He made me fetch the account which follows. It is a chapter extracted from a work of unpublished memoirs, whose author it is unimportant to know. The plan was, apparently, to write chapters on people the author had met, with each person receiving one chapter, and the whole arranged alphabetically. The people were identified only by a single letter.
*
I MET THE MAN, WHOM I shall call Mr N, twice. The first time was late one evening in the spring of 1902, in Holborn.
I happened to mention Pickwick to enliven a dull social gathering, and the chap I addressed said: ‘Do you know, I should definitely take you to meet a former colleague of mine. I think you would find him quite a curiosity. We could even go tonight, if you like, as he lives close to here. I am certain he will be in.’ Certain? I queried that. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘there is not a shadow of a doubt – he will be indoors.’
In a short while, I found myself in a cramped home-office. Mr N was thin, and I would say in his mid-forties. Spectacles hung from a cord around his neck. I shall never forget the strange lifelessness in his eyes as he shook my hand, as though he saw nothing whatsoever in my personality to stir his interest. This was undoubtedly the effect of years of laborious study.
There were cabinets on every wall of the office, each of numerous drawers, and each drawer labelled, so there were, let us say, ‘SA—SH’, ‘SI—SM’, ‘SN—SP’, and so forth. Several drawers were open, and I could see they contained slips of paper, each slip apparently bearing a single word, with a string of numbers below. There was a copy of Pickwick on a desk, open about a third of the way through, and the two pages I saw were marked in pencil: every word on the verso side, and over a half of the recto, having a single stroke passing through it.
Mr N’s aim was to produce a concordance to Pickwick. That is to say: a catalogue showing the occurrence of every single word in the novel. This catalogue would state the position, precisely, of any given word in the text of Pickwick, by chapter number, paragraph, line, and position in line. I learnt that, already, five years had been spent by Mr N on this task – and his progress was indicated by the marked copy on the desk, as every word in the first third of the book had been ‘done’, with a single neat pencil stroke, and its position noted on the slips. When the entire book had been gone through in this way, the slips would be collated, analysed, and a single masterwork, The Pickwick Concordance, the key to the book of books, would result, unlocking as never before the life of the immortal Mr Pickwick.
I had heard of a concordance for the Bible, and concordances probably exist for other holy scriptures, but never had I heard of such work for a novel.
‘It is not my first and only work on Pickwick’s atoms,’ said Mr N. ‘There was a previous effort, but it was wholly inadequate, sir. I was dissatisfied the day I wrote the last entry.’
From a filing cabinet, he brought out a ledger. ‘This is my pitiful Pickwick index. Sir Charles Grandison is, I believe, the only other English novel which has been indexed. At the time, I thought that an index to Pickwick was – unquestionably – of value.’
‘But what made you start?’ I said as I examined the ledger.
‘I found myself – if I may put it this way – haunted.’
There was one seat only in the office, and a well-worn one at that, but he fetched two kitchen chairs. We settled down, and my associate from earlier in the evening took out a cigarette case. This panicked Mr N, who said: ‘Please do not smoke – I beg you – the possibility of a spark – all the slips of paper.’
When the cigarette case was returned to the pocket, Mr N began his tale.
‘Some years ago,’ he said, ‘I attended a gathering in the upstairs room of an inn to mark the retirement of the senior partner in my legal firm. I have worked in the law, in a minor capacity, for much of my life. It was a light supper, and one of the items of fare was pickled salmon. I declined it – fish never agrees with me – and I went for the cured ham. But as I chewed, I thought of pickled salmon – it was mentioned somewhere in Pickwick but where? In which chapter? Who said it? I believed I could remember a scene with boiled salmon, or at least some other way of serving salmon, and knew exactly where that was, but pickled salmon was a different question.
‘It was an unpleasant experience for me. You have to understand my aversion to fish. As I chewed, the very thought of pickled salmon began to make the ham in my mouth seem quite fishy. I recalled brine tubs I had passed, containing fish. I started to think of a herring stall in Amsterdam I had encountered as a boy, where I covered my mouth. I started to feel quite nauseous. I can hardly describe the anguish of that evening for me – what if I – what if there had been – what if there had been an accident, right in the middle of the retirement dinner? I would have been humiliated. The thought of pickled salmon would not go away, yet somehow I got through the meal. But afterwards, I was gripped by a disturbing thought. I would describe my state of mind as almost one of panic. I thought I was cursed – it must seem ridiculous to you – but that night I believed that if I didn’t find out where pickled salmon was mentioned in Pickwick, an appalling fishy taste would haunt my palate, and corrupt every meal, until I did find out.
‘When I reached home, I found my copy of Pickwick, and I stabbed at likely places for the pickled salmon. I couldn’t find it. I soon felt giddy with frustration. I felt that there was no alternative but to start at page one and work my way forwards, page by page, methodically – I knew it wasn’t on page one, but I had to be thorough, you understand. And there is so much food mentioned in Pickwick that it might be almost anywhere.
‘I kept going through the night, running my eyes down one page after another, until I discovered that pickled salmon was in chapter twenty-two, and Sam Weller’s father mentions it.
‘I can hardly describe the relief I felt – and I was determined – absolutely determined – that I would never be placed in that situation again. The thought came to me: Pickwick needs an index. It might seem peculiar at first, but when you think about it, it isn’t. I had heard of the examination on Pickwick which was conducted in a Cambridge college, about half a century ago, and if there were enough topics in the book to set an exam, might not an index be justified? That was my reasoning, from a practical point of view. It also occurred to me that Pickwick has so many words and phrases which are dear to readers – and I thought it would be nice to see them given their own place in the limelight. We might take as an example: “pig’s whisper” or “dog’s nose” or “frog hornpipe”. Then there are the proper names. Pickwick has about 650 of those, I now know – a large number for any work, and especially so for a work of fiction.
‘So over the course of about a year, in the evenings I produced my index. I was tickled by my own cross-referencing. I was particularly fond of “for soirée see swarry”. I laughed out loud at that, I remember.
‘Yet, the concordance principle often entered my mind. It was like a second haunting. I would think about whether to include a certain word or phrase in my index and if I didn’t include it, I would feel a small inexpressible guilt. Could I be sure I had made the right decision? When, finally, the index was done, I went out that night, for the first time in a year, just to mark the event. I took myself to an inn to eat, and lo, and to my joy, there was ham. Cured ham. I had avoided ham completely for a year. I chewed it, and it was good – at first – but – then – it was as though, in the course of the meal, the taste left the ham. There was no taste of pickled salmon, but I felt so overwhelmed by a sense of the index’s inadequacy, that the ham tasted – well, almost of nothing.
‘I could no longer deny the need for the concordance. It would be a work of purity, free of arbitrary decisions about which words to include. It would be hospitable to every word. I even liked the expression Pickwick Concordance. It could be abbreviated to PC – just like the Pickwick Club.
‘And that night, after a year’s work, I felt my index was worthless. I was struck by a conviction that if I didn’t compile the concord
ance, someone else would. This was like a third haunting. It occurred to me that perhaps someone was already compiling the concordance. I was suspicious about all the lawyers I knew, because lawyers love Pickwick. I thought of the senior partner – he was the one who told me about the Pickwick examination, and that made me suspect him. How was he spending his retirement? Someone would do it, if they were not already doing so. After all, I had thought of compiling the concordance, and that convinced me that others could think the same.
‘I cursed my year wasted on the index. Why did I ever do it? So, I started on the concordance as soon as I came home from the inn. That was five years ago.
‘It is an undertaking which I may describe as – vast. Pickwick is approximately three hundred thousand words long. Even ignoring conjunctions, definite and indefinite articles and the like, there are some one hundred thousand significant words. I venture to suggest that the arrangement in a final alphabetical order is one of the most painstaking tasks any human being has ever attempted. I hope I will be forgiven for wanting to tell the world at large of my enterprise. So, about two years after I started work on the concordance – which was a point when I decided that I must have built up a substantial lead on anyone else who might attempt the task – I privately printed a four-page pamphlet setting forth my plan, and I inserted a small advertisement in a newspaper saying that anyone who was interested should send a stamped addressed envelope, and they would receive a copy of the pamphlet. You would be surprised at the number of envelopes I received! Many included expressions of good luck; I remember one man said it would be interesting simply to know that such a work exists.
‘Well, I have now completed about a third of Pickwick. And I shall finish it, believe me, I shall.’
Mr N then struck his hands on his thighs, to indicate that it was late, and that we should be on our way, and he added that he would like to work on a few more words before bed. I was sufficiently curious – astounded, really – about the work, to write down my address and say that if he ever happened to be in my area, he should call, as I would be interested to hear how he was progressing.
*
It was ten years later, and an evening of incessant rain in March, when I received a knock. I opened the door – and there was Mr N. He was older, and thinner, but I recognised him in an instant. He still had the spectacles on a cord around his neck, even though he had been walking in the streets in the rain. He carried a briefcase. I shook his hand, invited him in, and saw that he was soaked. I said he should have brought an umbrella.
‘I don’t like umbrellas,’ he said. ‘Where do you put them when they’re wet? That’s the trouble with umbrellas.’
I took his coat and sat him down by the fire. Before I could ask the question he said: ‘The concordance was finished this afternoon. I wanted to tell someone. You remember the gentleman you came with? I went in search of him, but he seems to have moved. I still had your address, and so I came here. I hope you do not mind. I will not stay long.’
‘I do not mind at all. I am delighted that you have come. Is the concordance in your briefcase?’
‘No, sir! Can you image my horror if the case were stolen? Or if I left it somewhere? And the rain! What damage might that do? Even I could not spend another fifteen years on this work. No, the concordance is safe in my house. Though – how safe is a matter that troubles me. May I tell you some things I have learnt, sir, in compiling the work? I shall not be long, because I must return.’
‘Please do.’
There was a long pause, in which he held the first fingers of his hands together, like an arrowhead, in front of his lips. Then, in one burst of speech he said: ‘The word “friend” appears 439 times, “little” 396, “hand” 367, “eye” 350, “time” 310. I know those figures by heart. I often wondered which word would appear most. Leaving aside grammatical words like “the” and suchlike, “friend” was the winner; I had hoped for “eye”. There seemed to be so many eyes. I was sorry that word did not achieve what I had hoped for it. I even felt – you may find this hard to believe – but I almost felt a sympathy for “eye”, as a valiant loser, sir.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Words appearing but a handful of times were another pleasure. Here I would mention “anchor”, “elephant”, “hearth” and “depth”. They are three-timers. While “muffle”, “oblong” and “languidly” all appear twice. But then there are the Pickwickian equivalents of prime numbers – the single-appearance words. They are especially fascinating. There are about five thousand of those, and my concordance reveals their diversity. Some of these words I would like to mention are “sincere”, “terribly”, “unlock”, “vicissitude”, “wavy”, “yielding” and “zest”. Such are the hidden themes of Pickwick that I have discovered.’
‘May I offer you a drink?’
‘How kind. Perhaps a small one would not be out of order.’
As he took the glass he said: ‘You may think that I have lived in a small and confining world for fifteen years, sir. But the three hundred thousand words of Pickwick are, to me, a vast landscape in which I have travelled, with many extraordinary features.’
‘I am surprised you did not state the exact number of words.’
‘I do know it, sir, though it differs slightly depending on the edition of Pickwick. And I am ignoring in that total various things, such as the work’s prospectus – the prefaces – the contents pages – the errata slip – the instructions to the binder – the addresses to readers – and of course the Pickwick Advertiser and the many other advertising leaflets which were inserted in the first issue in numbers. Things which may perhaps one day inspire an even larger concordance than mine.’
His face underwent changes which I never expect to see in my life again. There was an initial aspiration on the face, a looking heavenwards, followed by a downward glance of humility. He took another sip, and continued.
‘The first edition of Pickwick is my main concern. The total number of words in that edition is what I think of as the number, though I know the numbers for other editions. I do not like revealing that number, sir. I keep it to myself. I do not know why. A little superstition which has grown upon me. I think I shall say that number aloud with my last breath upon this earth.’
‘I hesitate to ask you this—’
‘Do not be embarrassed, sir. I can guess what your question is. You are wondering whether a life like mine is worthwhile.’
‘I would not put it in quite those terms.’
‘However it would be expressed – I am sure most people will think there are better ways to spend a life. But you see, sir, people call Pickwick the immortal book, about an immortal character. And in compiling the concordance, I have found my own little corner of immortality. I admit my concordance will never be published. Every publisher I have approached has told me, with regret, that even Pickwick – even a thing as great and as universally appealing as Pickwick – would never justify the costs of printing a concordance. Still, people have expressed keen interest in such a work existing. I had to make it real, sir. Someone had to. It could be published, and that is enough for me.’
‘How have you coped? Were you never bored?’
‘Sometimes I felt my spirit flag a little. To give myself some recreation, I have made lists concerning Pickwick. Take characters. What a crowd! Has a book ever thronged like Pickwick before?’
Without my asking for supporting evidence, he provided it, scarcely stopping to breathe.
‘Allowing for some arbitrariness in what is meant by an important character, there are fifty-six important characters in The Pickwick Papers. Forty-one are men and fifteen are women. There are then 164 characters of minor importance. Of those, 119 are men, and forty-five are women. Then there are people who are mentioned but who do not appear in the story, such as Napoleon. There are 195 of those, of whom 157 are men, and thirty-eight are women. If one totals everyone, including references to functionaries such as clerks, and people connected with horses and
so on, there are 865 people in Pickwick. So many people, and all in one work, the most in any work any Englishman has ever written.
‘I have even sorted characters into professions. There are twenty-two clerks. There are fifty-seven people connected with jail.’
‘Have you any idea how many references to alcohol there are in Pickwick?’
‘I have not checked the figure, but I made a brief tally in my mind when I was suffering from eye strain and I came to a total in the region of three hundred. I should know the precise number. And I will. I would trust myself more on food. There are ninety-five separate occasions for food, divided into thirty-five breakfasts, thirty-two dinners, ten luncheons, ten teas and eight suppers. But yes, I must have an accurate figure on alcohol. There are priorities, you see, sir. Etymological analysis of the words has a greater claim on my time, for the insights I hope it will reveal.’
He paused there, seeing whether I would ask about these insights. To be polite, I said: ‘Please explain.’
‘Boz was paid for the quantity of work he produced. Rather like those who reported minor news events. Like them, he had to fill the pages of the number. How great the pressure to replace short native English words with Latin and Greek polysyllables! Yet he had to be lively and amusing, and aim at the most pleasing mix of verbosity and life. One day I shall explore this.’
Suddenly he said: ‘I was asked to give up all work on the concordance by my wife.’
‘You have a wife? I am sorry, I did not mean that the way it sounded.’
‘It is quite all right. She is deceased now. We should not have married. She was the type of woman to read a book and tuck it back anywhere in a bookcase. Sometimes even on its side.
‘She often made fun of the concordance. I can hear her saying now: “How many times does the word ‘pointless’ appear?” So I told her. The answer is none. She was not at all amused. That was the first time she asked me to give it up – and when she asked, I felt the anger rising inside me, because she was attempting to deprive me of all meaning to my life, sir. I said to her “No!”; and it came from deep within me. I had never said a “No!” like it. I can hear myself saying it now, “No!” Then another time, when her sister and brother-in-law visited, I absented myself to work on the concordance. After they left, my wife said how embarrassed she was, and she asked me to give it up again. “No”, I said. I was calmer on this occasion, but with iron-hard resolution. She said, “Stop this work, or I will leave.” She left, sir. I had my priorities. Though she came back, a few days later.
Death and Mr. Pickwick Page 93