Ahab's Wife, or the Star-Gazer

by Sena Jeter Naslund

  I have done with all that restraint! I wrote him that I felt like bursting through the wall, plunging through the barrier between us! And he was only alarmed. I have fled the prudery of America. I shall embrace the wiser sophistication of Europe. I shall rebel. This I mean most literally, for my next stopis Italy, where I shall play nurse to the troops. The nationalist feeling there is necessary, for only if the parts combine to make a whole can the yoke of the French, the Austrian, the last of that great Hapsburg Empire which outlasted even the ancient Roman empire, be thrown off forever. And I shall be there with my eyes open and my ears open, my woman’s hands ready to nurse. And to write! Yes, to write, write, write. Horace Greeley begs for more and longer Tribune articles in every letter I receive from him.

  Let the Transcendentalists manufacture their own nothing. But I leave them in peace, wishing them well. In the political world, not the philosophical, I find my analogue. I, like Italy, rebel. I, like Italy, shall throw off tyranny and create my own being.

  You, Una, understand this. I passionately embrace your life. For what I am doing by dint of will and intellect, you have done most naturally. You create your own being. You trust your body, you send your spirit voyaging; you think. You are the American woman, an Eve more fittingly named Dawn, new and brave.

  Brave—how truly that rings upon my ear as your epithet. But why? I know not. Yet because I trust myself, because my impulse is naturally spontaneous, even holy, yes that, I know that brave is the very word for Una.

  Suppose you never receive this letter? Yet you will know my feeling for you. Do you read the Tribune? Have you seen my articles? I tell all that I see, but I do not tell all that I feel. That requires a willing ear. Indeed, I think we cannot access our truest minds unless we direct ourselves toward some sympathetic and admired reader.

  You will marvel at my energy! You wonder now: why has she not mentioned headaches and illness? I feel them not! This old air, this Europe, reassures me. Here Margaret is not so shocking. They have known George Sand, after all. They have had great women before me. But Carlyle! The author of Sartor Resartus (The Tailor Retailored, if thy Latin be not at hand), the creator of the great iconoclast Teufelsdröckh (Devil’s Dung, if thy German hath not progressed), plays the pedant with Margaret. “Madam, you had better!” Who is he to say? Has he climbed Mont Blanc? Ah, that Byron lived! I would seek him out. We would go a-soldiering together. You know he died helping the Greeks? Yes, for you do know your Byron and Wordsworth, though I think you have too much a tendency to divorce the works, as though they were worlds of their own, from the lives of the men who made them.

  Ah, but let me slow my headlong pace, and think more particularly of the mind of Una, for it is consistent that you emphasize “La Belle Dame sans Merci” and not John Keats, that you love “Tintern Abbey” and care little that much of it was taken from the journal of poor, crazed sister Dorothy. For you, Una, look at creation and divorce it from the creator. You look at the sublime, feel it as such, but think not of the Sublime.

  Yet, let me slow not only from gallop to trot, but from trot to walk. This is your way. This is your own exploration of the path that is both divine and leads to the divine. And it is as good as mine.

  Ah, Carlyle could not modulate my egotism, but you, the thought of your thought, brings me to a humbler plane. And it is the way of women. We allow each other our individuality. We do not insist that we dominate or control. How well Carlyle understands freedom for his characters, how poorly for his fellow mortals. And now I pity him, for he is bound by his own self-importance. It constrains him, pitiably. Carlyle is himself a part of the universe that I accept.

  Yours very truly,

  Margaret Fuller

  CHAPTER 135: Letter from David Poland, Virginia

  Dear Mrs. Una,

  I come to New Bedford with a new posse to take back an escaped slave. His master apprenticed him to learn ship caulking. He was able to learn it. But he took advantage and disguised himself as a sailor and escaped.

  I am writing to say that he has become a respectable man in New Bedford. They are very kind to slaves and runaways there. I hope your friend Susan made it to New Bedford.

  When I talked to this man he told me the story of his life as a slave. It was funny, how stupid his masters were sometimes. I laughed with him. I decided not to try to take him. I gave him the equal of the money that I took off Susan, which you gave her. To help other slaves. I wonder if I am becoming an abolitionist. I thought you would be glad. I know I am through with bounty-hunting.

  Yours, David P.

  CHAPTER 136: Letter to Beloved Kin

  Dearest Aunt Agatha, Uncle Torch, Frannie, and Butch,

  I have moved from the town of Nantucket to the eastern edge of the island, known as the town of Siasconset or ’Sconset. I live simply, but I have been left very well off by Captain Ahab, who died perhaps a year ago—we do not know exactly when the Pequod went down, stove by a white whale. We have lived with the news for several months. I think often of you. I wish again to ask forgiveness for the pain I gave you. With the loss of Ahab, I understand afresh that love is the sharpest lance. Again, now, in grief, I am flooded with gratitude that you have forgiven me.

  I am thinking of Frannie. I am remembering her restlessness. I honor the patience she has shown these years. I am remembering, too, my promise to her that someday she would be invited to travel and to live with Justice and me. Butch’s time will come, too, when he is a big boy, if you wish it.

  The messenger who brings you this letter and the sum of one thousand dollars in gold is a man to be trusted—David Poland. His short stature should not make you think of him as dubious in any way. I wrote to him, in Virginia, asked him to come to Nantucket, gave him this letter and the money, and sent him to you.

  As you see he has fulfilled this mission. Neither David nor the money has disappeared between Nantucket and the Great Lakes. When I left Kentucky, it was David who guided me out. I rode a white donkey named Milk, whom he led. You see that he still has Milk, and is probably this minute giving Butch a ride on him!

  I send the money because I have it and as a way of thanking you for the four wonderful years I spent with you. Money can never repay you: you gave me a family when my own could not keep me.

  I do remember what it was like to be young, Frannie. My proposal is that you come and live with me for a while. I propose, dear Aunt and Uncle, that you allow and trust David Poland (whom I have already paid) to escort Frannie to Nantucket. I feel that Frannie and I have much to talk about, and that I can introduce her to the broader world in a safe way. And her presence will help our lives to heal.

  With abiding love to all of you, and gratitude,

  Una

  CHAPTER 137: Letter from Margaret Fuller, from Italy

  Precious Friend, dear Una,

  The guns are booming beyond my hospital window where, on the sill, I put down the iodine bottle for a moment to write a few lines to you. Una, I know you have seen madness and death, but you have not seen war, nor even its aftermath. The sheer number of destroyed men before me is completely overwhelming. I dash the tears from my eyes—tears are useless—so that I can see to help. The doctors work tirelessly, cleaning, stitching, amputating, bandaging, and I try to keep up, to make their work lighter. I have ever hated to sew, even cloth, but yesterday I sewed up a bleeding gash in a man’s arm because there was no one else to do it.

  Let Emerson see this! He would faint. I have fainted, at first. But now I put on the whole armor of Compassion. It flinches not, it cannot allow cringing from wounds of the most horrible sort. If Emerson could see this, I think that he would put all of his mighty mind to the teaching of one lesson: we must not kill one another.

  And yet, when Italian children starve under the yoke of foreign domination, is not that a reason for self-defense? Surely it is only self-defense to strike back then? I do not know. Not even Jesus is clear on the matter. He wants us to turn the other cheek, yet he says that he come
s not to bring peace but to place a sword between us. It is the Old Testament whose beautiful words give me hope for a future time, when swords are beaten into ploughshares, and spears into pruning hooks.

  Ah, the trees beyond my window, the beautiful olive trees of which the Italians are so rightly proud, have been pruned and shattered by bursting mortar shells. We have taken this city. The fighting, the booming that has punctuated every sentence of this letter, sometimes more often than that, is off in the hills beyond the city.

  The city of Rome! I have seen the Colosseum, where men brutalized men more than a thousand years ago, for entertainment. I have seen the domed pagan temple, the Pantheon, where men aspired to something beyond their brutish nature. Una, in its stone floor there are holes, slanted like nostrils, to carry off the rainwater to drains beneath the paving-stone flooring, for the apex of the dome is, by design, an open circle, open to the sky! There is a structure to worship in! Not like St. Paul’s of London or St. Peter’s in this great city, both temples closed to what lies beyond their own hemisphere.

  When I summered on the Great Lakes, I grew weary of hearing folk debate the issues of Trinity and Unity. All such dogma stands in the way of the true religious spirit. That spirit must be open, I am convinced. It must admit light, air, and, yes, even rain.

  Una, there is a soldier here who loves me. His name is Ossoli, and by him I shall have a child. I am fulfilled. He is noble of spirit and in title, though not wealthy. My mother would find him wealthy, you would find him so, for his soul is not only rich but generous. I do not know what Emerson would think of him, for Ossoli is not a man of letters. But neither my passion nor my mind frightens the spirit of my beloved. He finds me beautiful. How difficult it is to see him march off, past this window, each morning, to the hills, toward the sounds of guns!

  But my babe is safe within. For him, I would gladly die. Sometimes I dream of dying. I am swimming in a sea of blood, and I have no corks to keep me up.

  May all things go well for my Una. If you were here, we would nurse together. Since you are not here, I look at the shattered olive trees and see, over the tops of them, the broken, curving wall of the Colosseum. Time, mere time, has crenellated it in places. Is not time foe enough for us mortals? Why do we hasten each other’s deaths, when all our rationality and all our religion should combine to extend life and to make it lovely?

  To know you has made my life more lovely.

  Margaret

  CHAPTER 138: The Judge’s Invitation

  My dear Una,

  Of course nothing pleases me more than to invite you and Justice to stay at my house till your cousin Miss Frannie and her interesting escort arrive. Let me be so bold as to suggest that you stay a week or so here in town after she arrives, too, so that she can make the acquaintance of some young people her own age. Without doubt there is a William Mitchell child of eighteen or so who will provide most reasonable companionship and a bridge to other young Nantucketeers.

  I am thinking, too, that perhaps Mary Starbuck and son Jim would benefit from some time in town, especially since they might be unnecessarily lonely in ’Sconset during the three weeks that we plan to have you here. Bring them, too. And of course that remarkable dog, Pog.

  Yours truly,

  Austin Lord

  P.S. I shall tell your renters across the street that you are coming into town and may wish to inspect the property. They keep the windows shiny but are too boring for extended conversation.

  CHAPTER 139: Mrs. Maynard’s Note

  Just as you directed, dear, the Camel puts in daily at noon at New Bedford to see if Our Travelers from the West have arrived. By that I mean, of course, your young cousin and her guide, let there be no misunderstanding. I do not mean Kit Sparrow and Charlotte Hussey!

  What preparations the judge has had me make for you! He has separately commissioned Captain Maynard to purchase an unheard-of quantity of jams and syrups and chocolates at every port o’ call. I have aired mattresses and ironed linens for every bed in the house, for ye shall fill ’em up, what with the four of you from ’Sconset, plus Frannie and David P. The judge was so taken with your stories and description of the little man that he has ordered made an entire set of bedroom furniture just his size, which he intends to give him as a present, to be shipped by sea (the Camel, of course) to Virginia and then overland to the dwarf’s home. I had to stop Judge Lord from having a window cut in the wall that would be just the right height for the small fellow to see through! We are abustle.

  The judge himself has checked into a schedule of lectures and parties, for he intends you shall be fully entertained. He has even asked Mr. Mitchell if any astronomical events are to be observed during your stay. My dear, I think Judge Lord half intends to keep you here. I mean FOREVER. I mean with him.

  But I would not stay forever, if I were you. It would be a pity for you to have to look across the street every day at the house where you and Captain Ahab made a couple. And besides, I have never seen you more blooming. The seaside agrees with you and with the dear little boy. There is no doubt of that. You have no need to couple up yourself again, and I advise you to stay clear of any such arrangements.

  Yours,

  Hilda Maynard

  P.S. I have been sent to the butcher to tell him to save bones for the dog! Judge has asked me to make a Kentucky jam cake—Lord knows why, but I haven’t the faintest idea how. Would you make one, dear, and bring it with you?

  P.P.S. We are to have a most festive dinner the second night Frannie is here. Everyone is on standby—the Mitchells, I mean, and we have invited the gaoler because he is so much alone since Betsy’s death. You knew that, didn’t you? Her fifth childbirth, and the fever took her, last March, and the little one, too.

  CHAPTER 140: Preparations

  LEAVE THIS surf-song for town! Yes, tomorrow I must. Since the Delight came in, almost a year ago, I have been into Nantucket but once for each season. Mrs. Maynard’s preparations! Her caution! Why should I marry the judge? He is an excellent friend as he is. Let friends increase! I have had enough of husbands. Justice and I are complete, and Frannie will make us but more complete.

  How this dress hangs on me! I have grown thin walking by the sea, looking at the stars. And my hair curls as wild as a gypsy’s. Well, I have been a gypsy of the sea. And worse.

  Ah needle, ah thimble, dear friends. Here I sit and sew in the window room, my bedroom now—Justice and Frannie will be upstairs, each with a window. But I! Oh, I am greedy for light and windows. And I have them. My library is my sewing room and my bedroom. With quilts for curtains, the room is warm even on a cold winter’s night, and I burn wood—dear though it is—as I please, during the day, curtains wide open. The judge says I shall burn up my fortune heating this room, but I don’t care.

  What a tool is a needle, so bright and quick, so obedient and willing.

  Town tomorrow. This scene of water and sky, the coziness of my room, the colors of my quilts and rugs, the books, that lamp with the egg-shaped alabaster bowl, will have disappeared; and this contentment as well? Where we choose to be, where we choose to be—we have that power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being. The idea abides with me like faith. I will be happy to return to this place where domesticity marries the cosmos.

  And how will I find Frannie to be? May I make her as welcome in my home as she made me in hers. Oh, little dancing dot on the Island, oh, glad child of four, it was your joy that sparked me to life.

  CHAPTER 141: Frannie

  WHEN I GREETED Frannie at the wharf, my eye recoiled from her corrugated cheeks, for I had not remembered Frannie as disfigured from the smallpox, though I knew its mark was pitted into her face. But I had remembered only her beautiful spirit, not the disfigurement. She registered my recoil, I know she did, and accepted it as a response I could not help.

  When she drew back from my embrace, her face shining, she said again, “Una, Una,
Una. I am so glad to be here.” The simple words conveyed all, and I could not speak in return for the stoppage in my throat.

  I dropped to my knees and embraced David, just as I had when we parted at the steamboat, but this time without reserve, and with his short arms, he returned my embrace without embarrassment. He and Justice were friends at once, with Justice asking to see the wolf skin.

  Frannie was slight, as though in her frame as well as on her face she carried the blight of a terrible illness survived. I had not thought her especially small when I was sixteen, but I saw on the wharf that she would be forever slight, as surely as David would be forever short. They were perfectly comfortable with one another, and, indeed, Frannie had a sense of sureness about her that her letters to me had not conveyed in the least. I remembered that, after all, she was Agatha’s daughter, and never has there been a woman more self-reliant than my aunt.

  But David contradicted that hypothesis with this speech: “See what I’ve made of your cousin? She was a mouse till she traveled with me for a guide. Now she’s a proper girl, ain’t she? and not her mother’s mouse.”

  Frannie laughed and said she was just the same as always, and in many ways she seemed so to me. “But it was a wonderful journey,” she added, her eyes shining at David. I remembered my own healing journey through the Kentucky forest with the diminutive guide.

  Frannie was quieter than her mother, but there was nothing shy about her. Assurance—yes, Frannie spoke with assurance, but quietly. I did not need to worry about making Frannie feel welcome. She came to me with the conviction that she would be in the right place.