The Whale

by Mark Beauregard

  Herman felt chagrined that he had dashed the review off so hastily, and he wondered now what he could possibly have been thinking when he wrote that sentence. He wondered if, rather than flattering Hawthorne, he might instead have found myriad ways of offending him. “I think I can clear up this misunderstanding rather easily,” he said. “You see, the reviewer had simply never been acquainted with Mr. Hawthorne before; and, while he was writing this review, he asked a few acquaintances for their ideas of his early work. He was speaking of the impression one might have of Hawthorne if one had read only the surface meanings of his earlier stories.”

  Sophia considered this for a moment. “How can you speak with such authority about the intentions of this anonymous gentleman, Herman?”

  “In fact, I’m on the most intimate terms with him.” Herman had imagined confessing his secret to Nathaniel, but somehow Sophia’s critique and the crack it opened in his confidence made him want to tell her first, to test the waters.

  “You must tell me who it is, Herman, at once.”

  Herman made a low, sweeping bow and then stood back up with an embarrassed grin. “At your service.”

  “You? But . . . a Virginian? Vermont? I’m afraid I don’t understand it.”

  “I think Mr. Duyckinck felt uncomfortable with some of my views regarding your husband and Shakespeare, and perhaps publishing the review anonymously allowed him to feel more at liberty to print them.”

  Sophia thought about this for a moment. “I’m afraid that makes no sense at all, but nevermind—what an extraordinary review, Herman! Was it all true, I mean, are these your true opinions of Nathaniel’s work?”

  “Very much, though I see now that I failed to do him justice regarding the particulars and may have antagonized him with many thoughtless turns of phrase. But I don’t believe America has produced a finer or nobler intellect. If I may speak confidentially, however, I have not read the novel that has recently won him so much praise and fame, so I feel that I still may not have plumbed his deepest depths.”

  “Well, you must read it immediately. Wait here and I’ll fetch you a copy!” Sophia ran upstairs, and in only a few moments she had raced back into the parlor with a copy of The Scarlet Letter. “I believe you will find this even better than anything that has come before, and I cannot wait to have your opinions about it. I am always so dazzled by the jewels of beauty in Nathaniel’s productions that I look forward to a second reading almost as much as the first; but most of all I enjoy pondering and musing on his work with a friend. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you—I have just espied Nathaniel and the children from the upstairs window, tramping up from the lake. They’re practically upon us.”

  She turned and rushed out the front door, and Herman saw her through the window running down the hill toward the lake. Just at the edge of a fantastically tall screen of Buffalo grass, Sophia met Hawthorne and their two children: the steepness of the hill in that spot made Hawthorne seem to materialize out of the earth itself. Sophia gestured excitedly as she talked, and Hawthorne put his hand over his eyes to shade his view toward the cottage; and now, as Herman felt Hawthorne’s gaze on the window where he stood, like a pressure against the quivering glass, the invisible winged creatures that had frolicked around Herman’s head that morning reappeared and fluttered the air out of his lungs. He sipped little breaths, set The Scarlet Letter on the table, and walked out to greet the family, feeling as if, at any moment, he might take flight.

  “So you are the Virginian,” Hawthorne said by way of greeting, betraying no surprise whatsoever at this news. Despite the heat of the day, his high alabaster brow appeared cool and dry. He shook Herman’s hand, holding his gaze, and Herman fell irresistibly into the depths of that vast inward sea of Hawthorne’s dark eyes, where leviathans of thought and emotion swam like gods in the secret fissures at the center of the world. Sophia brought her hands together in front of her heart, as if in prayer, and Julian walked boldly up to Herman and threw his arms around his right leg. Una, their daughter, stood off at a distance, viciously swiping at the grass with a switch.

  “I can shout and squeal,” said Julian.

  “Please don’t, though, young master,” Hawthorne replied.

  “We are electing to be idle,” Julian shouted, and then he squealed and ran into the house.

  Sophia said, “That sounds like a phrase you taught him, dear.”

  “Yes. But, in fact, he is never idle.”

  Hawthorne let go of Herman’s hand and took Sophia’s. Herman shook inwardly with waves of joy and jealousy as Nathaniel and Sophia swung their conjoined hands and sauntered toward the cottage. He was dragged in their wake by the force of Hawthorne’s spiritual weight, and Una came silently behind him. When they had all crossed the threshold, the children ran upstairs together, and Sophia paused a moment before following them up, to point out the package of books and to remind her husband that they owed Herman a dollar and a half.

  “Let’s see if Duyckinck found all the books I wanted,” Hawthorne said with an easy smile.

  Herman saw, in the older man’s angelic face and blithe manner, a battlefield where anguish had once contended with beauty and—neither proving victorious—each had lain down its arms and declared peace together. He felt Hawthorne’s hard-won serenity spreading into his own soul, and his abiding social discomfort evaporated like fog in the morning sun. For the first time in his life he felt perfectly at ease just standing and doing nothing; and he thought he could stay that way forever, as long as Hawthorne continued to smile at him.

  Hawthorne took out a pocketknife. “Are the knots a joke on you or by you?”

  “Duyckinck is the jester, in this case.”

  He cut a perfectly constructed butterfly knot away from the rest of the twine and placed it behind his ear for a garland; then he ripped away a section of the wrapping paper and began withdrawing volumes from the packet one by one, handing them to Herman as he read the titles aloud. “Mardi, excellent. Typee. Redburn, yes. Omoo. White-Jacket, tremendous.” Herman found himself standing in the middle of Hawthorne’s parlor holding a copy of every book he had ever written. “And finally a copy of Pendennis. I hope you don’t mind being lumped together with Thackeray.”

  “You ordered every one of my books!”

  Hawthorne looked commandingly at him. “I had to know what it was all about,” he said.

  “What what was all about?”

  “The picnic. What kind of person had such insight about me that he could make me feel known just by talking to me!”

  “But these books,” Herman said, despairing. “Please do not judge me by them. They are not me. They were the best I could do at the time.”

  “I have read Typee already, of course,” Hawthorne said, unconcerned. “I wrote a review of it, for the Salem Advertiser, when it first came out.” He put his hand on Herman’s shoulder. “No one knows the relative value of one’s own previous work better than I do. I have not asked for these books in order to judge you by them, but in order to learn about you.”

  Herman’s mouth had gone completely dry. He tried to formulate a thought suitable to be spoken, but even had one occurred to him, he doubted whether his brain still had any control over his tongue. Una’s and Julian’s light footsteps rat-a-tatted overhead, and Herman looked around, alarmed that Sophia might see them inclined toward one another so intimately.

  “You know, Herman, I’m not convinced of this blackness ten times black that you see in me, that you talked about in your review. That’s how you put it, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, feeling foolish now for every word he had written in Literary World—for every word he had ever written. The easy philosophical banter that they had shared when they’d first met seemed a childish memory; Hawthorne had reduced him to mere reverence. He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I should have said that, in your stories, blackness competes with blackness, which wou
ld have been a better way to put it.” He swallowed hard and willed his composure to come back. “Because, in your stories, you seem to understand that true dramatic moments come not when a character must choose between right and wrong but when he must choose between two wrongs.”

  Hawthorne looked quizzically at his younger companion and said, almost to himself, “Two wrongs. Indeed.” He finally took his hand from Herman’s shoulder as Sophia’s footsteps pounded down the stairs. As she entered, Hawthorne asked, “What was that business about the Virginian spending July in Vermont?”

  “I don’t know, really.”

  Hawthorne took the stack of novels out of Herman’s hands and set them on the table. Then he reached into his pocket and counted out a dollar and fifty cents in coins and placed them in Herman’s palm. “Thank you again. Won’t you have some wine and stay for lunch?” Herman looked from Nathaniel to Sophia, both of their faces eager and open.

  “Yes,” said Sophia. “We don’t have much in the house at the moment, but I can send Una to Mrs. Tappan’s for a loaf, and we’ll pick some vegetables from the garden.”

  “I’m afraid I must be going.” The words surprised Herman even as they came out of his mouth; but the moment he uttered them, he recognized their truth. He could not simultaneously remain here in this cottage and also stay in his own body: he felt as if his heart might burst out of his chest and scurry bleeding across the floor.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Hawthorne. “You’ve only just arrived.”

  Herman found that he was bathed in sweat. He felt strangely indignant, though he could find no reason to be. He seemed exotic to himself, and he wanted to be showered in sunlight and covered in dirt and have a bird’s nest built in his hair, where newly hatched chicks could screech out the thoughts in his head. He certainly could not sit and make polite conversation over lunch, no matter how much wine they poured, and he knew that the moment he began talking of his review or Hawthorne’s writing or God forbid Hawthorne himself, he would sacrifice himself on the altar of indiscretion and love. Could not Sophia read, even now, his great affection for her husband, written in such large letters across his face?

  “You see,” Herman said, “we have just decided to move to the Berkshires, and my wife and I are looking for a house today.”

  “Why, how exciting,” said Sophia.

  Hawthorne took a great breath and exhaled it completely before offering his hand to Herman, all the while holding his gaze. They shook hands awkwardly at first, out of rhythm with one another, and they kept on shaking until their hands made a few simple oscillations together.

  “It’s lovely, this area, isn’t it?” Nathaniel said. Now he placed his other hand over Herman’s and simply held it. Herman glanced sidelong at Sophia, who smiled as if she remarked nothing at all inappropriate.

  “Beyond lovely,” Herman said.

  “Well, thank you for taking the trouble to come all this way, then, when you are so busy,” said Hawthorne. He finally let go of Herman’s hand. “When you have found a place to live and settled yourself, please come back and stay for a day or two. Maybe by then I will have finished reading your books, and we’ll have a great deal more to talk about.”

  Herman said that he would do so and started for the door. Sophia stopped him and handed him the copy of The Scarlet Letter that she had given him before, and Hawthorne made a show of taking the butterfly knot from behind his ear and placing it in the front of the book. The tenderness with which he made this gesture seemed absolutely shameless to Herman, but Sophia seemed barely even to notice it.

  Herman was soon back upon Robert’s horse and waving goodbye to Una and Julian, who watched him go from their upstairs window. Nathaniel and Sophia stood by their white picket fence, arm in arm, and watched him go, watched him all the way up the path to the crest of the hill above the lake. As he turned and waved a last goodbye, he saw the children running out of the house to join their parents in front of the cottage, and he heard them yell three “Hip! Hip! Hoorays!” and wave at him in frantic celebration, as if he were a newly christened ship pushing out to sea.

  When he was out of sight, he dismounted and sat by the roadside for a long time, light-headedly replaying every moment that had just passed at Hawthorne’s cottage. How he wished he hadn’t insisted on leaving. Why had he done that? How he wished he could feel the warmth of Hawthorne’s smile on his face right then. Could he return now? No, there would be time yet, time to channel all of the indiscreet emotions crashing through his soul, time to become accustomed to being in Hawthorne’s presence without the constant airy distress of exaltation. What a buffoon he felt. They seemed so happy together, Nathaniel and Sophia, and yet Hawthorne was probably sitting alone in his parlor at that very moment reading Melville’s books. What clearer signal could Hawthorne have given him?

  Herman stared up at his cousin’s horse in a maelstrom of joy and confusion. Lollie flicked her mane.

  Chapter 6

  A Sort of Confession

  Two days later, Herman and Lizzie received a letter from Judge Shaw approving their plan, along with bank drafts in the amount of three thousand dollars as an advance on Lizzie’s inheritance.

  Herman’s first reaction was unadulterated joy: the four winds of the world sounded a melody so sublime in his ears, with harmonies so rich and sonorous, that he knew the angels themselves were singing the hosannas of his love for Hawthorne, and he heard a thousand sprites take up the tune and relay it through the woods and thickets to Lenox. He felt regal and happy. They would soon be living in the Berkshires. Lizzie waved her father’s letter giddily at Malcolm, a few feet away in his crib, and Malcolm caught their enthusiasm and waved back. Herman felt acutely aware of his own mortality in a way that made him delirious with joy.

  His second reaction was panic. His manuscript was no more commercial or finished than it had been before, he had no other prospects for income, and almost all of the money in his bank account had already been loaned to him by Judge Shaw. He was grateful that the judge felt favorably inclined toward the prospect of having a Berkshires manse in the family, but unless Shaw planned to retire to it in the next six months, Herman would still have to pay its keep.

  Herman and Lizzie spent the next few days making inquiries into available properties, following up advertisements in the Pittsfield Sun, spreading the word among Robert’s neighbors; and Herman kept his mother busy writing letters to the rest of the family to announce the news of their move. Herman’s brother Allan, with whom they shared their apartment in Manhattan, was shocked. In his letters responding to this sudden announcement, he criticized Herman for not informing him before the decision had been made, since the move so clearly affected the entire family; and he worried that he would not be able to afford the apartment on his own income once Herman left. Moreover, they had no plan for dividing the household items they shared, and Allan noted rather caustically that his wife had just had a baby and that they had been counting on their mother’s help. Why was Herman upending their family so rashly, and with no increase in his income or prospects? Allan’s anger showed even in the slant of his handwriting.

  In every conversation with home sellers, lawyers, and agents, Herman negotiated terms as if he were an ancient Persian shah with dynastic treasures to trade. He buried his fears beneath his bluster and made long speeches about the nobility of becoming a gentleman farmer, and he became lighthearted with his entire family and solicitous toward Lizzie; only Robert remained unpersuaded by Herman’s optimistic rhetoric, having just failed at exactly the enterprise Herman now proposed for himself. Herman, as usual, failed to notice Robert’s sadness and mystification.

  After a week of searching, Herman and Lizzie had visited every one of the properties that had been advertised in the most recent Sun and a few others that had reached them through the grapevine, and they had found nothing suitable. Most of the houses in their price range were too small or too near
the train depot or too decrepit, with structural problems that were all too easy to discern. Their ideal was Broad Hall itself, though Judge Shaw had agreed to advance them only three thousand dollars total, which would be nothing more than a down payment on such an estate—not to mention that they would have to live off the money that was left over from the purchase at least until Herman finished his book, reducing their options even further. Just when they were expanding their search to nearby towns (Herman’s heart thrilled when he saw a notice for a hundred-acre farm in Stockbridge, directly over the hill from Lenox), they unexpectedly discovered that the property immediately adjacent to Broad Hall was for sale.

  John Brewster, a doctor whose family had lived next door to the Robert Melvilles for decades, had heard that Herman was in the market for a house. He called on them one evening, just after dinner, as a pewter half-moon was rising in the sky; and he found most of the family enjoying the evening breeze on Broad Hall’s front porch.

  Dr. Brewster was a wiry, gray-headed man in middle age, with seemingly too little skin for his face—it stretched tightly over his skull, like a mummy’s. He wore unfashionably roomy tan riding pants and spoke with a flinty, nasal voice and clipped vowels, so that even his everyday pleasantries sounded unsympathetic. Herman remembered Brewster from his visits to Broad Hall in his youth, when Herman and Robert would skim stones on his pond and catch his chickens for sport. After greeting the Melville family and making polite inquiries about everyone’s health, Brewster said, “You must come see my farm again, Herman,” and he took a seat on the porch.