The Discovery Of Slowness

by Sten Nadolny

  She looked at him amiably but very directly. John wondered if she liked to look him in the eye or if her fixed look accounted only for her desire to watch over the coherence of her arguments. If only she had spoken a little more loudly. ‘… and why are the borders closed? Because the landed gentry make money on scarcity, and the landed gentry alone make up Parliament.’

  ‘Mrs Reed, since Trafalgar I’m a bit hard of hearing. The cannon.’

  ‘Then I’ll come closer,’ said she, without raising her voice. ‘Now to the poor: they set the barns on fire and so even increase the scarcity. Blindness here, greed there, that’s the horizon. Did you want to say something?’

  ‘No, just go on.’ It occurred to John that he would much rather read about all this somewhere; this was too fast for him. But Flora Reed pleased him. How long had the preacher been dead? he wondered.

  ‘ … salt tax, bread tax, newspaper tax, window tax. But all this money still flows again indirectly into––’

  ‘Just a moment, Mrs Reed. I––’

  ‘Yes indeed, Mr Franklin! For naked want prevails everywhere. Look around you. Poachers, thieves, smugglers everywhere, and why? Because they have no other––’

  ‘I believe I’d much rather see that somewhere––’

  ‘When the landowners’ conscience pricks them. Only then, and not a minute sooner!’

  ‘Yes, I think that, too,’ John nodded. ‘But I was too long at sea. Many things I don’t know very well …’

  While he spoke, Mrs Reed had shoved a piece of cake into her mouth, and she watched John with friendly eyes until she could continue. Smiling, she said, ‘No picture apparatus, Mr Franklin, no history. One newspaper which prints the truth, a league against poverty and for the suffrage of the poor – we must accomplish something like that.’

  John found this decisiveness most agreeable. When Flora seized his hand, he couldn’t doubt her words. There was something leonine about her, and she looked graceful in her silence. But even then she fixed him so firmly with her bright eyes that he had to return her gaze firmly.

  ‘Do you know what I like about you, Mr Franklin? With most people everything moves fast until they understand, but when they get to the point it’s already over. You’re different. Join us in our fight; it’s your human duty.’

  The truth, he thought. That’s what decided him. In a newspaper dedicated to the truth it didn’t matter whether the editor was a little slow. Of course, he wouldn’t earn anything with that either … ‘Good,’ he said.

  During the war he had suffered because in an acute emergency he could not help with any presence of mind. How often did he get there too late. He had exposed himself to a hail of bullets in order to prove that he might be slow but was no coward. Now he discovered through Flora Reed that, fast or slow, one could do one’s human duty only by acting in support of the right side. It suited him well. He saw Flora more and more often. He borrowed Owen’s tract and learned that poverty caused all other suffering, war included, and that no man could be good if hunger left him no choice. Everybody wants to own something, but when few own so much and many nothing at all, hate must be the result. Hence, there had to be equality and education for equality. That was a general law, for that’s what Flora, Robert Owen and all of them who had thought about this were saying. In Flora’s mind the world’s misery hung together like a net, and one could rely on its coherence. Nothing existed simply for itself. Each single instance was grounded in the whole and came into existence only because of the whole. Therein lay the reason for its persistent survival.

  There was a rule to explain any change or disappearance. Now John had something with which to ennoble his waiting-time. For wasn’t it true that each person was given life so that he would do something for his kind? And if this was true, logic required that one start with the most urgent and life-saving tasks. Everything else one could leave to those whose insights had not yet matured. If he had to wait, he wanted to do something to save mankind; that seemed to him as it should be. For too long he had looked fixedly past the misfortunes of others so as to protect himself. No. Since he had to wait in any case, he wanted at least to become truly good.

  John began to think again about the construction of the picture rotor after all. If misery could be grasped as soon as it was evident to the eye, an apparatus which could show something like this without any words would be useful.

  Just as John tried to imagine the advantages of universal suffrage, it occurred to him that the rotation could be replaced by a stack of uniform picture plates. As quick as lightning, the plates would fall one by one into a metal frame, each visible for only a fraction of a second. Everything depended on a mechanism for moving the stacks at a uniform speed. John made a drawing. The apparatus had a capstan bar and a pawl-ring strongly resembling the windlass of the Bellerophon.

  John wrote down what he had worked out, copied Dr Orme’s explanations and drawings, and sent everything to Dr Brown in London. He didn’t want the invention to remain unknown.

  * * *

  One and a half years passed, and he still had not read Dr Orme’s paper about Pupil F. Some sure instinct held him back. And it had been Dr Orme himself who had recommended that he listen to his inner voice.

  He knew almost all the travel books and, in addition, the writings of Spence, Ogilvie, Hall and Thompson. He had learned in the Fighting Cocks Inn how to observe the coherence of one’s arguments. With Beesley the apothecary he had wandered all over the herbaceous battlefield of Winceby. He now had his own opinion about titled families. ‘The gentry is noble. That’s fine. The gentry, however, is also often stupid, and that’s disappointing.’

  At home he planted and harvested, even replaced the roof of the house, walked with his father, and renewed acquaintances.

  With Flora Reed he had spent first one night and then several. He had again recalled the tender language he had known since that evening in Portsmouth, now realising that one could speak it with any woman, even if one didn’t love her. The preacher had been remiss in this; the language of the Bible had seemed to him sufficient. Perhaps he had even died of it: duty toward one’s fellow man is not enough to give pleasure to others, not to speak of oneself.

  One and a half years. He helped with Flora’s meetings of farm labourers, ladled out soup, checked drafts of leaflets, and set and printed them at night. He watched as renewed acquaintances turned hostile, he listened to angry speeches, and he suppressed his own anger. He tried to live on his half-pay, even raised chickens. He learned first to understand and then to fear the rage of the poor, both the communal and the lonely rage. A house was set on fire, the home of the rich farmer Hardy. On flat rocks nearby one could read in red letters: BREAD OR BLOOD! and DOWN WITH THE THRESHING MACHINE! Those were the times!

  Doubts, nothing but doubts. There was no such thing at sea.

  He loved Flora Reed only half-heartedly; he knew that. It was enough to live with her. The idea of her was durable; it gave him peace of mind. But now she began to change. Could the idea bear that? How much was duty toward mankind worth if it became a straitjacket? Or was it he, John, who had changed? Everything here on land was only half a loaf, himself included.

  John resurfaced from the network of rules governing duty toward mankind. They formed an element in which he could move only by holding his breath. To catch some air he had to get out, even if he was able to hold his breath for a long time.

  He began to annoy Flora. He said things like ‘Man must be able to rise above time.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the sun and the present?’ she mocked. Now she wore that thin smile which John didn’t like even on himself. John and Flora had looked for an escape-hatch in love and found that it was no way out.

  John became more and more heretical. ‘Has it been proved, then, that misery can always be grasped directly?’ Or ‘Why is there only one misery? I maintain that there are many kinds, and they have nothing to do with one another.’ Sometimes he made Flora so sad that she didn�
�t much want to answer. Then he was sad, too.

  The compulsion to be constantly occupied with what is important to mankind necessarily affected more and more thoughts and actions. John sensed that one day, simply out of duty toward equality, he would have to discover that he was interchangeable with others. But from his time in the navy he knew full well what it was like when one’s unique self became insignificant. There remained only the escape into quickness. Someone was ‘better’ if he could do the same thing faster. And that choice was not open to him.

  He had wanted to talk about this with Flora for a long time. But she didn’t know the navy.

  Something had to happen.

  He left the house early one morning. He took the road to Enderby, then turned east, reached Hundleby and Spilsby, and then headed towards the sea, this time without crawling through hedgerows. In Ashby, a pale boy was painting a fence. An old man greeted him in Scremby; he let his pipe go out in astonishment: only poor and fat people would walk that far across the land.

  From the direction of Gunby Hall he heard gunshots from a hunting-party. The landed gentry went on fox hunts, shot pheasants, and thought up ever more severe laws against poaching. John perceived the rural scene very differently now, and disapproved of a great deal. For example, just for stealing a small piece of meat, twelve-year-olds were sent to Van Diemen’s Land, where no one knew them. He spent the night in Ingoldmells and then a whole day sitting on the dyke watching the ocean’s work on the sand as though he were seeing it for the first time. And he imagined he heard through the roar of the surf a babble of voices as on ships at sea. He heard commands, singing, jokes, curses. Booms creaked and rigging-blocks twittered. ‘Let go’ was the word. ‘Make fast’ was the word, ‘the topsail halyards. Haul away. Hoist the topsail.’

  He needed the movements of the sea, and sailing was more important to him than breathing.

  So he dreamed and thought. He also saw new images: river bends, boats, wild animals, dangerous moments. Now icebergs appeared, ice floes crunching under the keel, then a wide, glistening passage opening up. The ice belt vanished and the polar summer arrived and with it a world in which there was no pressure of time. That was his home – not Lincolnshire, not England. The entire rest of the world could only be a vestibule leading to this home – an entry to pass through.

  He walked back to Ingoldmells and took the mail-coach to Bolingbroke. Through the window he saw hedgerows and country roads jerking past and thought: their movements are deceptions. They are really caught here, while only I and the distant mountains are actually travelling.

  Then he remembered Lieutenant Pasley, who now had his own ship. And Walker, who commanded a warship with twenty-four guns. He was not envious of the guns but he was of the sea.

  He had to become a captain. To find the Pole. He’d worry again about the land after that.

  English history was for Beesley, the world’s misery was for Flora, and the invention of gadgets was for Dr Orme and his successors but for John. And what Dr Orme had written about Pupil F he wanted to read only after he had reached 82 degrees north latitude.

  His decision was firm: he wanted to try the whalers. He sat across from Flora, irresolutely caressing her knees, and began a well-rehearsed declaration about one’s duty to mankind: ‘If I want to light my neighbour’s stove, what good does it do if I know where the stove is located and march up to it vigorously? The taper has to burn properly, that’s what matters. What good does it do if my actions are correct but they come too soon?’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ remarked Flora. ‘You’re not good at examples. I’m not that neighbour.’ She looked at him as steadily as she had done the first time, but her eyes were dark.

  John felt he was as obtuse at that moment as his predecessor, the preacher. Perhaps it was Flora’s doing? ‘It could be that this whole thing about the polar sea is nonsense and I’ll come back soon …’ John realised he was lying.

  She was silent. That silence! She had become a tyrant.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll see me again soon. I’ll come back and will be an editor.’ His lying became more and more oppressive.

  ‘And will the taper burn then?’

  ‘Possibly. But no. That’s nonsense. I don’t know any of this.’

  Flora blew her nose. ‘You’re no editor. God bless you.’ She kissed him.

  Then he went. Heavens, he was glad to be rid of her. In his pleasure he did not even feel pity.

  When he went home to say goodbye to Father and Sister, a strange carriage was standing in front of the door. From it emerged a gentleman named Roget – Peter Mark Roget. He brought greetings from Dr Brown in London.

  ‘By the way, I read that paper about the picture rotor. It’s a pity the author is dead. I’m very much interested in optic phenomena. You must see my kaleidoscope some time. I hope we’ll have a chance to talk soon.’

  ‘No,’ answered John. ‘I’ve made my decision. The world is full of important ideas, but I’ll follow my own mind.’

  Mr Roget’s features suddenly took on a searching look. ‘You’ll stay in England?’

  ‘No, I’ll go back to sea. I’ll even reach the North Pole one of these days, but I couldn’t succeed in that if I stayed in England.’

  ‘Then I can assume in any event that we’ll soon have a conversation.’ Roget began to enjoy himself visibly. ‘The president of the Royal Society has sent me to you – Sir Joseph Banks, who’s presently at his country seat in Revesby. Would you perhaps wish to accompany me to see him?’

  John was silent, perplexed, and began to suspect something.

  ‘He knows you. He read what you wrote about Flinders’s compass. And Sir John Barrow, the first secretary of the Admiralty …’

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ John asked hoarsely.

  Mr Roget hesitated. ‘Actually, Sir Joseph wanted to tell you himself. You … will take command of a ship in Deptford and go to the North Pole.’

  12

  Voyage into the Ice

  The expedition. Everyone in Deptford knew what that meant. It consisted of the copper-sheathed brigs Dorothea and Trent, which were being loaded with everything needed at the North Pole.

  ‘Above all, leather jackets and fur coats,’ the furriers hoped.

  ‘Action books,’ said a bookseller. ‘It’s very dull there.’

  ‘Audacious men,’ surmised the ladies of London society, and let themselves be driven there by coach to sightsee.

  Everybody insisted on knowing the precise orders received by the expedition. One person wanted to hear about it directly from the Admiralty, another from Captain Buchan, commander of the enterprise. Some cited Lieutenant Franklin, captain of the Trent. Others doubted it: ‘Franklin? He never says anything.’

  ‘A slow captain. That sort of thing won’t wash,’ Midshipman George Back announced. ‘How will it be when we’re on the high seas?’

  Andrew Reid looked at his friend with admiration and contradicted him only to continue the conversation. ‘But the chickens disappeared from on board fast enough, George.’

  ‘That’ll prove to have been a mistake. Hens are fresh meat. But that’s not the least of it. Whenever he speaks there’s first of all a pause. How can anyone like that give orders?’

  They were newly out of nautical school and knew exactly what had to be done. Back already had a nickname for Franklin: ‘Cap’n Handicap’.

  The first night on board John had a fever and shivered. In his half-sleep he heard countless voices conveying incomprehensible messages, demanding decisions, and criticising something he had supposedly ordered. He tossed back and forth, ground his teeth in his dreams, and sweated through his blanket. In the morning his neck muscles were aching and he padded out of his cabin with a crick in his neck.

  Fear it was, nothing but fear, yet hard to conquer. Closemouthed, he went through the entire ship, returned salutes, accepted reports, and tried to transform himself from a member of the Horncastle Reading Society into a captain. He recognised
this from before: fear of not being able to understand everything, of no longer being able to do things very well yet of not being able to defend himself if he was simply passed over. Fear that no one could adjust to his pace and that in trying to adjust to the pace of others he would fail miserably.

  The Trent gauged only 250 tons, but at the moment she seemed to him more gigantic and incomprehensible than his very first ship, that merchantman on the voyage to Lisbon eighteen years ago. This kind of fear was familiar. So far it had been dispelled by his habit of wanting to see everything through to the end, with or without luck. But now another fear was added: if he were to fall deathly ill now, or go down, or be replaced, he would have waited and struggled in vain for years.

  The strength, calm and confidence he had found on the Bedford after the battle of New Orleans seemed to have gone into hiding – in any case, this state could not be recalled on command. He also lacked mystique: a scar whose history nobody knew didn’t help any more.

  A good antidote to fear was – learning. To begin with, John learned the instructions of the Admiralty.

  The North Pole was not the primary destination of their voyage but merely one of several way stations, of interest to the Crown only insofar as it might be located in an open sea through which one could sail to the Pacific. A whaler had reported that the ice-fields in the extreme north tended to break up. Secretary Barrow had hoped for this information. He announced immediately that he and a man named Franklin had always believed in an open polar sea. The expedition, at first mildly ridiculed, now seemed extremely important to everyone.