by Sten Nadolny
Stanley reminded John of his father in the early days when he had caught up with him in Skegness and shut him up in a small room. Meanwhile, he had come to see himself as the father of that father, and the Earl could have been his son, a stupid, pitiless son. It was one of those encounters in which both sides believed that each person could preserve his dignity only at the expense of the other.
Addressing the minister’s glassy eyes, John now spoke the words he had prepared for this occasion: ‘It is not my place to criticise the procedure you have elected to follow. I would only like to remark that it has no parallel to date in the annals of the Colonial Office.’ He rose, bowed, and asked for permission to take his leave. He thought, I know you, but you don’t know me. Perhaps I can make it happen that the Queen and the Prime Minister will ask you exactly the same question.
Following this conference, John wandered about London for hours. He felt no inclination to accept his defeat, and armed himself with a number of well-aimed arguments. Now and then he stumbled over a kerbstone or collided with someone just leaving a shop. For the sake of some well-chosen phrases, he collected scratches and bruises, but only in order to pass them on to Lord Stanley in some other form.
By and by he became calmer. His anger now seemed petty. It was difficult in any case to focus on oneself when there was so much to read and to see. The streets were bedecked with a clamour of letters: here they exulted in praise of low-priced coachmen for hire, there they formed a parade of signs offering pure gin or venerable tobacco; letters billowed on cotton sheets swaying on wooden poles where proponents of general suffrage were demonstrating. John found it difficult to see and to read at the same time, especially since new, complicated words were flashed everywhere. One of them was ‘daguerreotype’. John stepped closer and saw smaller writing: ‘Allow yourself to be drawn by the stylus of nature.’ A little farther on, at the lens-grinder’s, another sign: ‘Spectacles, the gift for the advanced years.’ The advertisement seemed to be having success: thick glasses, once the symbol of a lack of perspective, now embellished many faces, even younger ones.
John watched two splendid funeral processions and noted that nowadays not only frock-coats but also coffins had been shaped to show waistlines. It looked as though violoncellos were being taken to their graves.
He spent an hour in a bookshop. There were two novels by Benjamin Disraeli, whom Franklin had known when he was a small boy, and Alfred Tennyson, one of John’s relatives in Lincolnshire, wrote passable poems which now sold as far away as in London.
He walked through the harbour, enveloped by the coal fumes of the steamboats. The view was still clear enough for one of the dockworkers to exclaim, ‘Look, there’s Franklin. The man who ate his boots.’
John plodded on as far as Bethnal Green and smelled the mouldy odours from the cellar dwellings. Patiently he listened to a thin thirteen-year-old girl who wanted to invite him into one of the flats. Two of her brothers had just been transported because they had stolen a half-cooked cow’s foot from one of the shops and had eaten it. She would be happy to undress for the gentleman, very slowly, and sing a song, all for a penny. John felt touched and sick at heart, gave her a shilling, and fled in confusion.
There was hardly any glass in the windows here, and doors were unnecessary because there was nothing for thieves to find. The police seemed to have been reinforced: watchful men in uniform were lurking everywhere, sensibly unarmed.
At King’s Cross station John heard the locomotive hissing and read a newspaper standing up. Three million inhabitants now. They’re using two hundred cartloads of wheat and are butchering thousands of steers daily, and that was still not enough.
The beggars, by the way, spoke too quickly – they didn’t want to bother people for too long. If they spoke more slowly, thought John, it would be not a bother but the beginning of a conversation. But perhaps that’s just what they wanted to avoid.
During the following weeks, John visited his friends – those who were still alive.
Dr Richardson said, ‘Now we’re sixty, dear Franklin. We’ll have to be taken out of service like old ships of the line. Fame changes nothing in that.’
John replied, ‘I’m fifty-eight and a half.’
Dr Brown received him among books and plant specimens in the British Museum. While they were talking, he providently kept his thumb in a folio. When John told him what Stanley had done to him, Brown moved it by mistake and was annoyed about both, the presumptuous lord and the lost place. He said, ‘I’ll talk to Ashley. He’s a man with a heart. He’ll tell Peel, and then we’ll see. That’s laughable!’
At young Disraeli’s, John ran into the painter William Westall. His eyebrows were now tangled grey shrubbery almost obstructing his vision. He spoke in chopped phrases, often only in single words, and he was visibly pleased to see Franklin again. They were almost immediately back on the question of whether the good and the beautiful had to be created or had existed since the beginning of the world. As a discoverer, John believed in the latter. The best phrases were coined by Disraeli. John did not succeed in recalling even one.
A few days later he visited Barrow, who looked healthy and was of lively speech but understood only the answers ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ He did not like to accept ‘No.’ ‘Of course you’ll lead the expedition, Franklin. Erebus and Terror are ready, the money is available, the North-West Passage must at last be found. It would be a disgrace otherwise. What important business will keep you from it?’ John explained. ‘That’s Stanley,’ scolded Barrow. ‘He does everything with his left hand and still wants to be perfect. I’ll talk with Wellington, who’ll say a word to Peel, and Peel will take Stanley in hand.’
Charles Babbage, too, was complaining but, as usual, on his own behalf. ‘The calculator? I wasn’t allowed to finish building it. Too expensive. But there’s always money for the North-West Passage. Every child knows it’s useless––’ He stopped, looked John uncertainly in the eye, and continued in a softer voice, ‘I won’t begrudge you this, of course.’
‘I’m not going,’ said John. ‘James Ross will go.’
Peter Mark Roget had founded a Society for the Promulgation of Useful Knowledge, presided over its sessions, and conducted linguistic research on the side. He still hadn’t quite lost sight of the picture rotor: ‘Except for the production of pictures, all problems have been solved. A man named Voigtlander on the Continent has tried it with daguerreotypes, but that’s not worth anything. For every individual picture, the performers have to freeze and be exposed in each phase of their movement. And one needs at least eighteen pictures for a single second. The process is too complicated and too slow.’
Roget had visited the Franklins mostly because he was curious about how Jane looked now. He was without doubt the most beautiful and elegant old gentleman in London.
Finally John met Captain Beaufort, hydrographer to the Admiralty. Beaufort explained his scale of wind velocities, which had been adopted by all the rule books of the navy. It took him a long time to explain, because with every wind velocity they remembered stories. As he departed, Beaufort said, ‘I’ll tell Baring about the Stanley matter and he’ll talk about it to Peel. That would be a joke! By the way, do you really not want to go to the Arctic any more?’
John answered, ‘James Ross is going.’
Yes, he had friends who did things for him. And for all that, he could hardly remember having done anything for them. That was friendship.
In January 1845, John Franklin received a letter from the Prime Minister. Would he drop in for a little chat? At 10, Downing Street?
Jane said wryly, ‘Well, in any case, I don’t think he wants to invest in Tasmania.’
‘In my entire career,’ said Sir Robert Peel, ‘I’ve met no one with such active friends. I know your story in five versions – all of them more complimentary to you than to Lord Stanley.’ He laughed and rocked on the balls of his feet. ‘But I already know a few things about you, and perhaps something that’s more im
portant. Dr Arnold at Rugby is an acquaintance of mine.’ John bowed his head and thought it best to remain silent in agreement. He still didn’t know what Sir Robert would ask him once he finished rocking.
‘To say it at once, I don’t wish to comment on the way Lord Stanley conducts his business,’ said Peel. ‘I wouldn’t even be able to do that, because his ways of doing things have been so different from mine. From childhood on.’
John lowered his glance to keep from staring the other in the eye for too long, but only down to the bright bow that held together Sir Robert’s stiff collar, which was so tight that its corners constantly poked the Prime Minister’s cheeks. The sight heightened the self-tortured, correct impression he gave, as did the long trousers, much too tight. They were a garment that might make a beautiful figure more beautiful, but they made Peel’s short legs appear even shorter. John began to like him somehow. ‘It has been suggested to me that I propose you to the Queen for an elevation’ – he raised himself on the balls of his feet – ‘to baronet. But that would be an affront to Stanley and is out of the question for other reasons as well. I see a better possibility. Let’s sit down.’
We are not dissimilar, thought John. Order is not self-evident to him. There is chaos in his head and he has to undergo terrible strain. A bourgeois. He must struggle painfully to achieve his own rhythm. All my life I’ve looked for a brother – perhaps he is at least a cousin.
‘I’ve read your brief about the founding of the school,’ said Peel. ‘Dr Arnold gave it to me at Oxford. Slow look, fixed look, panoramic look – excellent! The idea of tolerance based on differences among individual rates or phases of speed is very illuminating. We’re in agreement about the school. Learning and seeing are more important than education. I’m constantly involved with educators conscious of missions these days: with Anglicans, Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians. One thing is common to them all: seeing plays no part in it; developing a character pleasing to God is all they care about.’
John felt warmed by so many fulsome words. Still, he remained watchful. Being praised as a theoretician is not all a practitioner wishes for.
‘There must be more of our navigators’ spirit in the school,’ said Peel, ‘and less of our preachers’.’ He pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and placed it on his right knee to read the time. Long-sighted, then; John had already heard about it. ‘To make it short, my dear Franklin, I want to create a new institute headed by a Royal Commissioner for Education. With such a post I can meet many pedagogical demands and also keep them under control. Among other things, the new position will also involve responsibility for the protection of children and observance of children’s work-time regulations. The appointee to this institute will keep an eye on unification plans and present a comprehensive annual report on all matters relating to schools and the position of youth. For that I need someone who is not precipitate, who has no personal stake, who represents no religious or other reformist interests, and who shows himself to be undaunted by screams of protest. He must be someone with a reputation for integrity, and one whose nomination cannot be perceived as a provocation by any of the religious groups. All that applies to you, my dear Franklin.’
John felt himself blushing and made an effort not to give in completely to his pleasure. Like himself, this Peel seemed to have discovered slowness out of an inner necessity and was clearly ready to acknowledge it. John felt as though he were stepping through a wall out into the open. The utopian visions of his life were present to him again: the battle against unnecessary acceleration; the gradual, gentle discovery of world and men. A speaking pillar seemed to rise from the midst of the sea; before him he saw machines and equipment designed to serve not the exploitation but the protection of individual time, territories reserved for care, tenderness and quiet reflection. Schools also seemed possible in which learning was no longer suppressed and the suppression taught. There was no more powerful empire than the British Empire, no more powerful man than its Prime Minister and no more respected man than Sir Robert Peel. If he were a brother …
‘Take your time with your answer,’ said Peel and once more placed his watch on his knee. ‘And let us still keep this between ourselves. If Ashley got wind of the matter …’
John became watchful again. Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury? He was the man who fought for the abolition of child labour. John gathered up his courage and asked, ‘I’m not supposed to be too enterprising, I presume?’
‘We understand each other perfectly,’ the Prime Minister answered. ‘The point is to stay in place with great dignity. Sudden changes in this area would call up many dangers – but whom am I telling this to?’
‘You need someone who is responsible for everything, but who doesn’t do much,’ John mused, and rose. Should he close his eyes and accept this questionable offer? It would certainly pay well. He stepped to the window. In spite of Peel’s noticeable impatience, John thought it through thoroughly. Then he turned. ‘You have offered me the right thing, Sir Robert, but for the wrong reasons and the wrong purpose. Indeed, we’ll tell no one about this.’ With that he bowed and left.
For the first time in his life John did not need to brood over something for any length of time. He went directly to the Admiralty and told an astonished Barrow that he was available for a command immediately after all.
As if a password had been spoken, all doors opened at once. Within two days John took over the Erebus and Terror – a helpful James Ross had notified them speedily that for reasons of health he had to give up the command of the expedition. Nobody doubted that John Franklin was most suitable, and indeed was called, to find the North-West Passage. The same was true of the vessels. Erebus and Terror were solidly built former bomb-ketches, a little clumsy but strong and roomy. The rigging was that of three-masted barques. The admirals met every wish in providing equipment, even some Sir John didn’t think of. When Jane asked him about his talk with Peel he answered only, ‘Nothing special. He has discovered slowness.’
On the afternoon of 9 May, in a concert hall in Queen Square, Sir John and Lady Franklin were listening to three piano sonatas by one Ludwig van Beethoven, played by a vigorous old man named Moscheles. John didn’t like the very high notes; and he would have liked to dwell longer on the lower notes. But he enjoyed the repetition of easily recognisable figures. He had not expected much. His deafness was becoming troublesome. He knew as good as nothing about music and believed he could not follow the fast passages. For this reason, he thought about the supply of fresh meat for the expedition: quality and disposition, salt content, the selection of live food animals – he wanted to leave nothing to chance. Two or three winters – one couldn’t get through those with luck any more, only with thorough preparation.
During the last sonata – it was numbered Opus 111 – something strange happened. His thoughts soared high above beef carcasses and supply barrels; his eyes left the old man and his grand piano without changing direction. The music was at once sad and playful, bright and clear. The second movement was like a walk along the shore with waves, footprints, and fine-ribbed sand. At the same time it was like looking out of the window of a coach, with the observer always free to see distant objects passing by and nearby objects shimmering with illumination. John felt he was actually meeting the fine skeleton of all thought, the elements, and the ephemeral nature of all structures, the duration and slippage of all ideas. He was imbued with insight and optimism. A few moments after the final note sounded he suddenly knew, There is no victory and no defeat. These are arbitrary notions that float about in concepts of time invented by man.
He went up to Moscheles and said, ‘The second movement was like the sea. I know my way around there.’
Moscheles beamed at him. How the old man could beam! ‘Indeed, sir, the sea, molto semplice e cantabile, like a fond farewell.’
When they were driving home, John said to Jane, ‘There’s still so much. When this passage is behind me, I’ll learn a little music.’
When on the morning of 19 May the two vessels moved away from the pier, Sophia turned and wept. John saw it from the quarterdeck. Jane seemed to want to cheer her up with a joke. John knew that Jane’s cheerful lack of understanding would be a better consolation than the profound pity of others. Ella didn’t allow herself to be diverted. She kept on waving and hopped about laughing, as her mother had once done. They all figured the voyage would last no longer than a year. Even Crozier had said, ‘If everything goes smoothly, we’ll get through this summer.’
Two hours later, the pier of Greenhithe had disappeared beyond the great river bend. The Erebus was towed down the Thames by a small paddle-steamer called Rattler, the Terror by the still smaller Blazer. For decades, the wisdom of all navigation had been for John that a ship had to reach her destination by herself if nothing is put in her way. He never said ‘Let’s go there,’ but always ‘Let the ship go there.’ He still had to make his peace with being towed, especially since the high bow of the Erebus couldn’t keep the heavy smoke away. John coughed and growled, but deep down he was as happy as he had been as a child in Skegness. He grabbed Fitzjames, commander of the Erebus, and shook him. ‘We’re afloat,’ he said. ‘Our flight’s successful.’ Fitzjames laughed politely. ‘Forgive me,’ John said quietly. He remembered that Fitzjames was violently in love with Sophia. ‘One, two years are a long time,’ answered the lieutenant. ‘I think so, too,’ murmured John. He rather counted on three years. Amused, he thought of all the believers in progress who moved their fingers along a line on the map north of Canada through the profusion of islands and assumed that the ships would follow them, only more slowly. Sailing a thousand miles, then waiting eight months in ice, then sailing a few hundred miles, then waiting again – every concept of slowness would soon take leave of these people. After three months of waiting they would no longer believe in movement and would lose their minds.