Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  In that harsh sexual smell, in the ice-edg’d morning, she is led past them, northern winds beneath her deerskin Shift, itching to risk raising her eyes, just once, to see who’ll be watching. (“Do you think she understands?” The Visitor asks in rapid French. The other shrugs. “She will understand what she needs to. If she seeks more . . .” The two exchange a look whose pitiless Weight she feels clearly enough.) Men strain at cables that pitch steeply into the sky, the enormous Rooftops anxiously a-scurry, as before some Invisible Approach. Chinese seem to flit ev’ry-where. Voices, usually kept low, are now and then rais’d. He has her arm. The other priest is behind them. She could not break free,— could she?— reaching with her arms, run to the roof’s edge and into the Air, up-borne by Friendly Presences, as by Brilliance of Will, away across the Roof-slates and Fortifications, wheeling, beyond the range of all Weapons, beyond the need for any Obedience, . . . the Sun coming through, the River shining below, the great Warriors’ River, keeping her course ever south-westward. Nor might any left behind on the ground see her again,— would they?— passing above in the Sky, the sleeves of her garment now catching light like wings . . . her mind no more than that of a Kite, the Wind blowing through . . .

  “Careful, her head.”

  She is upon her back, rain is falling lightly, a Chinese is squatting beside her, holding her forearm and talking to another Chinese, who is making notes in a small, ingeniously water-proof d Book. ’Tis he,— the same man she saw in the Jesuit’s Chamber.

  He smiles. Or, ’tis something in his face she sees, and fancies a Smile.

  “God protect us,” P. de la Tube is saying, “from all these damnable fainting Novices, Day after Day, it never ends.”

  The Guest’s ears seem to move. “And yet, how many of us, posted upon Missions more solitary, might find the Event intriguing, and your Situation here a Paradise of charming Catalepsies,— and wonder,” his Manner bordering upon the strain’d, “whatever you had to complain of.”

  “Ah of course this isn’t like the Field, is it, Father, where occasions of Sin are so seldom met with,— no, here are rather Opportunities without number,— none of which may, of course, be acted upon.”

  “Wouldn’t that depend,” baring his teeth in a smile, “upon whether she is to be a Bride of Christ, or stand in some other Connexion?”

  “As . . . ?” he hesitates, as if for permission.

  “His Widow. A novice in Las Viudas de Cristo.” Here the Spaniard kisses the Crucifix of his Rosary, and pretends to pray a moment for the success of the Sisterhood. “Have your Indians collected you enough of these White Roses, that you might spare one? Of course, if you have a particular interest in this one,— ”

  “No, who, I? not at all, in fact,—” fingering the Buttons down the front of his Costume like beads of a Rosary.

  “— I would settle for another,— ”

  “But we wouldn’t hear of it, Father,— Las Viudas must have her, no question. I shall do my best to speed the request up through Hierarchy.”

  “How very generous. I go to mention you in my next report.”

  The other inclines his head. She understands that she is being bargain’d for, having remain’d all the while upon her knees, disobediently gazing up at the men, waiting as long as possible to see which may be first to notice. . . .

  S. Blondelle is a Gypsy, a child of the Sun, whom men keep mistaking for the very Type of the British Doxy, blowsy and cheeky as any who’s ever delighted us in Story, or upon the Stage. For a while indeed she worked as a Covent Garden Sprite, finding herself in the company of ev’ry sort of man imaginable and not so, from quivering Neophyte to deprav’d old Coot,— it did not take her long to accumulate a great Spoil-Heap of Mistrust for the Breechèd Sex.

  Soldiers like Ramrods, and Sailors like Spars,

  Mechanicks and Nabobs, and Gents behind Bars,

  Girls, there’s no sort of Fellow I’ve ever pass’d by,—

  Not even those Coolies, out there in Shang-hai. . . .

  ’Tis . . .

  [Chorus]

  Men have the Sterling, and sixpences too,

  So be where there’s men, and ’tis meal-time for you,

  Mind the Equipment as long as you can,

  And don’t sell yourself cheap, to some cheese-paring Man.

  Ever since Adam stepp’d out of Eve’s Sight,

  And didn’t get back till the following Night,

  Men have been lying to Women they bed,

  Care-free as felons, yet easy to shed, singing,—

  [Chorus]

  She is accompanied by a couple of Sisters, in close, yet, for those days, advanc’d, Harmonies. Beneath what seems but a tap-room Jig lies the same sequence of chords to be found in many a popular Protestant hymn. (Tho’ I was not present in the usual sense, nevertheless, I am a clergyman,— be confident, ’twas an utterly original moment musicale, as they say in France.)

  “Then,” as Blondelle relates it, “just as I was about to give up Men, I discover’d Jesuits.” It was like finding Christ at last,— a Bolt of Desire, to find herself, at last, beyond Desire. “Yet not like renouncing anything,— no, I lov’d the Streets, love ’em ever,— the Excitement, the Tale-a-Minute Scurrying, even the Bullies, and despite the Pox,— Girls stricken overnight,— Beauty,— gone. . . . Sure, Life’s a gamble, just a day-and-night Pass Bank, isn’t it? Why not look your best whilst the Dice yet tumble, ’s how I see it, don’t you?” She attends to her Hair. “Well. Would you like me to fetch a Mirror, ’s what I mean.”

  “Oh . . .” For the first time since she was taken, her Voice stirs. She tries to smile but finds herself short of breath. “What must I look like . . . ,” whispering.

  “Not quite ready for the Ridotto, are you,” says Sister Grincheuse, with some Solemnity.

  “These are from Berry-Vines?” the quiet and dewy Sister Crosier examining the scratches upon her body, closely.

  She nods. “No marks from the Indians, if that’s what you mean. . . . They were uncommonly gentle with me,— although . . .”

  S. Grincheuse’s eyes sparkle like Jasper. “Must we guess, then?”

  “I star’d often at the many ways they had inscrib’d their own Skins, some of the Pictures being most beautiful, others arousing in me strange flashes of fear, mix’d with . . . it perplexes me to say . . . ow!”

  “Speak up.”

  “. . . with feelings of Desire. . . .” She sets her Chin provocatively and gazes at them.

  “Oh dear, just from a couple of Tattoos? Well, well, girls, whatever are we to do?”

  “ ’Twill be the Cilice for you, I’m afraid, my dear, and there’s the first Lesson already,— Never discuss Desire. Get that one sorted out, you’ll be a good Catholic in no time.”

  “But you bade me— ”

  “Shh. Here it is. Here is what disobedient Novices must wear.” The Las Viudas Cilice is a device suggested by Jesuit practice, worn secretly, impossible, once secur’d, to remove, producing what some call Discomfort,— enough to keep thoughts from straying far from God. “If God were younger, more presentable,” murmurs Crosier, “we’d be thinking about Him all the time, and we shouldn’t need this,—” her Gaze inclining to the Hothouse Rose, deep red, nearly black, whose supple, long Stem is expertly twisted into a Breech-clout, to pass between the Labia as well as ’round the Waist, with the Blossom, preferably one just about to open, resting behind, in that charming Cusp of moistness and heat, where odors of the Body and the Rose may mingle with a few drops of Blood from the tiny green Thorns, and Flashes of Pain whose true painfulness must be left for the Penitent to assess. . . . Of course, this is all for the purpose of keeping her Attention unwaveringly upon Christ. “Considering what Christ had to go through,” Jesuits are all too happy to point out, “it isn’t really much to complain about.”r />
  S. Grincheuse stands behind her, gripping her by the arms. “It could have been worse,” whispers little S. Crosier. “Not all Indians are so honorable.” She kneels at the Captive’s feet, holding the Device, her fingertips already prick’d and redden’d, and cannot keep from directing wide-eyed Glances upward.

  “All right, Dear,” nods S. Blondelle, “step right in, and mind those long Limbs.”

  She should be objecting, loudly if she must, but when has she ever done so before? and to offenses, it now seems to her, far more grave than this. Instead, her bare feet go creeping, one after the other, like docile birds, toward the waiting trap of the Cilice,— and then each, lifting, fluttering, passes into the Realm of Thorns.

  Later they give her soothing Gums to rub into the tiny Wounds. The odor rises as the rubbing goes on, a single churchlike odor of incense, ungrounded by candle-wax or human occupancy, meant for Heaven, a Fume rising in Transmutation. . . .

  She is shorn of all hair, from head to Crux. “You must begin,” they advise her, “absolutely naked. If you’re good, if you learn what you are taught, you may someday be allow’d a Wig, a child’s Wig of course, perhaps a Boy’s, you look enough like one now,— ”

  “Farm work, Madame,— Aahh!”

  “Don’t be insolent.”

  Having already seen other Sisters going about in elaborate Wigs that she imagines must be quite in the current Parisian Mode, she is soon wondering how she might look in one of these powder’d Confections. One night she sneaks into the Room where, ranked upon Shelf after Shelf, all the Wigs are kept, each upon its elegant Wig-stand made of a strangely shaded Ivory. Mischievously she idles away one Cat-hour and then another, prowling, peering, crouching, hardly daring to touch the White bevortic’d Objects, each more desir’d than the last. When she does at length reach forward, take one to her Breast, slip it onto her own shaven Pate, and only then think of finding a Mirror, and then some Light to see by, she is flank’d in the Instant by strong Presences, whose faces she slowly recognizes in the Dark as those of Blondelle and Crosier.

  “Took her time about it, I must say.”

  “Sooner or later, they all do it. Mistress Piety here’s as Vain as any Portsmouth Whore.”

  “Yet prettier than most,” whispers Crosier.

  She blushes as they remove the Wig, in the near-Dark, and she supposes, with a private Frown, she’ll never see it again. Her eyes follow it back to its Wig-Stand,— which, she notices for the first time, with a Chill, is directing at her a socketed Stare. She recognizes it belatedly as a human Skull. Resolv’d never again to be call’d a fainting Novice, she looks about. Yes. Ev’ry gay elaboration in the room rests upon a staring Skull. She lets out her breath in a great Sigh. And refrains from fainting.

  “The Model,” the Wolf of Jesus addressing a roomful of students, “is Imprisonment. Walls are to be the Future. Unlike those of the Antichrist Chinese, these will follow right Lines. The World grows restless,— Faith is no longer willingly bestow’d upon Authority, either religious or secular. What Pity. If we may not have Love, we will accept Consent,— if we may not obtain Consent, we will build Walls. As a Wall, projected upon the Earth’s Surface, becomes a right Line, so shall we find that we may shape, with arrangements of such Lines, all we may need, be it in a Crofter’s hut or a great Mother-City,— Rules of Precedence, Routes of Approach, Lines of Sight, Flows of Power,— ”

  “Hold! Hold!” objects an Auditor, “is this not to embrace the very Ortholatry of the Roman Empire?— that deprav’d worship of right Lines, intersecting at right Angles, which at last reduc’d to the brute simplicity of the Cross upon Calvary— ”

  “Padre, Padre! which Rome is it, again, that Jesuits are sworn to?”

  A grim smile. “What injury, that we are not in Spain.” He is no longer surpriz’d at Impiety or Disrespect, having found them only too prevalent upon this side of the Ocean. Yet there remains little choice,— too much of Europe is unsafe now for any Jesuit. America is perplexing,— tho’ all the world’s expell’d and homeless be welcome here, no true soldier of Christ could ever find easy refuge among these People, for whom heresies flow like blood in the blood-stream, keeping them at the Work of their Day as Blood might keep others warm,— yet “Heresy” loses its Force in these Provinces, this far West, with Sects nearly as numerous as Settlers.— To pursue thro’ the American Quotidian every act of impiety he might find, would be to fight upon more flanks than any could reckon,— where would time remain, for la Obra?

  “Perhaps there is no Disjunction,” he has nonetheless continu’d,— “and men, after all, want Rome, want Her, desire Her, as both Empire and Church. Perhaps they seek a way back,— to the single Realm, as it was before Protestants, and Protestant Dissent, and the mindless breeding of Sect upon Sect. A Portrayal, in the earthly Day-light, of the Soul’s Nostalgia for that undifferentiated Condition before Light and Dark,— Earth and Sky, Man and Woman,— a return to that Holy Silence which the Word broke, and the Multiplexity of matter has ever since kept hidden, before all but a few resolute Explorers.”

  “Hold, hold! Is it a Chinese motif we begin to hear?”— an entire Room-full of Students transferr’d here from the University of Hell,— “If Chinese Feng Shui be forbidden, how may we study such Metaphysicks as this, without risk of reprimand?”

  “The risk is not so much to your Backside as to your Soul. Can any tell me,— Why must we fight their abhorrent Magick?”

  A ripple of giggling.

  “Pues Entonces . . . I was a Student once, too. I remember passing around the same wither’d packets of Paper you have been reading in secret, now, unfolded and re-folded an hundred times,— ‘Secrets of the Chinese Wizards’? Aha. Even to the Name. Some of you are learning how to paint the Symbols, perhaps even beginning to experiment with combining them in certain ways?— I know, Fellows, I know ev’rything that passes here. . . . Another of the thousand or so wonderful things about the Sacrament of Penance, is its Utility in group situations like yours. Someone always confesses. Or in plain Spanish, Siempre Alguien derrama las Judías.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Something about scattering the Jewesses.”

  “Now ’tis Kabbalism, in a moment he’ll be rattling in ancient Hebrew, and perhaps we ought to have a Plan.”

  “For subduing him, you mean?”

  “Actually, I meant a Plan for getting out of the Room. . . .”

  “Why prevent the Chinese from practicing Feng Shui? Because it works,” the Wolf of Jesus is explaining.

  “How then,— if it works, should we not be studying it?”

  “It carries the mark of the Adversary.— It is too easy. Not earn’d. Too little of the Load is borne by the Practitioner, too much by some Force Invisible, and the unknown Price it must exact. What do you imagine those to be, that must ever remain so unreferr’d, and unreferrable, to Jesus Christ? And, as His Soldiers, how can we ever permit that?”

  ’Twas an earlier, simpler Time, Children, when many grew quite exercis’d indeed over questions of Doctrine. There is deep, throat-snarling Hatred, for example, as the Wolf of Jesus instructs them. “The Christless must understand that their lives are to be spent in Servitude,— if not to us, then to Christians even less Godly,— the Kings, the Enterprisers, the Adventurers Charter’d and Piratickal.”

  “What of those that we may Convert?”

  The Priest makes a dismissive gesture, his knuckles flashing pale in the Candle-light. “Conversion is no guarantee of a Christly Life. Jews are ‘converted.’ Savages, English wives, Chinese, what matter?— once converted, all then re-vert. Each one, at the end of the day, is found somewhere, often out in the open, among ancient Stones, repeating without true Faith the same vile rituals,— and where is He, where are His Forgiveness, His Miracles?”

  He is upon his knees, in apparent Consultation. The Studen
ts, after a while, begin to whisper together, and soon the place is chattier than a Coffee-House. The Spanish Visitor continues apart.

  54

  There came an evening during my novitiate when, after being fed but lightly, I was taken to a Chamber, and there laced into an expensive Corset, black as Midnight, imported, I was told, from Paris, from the very workshop of the Corsetier to the Queen. They painted my face into a wanton Sister of itself, showing me, in a Hand-Mirror,— ’twas a Woman I’d never seen before,— whom, upon the Instant, sinfully, I desir’d. I allow’d the Maquilleuses to hear my surpriz’d little Gasp as they brought out undergarments for me that might, Blondelle assur’d me, make a French whore think twice.

  “The Chinaman likes these,” they inform’d me, as firmly I was hook’d and knotted into this Uniform of most shamefully carnal intent, which fram’d, but did not veil, my intimate openings.