

  They discharge the Hands and leave off for the Winter. At Christmastide, the Tavern down the Road from Harlands’ opens its doors, and soon ev’ryone has come inside. Candles beam ev’rywhere. The Surveyors, knowing this year they’ll soon again be heading off in different Directions into America, stand nodding at each other across a Punch-bowl as big as a Bathing-Tub. The Punch is a secret Receipt of the Landlord, including but not limited to peach brandy, locally distill’d Whiskey, and milk. A raft of long Icicles broken from the Eaves floats upon the pale contents of the great rustick Monteith. Everyone’s been exchanging gifts. Somewhere in the coming and going one of the Children is learning to play a metal whistle. Best gowns rustle along the board walls. Adults hold Babies aloft, exclaiming, “The little Sausage!” and pretending to eat them. There are popp’d Corn, green Tomato Mince Pies, pickl’d Oysters, Chestnut Soup, and Kidney Pudding. Mason gives Dixon a Hat, with a metallick Aqua Feather, which Dixon is wearing. Dixon gives Mason a Claret Jug of silver, crafted in Philadelphia. There are Conestoga Cigars for Mr. Harland and a Length of contraband Osnabrigs for Mrs. H. The Children get Sweets from a Philadelphia English-shop, both adults being drawn into prolong’d Negotiations with their Juniors, as to who shall have which of. Mrs. Harland comes over to embrace both Surveyors at once. “Thanks for simmering down this Year. I know it ain’t easy.”

  “What a year, Lass,” sighs Dixon.

  “Poh. Like eating a Bun,” declares Mason.

  53

  The Ascent to Christ is a struggle thro’ one heresy after another, River-wise up-country into a proliferation of Sects and Sects branching from Sects, unto Deism, faithless pretending to be holy, and beyond,— ever away from the Sea, from the Harbor, from all that was serene and certain, into an Interior unmapp’d, a Realm of Doubt. The Nights. The Storms and Beasts. The Falls, the Rapids, . . . the America of the Soul.

  Doubt is of the essence of Christ. Of the twelve Apostles, most true to him was ever Thomas,— indeed, in the Acta Thomæ they are said to be Twins. The final pure Christ is pure uncertainty. He is become the central subjunctive fact of a Faith, that risks ev’rything upon one bodily Resurrection. . . . Wouldn’t something less doubtable have done? a prophetic dream, a communication with a dead person? Some few tatters of evidence to wrap our poor naked spirits against the coldness of a World where Mortality and its Agents may bully their way, wherever they wish to go. . . .

  — The Reverend Wicks Cherrycoke, Undeliver’d Sermons

  She had found in her Kitchen, the Kitchen Garden, the beehives and the Well, a join’d and finish’d Life, the exact Life, perhaps, that Our Lord intended she live . . . a Life that was like a Flirtation with the Day in all its humorless Dignity . . . she was at her window, in afternoon peaceable autumn, ev’ryone else in town at the Vendue, Seth too, and the Boys, when They came for her,— as it seem’d, only for her. The unimagin’d dark Men. The Nakedness of the dark and wild men.

  Water in a Kettle somewhere was crackling into its first Roll. She risk’d looking at their Faces. The only other place to look was
down at the secret Flesh, glistening, partly hidden, partly glimps’d behind the creas’d and odorous Deer-skin clouts. . . . yet for them to come for her, this far East of Susquehanna, this far inside the perimeter of peaceable life, was for the Day to collapse into the past, into darker times,— ’twas to be return’d to, and oblig’d to live through again, something she thought she, thought all her Community, had transcended. Her Lapse had been to ignore the surprizing Frailness of secular Life. By imagining it to be Christian, she had meant to color it with the Immortality of her Soul, of her Soul in Christ, allowing herself to forget that turns of Fortune in the given World might depend upon Events too far out of her Power, . . . what twig-fall, Prey’s escape, unintended insult, might have grown, have multiplied, until there was nowhere else for them to’ve come, no one else to’ve come for, even still as she was, and spiritless, before that violent effect of causes unknown. . . .

  The further they took her through the Forest, away from her home and name, the safer she began to feel. Sure they would have kill’d her back there, on the spot, if that’s why they came? They were moving in a body, yet more slowly than they might have travel’d without her. Not at all angry, or cruel. Like a Dream just before the animals wake up, the German farms pass’d flowing by, the Towns, Equinox, New Cana, Burger’s Forge, until, one morning, loud as the Sea, stirr’d to Apple-Cider turbulence from the Rains,— Susquehanna. How had they avoided the Eyes of all the Townsfolk and Farmers between, the gentry out riding, the servants in the fields, how had her Party found Darkness and Safety amid the busy white Densities? And now they’d come to it, how did they mean to cross the River?

  There were boats waiting,— at the time she didn’t find that as curious as their origins, for they were not Indian Canoes but French-built Battoes, fram’d in Timbers, she was later to learn, that grow only in the far Illinois,— And they cross’d then, as simply as the thought of a distant Child or Husband might cross the Zenith of a long Day. She knew the instant they had pass’d the exact Center-line of the River. As she stepp’d to the Western Shore, she felt she had made herself naked at last, for all of them, but secretly for herself. . . .

  Over the Blue Mountain, over Juniata, up into Six Nations Country, into the roll of great Earth-Waves ever northward, the billowing of the Forests, in short-Cycle Repetition overset upon the longer Swell of the Mountains,— a Population unnumber’d of Chestnuts, Maples, Locusts, Sweet Gums, Sycamores, Birches, in full green Abandon,— the songbirds went about their lives, the deer fell to silent Arrows, the sound of Sunday hymns came from a distant clearing, then pass’d, the days went unscrolling, the only thing she was call’d on to do was go where they went. They did not bind, or abuse, or, unless they must, speak to her. They were her Express,— she was their Message.

  Northing, almost as she watches, trees, one after another, sometimes entire long Hill-sides of them, go flaring into slow, chill Combustion,— Sunsets the colors of that Hearth she may never again see, too often find her out, unprotected. Early Snowflakes are appearing. Enormous Flights of Ducks and Geese and Pigeons darken the Sky. The terrible mass’d beat of their Wings is the Roar of some great Engine above. . . . ’Tis withal a Snowy Owl Year,— the Lemmings having suicided in the North, the Owls are oblig’d to come further South in search of Food,— and suddenly white Visitors from afar are ev’rywhere, arriving in a state of Mistrustful Fatigue, going about with that perpetual frown that distinguishes ’em from the more amiably be-Phiz’d white Gyrfalcons. At the peaks of Barns, the Tops of girdl’d gray Trees, Gleaners of Voles soaring above the harvested Acres, with none of your ghostly hoo, hoo neither, but low embitter’d Croaking, utter’d in Syllables often at the Verge of Human Speech.

  The Winds are turning meantimes ever colder, the leaves beginning to curl in and darken and fall. One day, having brought her to the Shore of some vast body of water that vanishes at the Horizon, they tell her she must get into a Bark Canoe,— and for the first time she is afraid, imagining them all rowing out together into this Yellow Splendor, these painted Indigo and Salmon Cloud-Formations, toward some miraculous Land at the other side of what, even with a mild chop, would soon have batter’d the frail craft to pieces. Instead, keeping the Shore ever in view, they continue North, till they enter a great River, fill’d with a Traffick of Canoes and Battoes and Barges, with settlements upon the Banks, smoak ascending ev’rywhere, white faces upon the Shore, and a Town, and another. . . . For many weeks now, she has neglected to Pray. She has eaten animals she didn’t know existed, small, poor things too trusting to avoid the Snares set for them. Her Captors have told her when and where she may perform ev’ry single action of her life. It is Schooling, tho’ she will not discover this till later.

  When they arrive at last in Quebec, the Winter is well upon them. Tho’ not as grand as its counterpart in Rome, yet in Quebec, the Jesuit College is Palace enough. Travelers have describ’d it as ascending three stories, with a Garret above, enclosing a broad central courtyard,— tho’ were she ask’d to confirm even this, she could swear to nothing. (Perhaps there are more Levels. Perhaps there is a courtyard-within-a-courtyard, or beneath it. Perhaps a Crypto-Porticus, or several, leading to other buildings in parts of the City quite remov’d.) Her arrival here passes too quickly for her to take much of it in, so deep in the Night, in the snow, with the black nidor of the Torches for her first Incense, their Light sending shadows lunging from corners and crevices and window-reveals, the distant choiring like tuned shouts, the open looks of the men. . . .

  At dawn, separate, she is taken into the Refectory, where at each of the hundred places upon the bare tables is set an identical glaz’d earthen bowl of Raspberries, perfectly ripe, tho’ outside be all the Dead of Winter, and upon each Table a Jug of cream fresh from the Shed. An old Indian serving-man, who moves as if wounded long ago, showing not a trace of curiosity, brings in a kettle of porridge,— she is not to have Raspberries (she thanks the Lord, for who knows what unholy Power might account for this unseasonable presence, in its unnatural Redness?).

  The Courtyard produces a constant echoing Whisper that can be heard ev’rywhere in the great Residence, ev’ry skin seems immediate to ev’ry other,— into the morning, Scribes carry ink-pots and quills and quill-sharpeners, in and out of Cells of many sizes, whose austerities are ever compromis’d by concessions to the Rococo,— boys in pointed hoods go mutely up and down with buckets of water and kindling,— cooks already have begun to quarrel over details of the noon meal,— in his rooftop Bureau, an Astronomer finishes his Night’s reductions, writes down his last entries, and seeks his Mat,— Vigil-keepers meanwhile arise, and limp down to the ingenious College Coffee Machine, whose self-igniting Roaster has, hours earlier, come on by means of a French Clockwork Device which, the beans having been roasted for the desir’d time, then controls their Transfer to a certain Engine, where they are mill’d to a coarse Powder, discharg’d into an infusing chamber, combin’d with water heated exactly,— Ecce Coffea!

  She is taken, barefoot, still in Indian Dress, into a room fill’d with books. Père de la Tube, a Jesuit in a violet cassock, speaks to her with a thick French accent, and will not look at her face. Nearby, in smoothly kept Silence, sits a colleague whose relentless Smile and brightness of eye only the Mad may know. “Our Guest,” the Frenchman tells her, “is a world-known philosopher of Spain, having ever taken interest, in heretick Women who turn to Holy Mother the Church. His observations upon your own case will of course be most welcome.”

  So silently that she jumps, another man now, slighter and younger, in black silk Jacket and Trousers, has appear’d in the room. When she makes out his face, she cannot reclaim her stare. As a small current of deference flows between the two Jesuits, the Spanish Visitor takes from the messenger a tightly folded sheet of paper, seal’d with Wax and Chops in two of the colors of Blood. The messenger withdraws. She watches for as long as she can.

  “You have never before seen a C
hinese, child?”

  She has assisted at more than one Birth, has endur’d a hard-drinking and quarrelsome troop of Men-Folk,— who is this unfamily’d man in a Frock to call her child? She replies, “No, Sir,” in her smallest voice.

  “You must call me ‘Father.’ There’ll be more than one Chinese here. You must learn to keep your eyes down.”

  The College in Quebec is head-quarters for all operations in North America. Kite-wires and Balloon-cables rise into clouds, recede into aerial distances, as, somewhere invisible, the Jesuit Telegraphy goes ahead, unabated. Seal’d Carriages rumble in and out of the Portes-Cochères, Horsemen come and go at all hours. Whenever the Northern Aurora may appear in the Sky, rooftops in an instant are a-swarm with figures in black,— certain of the Crew seeming to glide like Swifts ever in motion, others remaining still as statuary, the Celestial Flickering striking High-lights ’pon the pale damp faces. Rumors suggest that the Priests are using the Boreal Phenomenon to send Messages over the top of the World, to receiving-stations in the opposite Hemisphere.

  “Twenty-six letters, nine digits, blank space for zero,” a Sergeant’s voice instructing a platoon of Novices, “— that suggest anything to any of you Hammer-heads?”

  “An Array seven-by-five of, of— ”

  “Think, Nit-Wits, think.”

  “Lights!”

  “Behold, ye Milling of Sheep.—” He swings a Lever. Above, against a gray Deck of snow-clouds, a gigantic Lattice-work of bright and very yellow Lights appears, five across by seven down. Briskly stepping along ranks and files of smaller Handles of Ebony, he spells out the Sequence I-D-I-O-T-S in the Sky above their gaping faces.

  “Visible for hundreds of miles. Ev’ryone beneath, who can spell, now knows ev’rything there is to know about you.— But it’s not all Spectacle, all Romance of Elecktricity, no, there’s insanely boring Drudgery a-plenty too, mes enfants, for you’re all to be sailors upon dry land,” explaining that, as the whole Apparatus must stand absolutely still in the Sky, before Weathers unpredictable, it requires an extensive Rigging, even more mysteriously complex than that of a Naval Ship . . . lines must ever be shifted, individual Winches adjust constantly the tension in stays and backstays and preventers, as the changing conditions aloft are signal’d by an electrickal telegraph to those below. A Coördinator in a single-breasted Soutane, or Cassock, of black Bruges Velvet and lin’d with Wolverine Fur, stands upon a small podium, before the set of Ebony Handles and Indicators trimm’d in Brass, whilst Chinese attend to the Rigging, and specially train’d Indian Converts tend a Peat-fire so as to raise precisely the Temperature of a great green Prism of Brazilian Tourmaline, a-snarl as Medusa with plaited Copper Cabling running from it in all directions, bearing the Pyro-Elecktrical Fluid by which ev’iything here is animated. More intense than the peat-smoke, the smell of Ozone prevails here, the Musk of an unfamiliar Beast, unsettling even to those who breathe it ev’ry day.