Mason & Dixon (34 page)
Authors: Thomas Pynchon
"Hastily he goes on to explain," now says Mason to Dixon, "that Overtures must be made by way of the East India Company, whose Westernmost Station is at Bagdad. Thence, up the Valley of the Euphrates, by way of Mosul, to Aleppo, which is the Turkey Company's eastern-most Factory, runs a private Communication,— Feluccas, Flights of miraculous Doves, Couriers with astonishing Memories, Rolling Eagres of messages, few upon Paper, up-stream and down,— having long connected, to a great reach of Intimacy, the two Companies. For Astronomers at St. Helena, or even at Bencoolen, all would be Arrang'd straightforwardly,— a clear Debt of Gratitude. But for Services of any 'Complexity,'— well, the Fees start going up,— the Company's Duty is not so clear. Particularly as the Turkey Company's route to India goes on losing custom to the Fleets that Honorable John keeps a-slinging each Day 'round the Cape into those prodigious Winds,— and whilst Janissaries, Sherifs, and Ottomans struggle to determine who shall rule over the Decline."
"What would Jews have requir'd of them, that Dutchmen would not?"
"Is...is this another Riddle?"
"Not wishing this to be taken as any but a Twinge of Curiosity," says Dixon, "- - why has ev'ry Observation site propos'd by the Royal Society prov'd to be a Factory, or Consulate, or other Agency of some royally Charter'd Company?"
"Excuse me? you'd rather be dropp'd blindly, into a Forest on some little-known Continent, perhaps?— no Perimeters,— nor indeed chances of surviving,— in-Tree-guing, as the Monkey said. I think not. Philosophick Work, to proceed at all smartly, wouldn't you agree, requires a controll'd working-space. Charter'd Companies are the ideal Agents to provide that, be the Shore Sumatran or Levantine, or wherever globally, what matter?— Control of the Company Perimeter is ever implicit.
"In any case," says Mason to Dixon, "both Pennsylvania and Maryland are Charter'd Companies as well, if it comes to that. Charter'd Companies may indeed be the form the World has now increasingly begun to take."
"And I thought 'twas a Spheroid...?"
"Play, play,— trouble yourself not with these matters." Mason shivers. "Yet, I never told you how much I admir'd you, for going back to the
Cape,— for me, a Journey impossible. Should some Mischievous Power, in this World or Another, sentence me to repeat the Experience,— and knowing what I know now,—
"There's the Catch, of course," Dixon pretending to be calm.
"What.- "
"Knowing what tha know now. Tha won't. That's part of the Price,— to drink from Lethe, and lose all thy Memories. Tha'll be considering the next World brand new,— nawh...? never seen thah' before!— and tha'll go ahead and make the same mistakes, unless tha've brought along a Remembrancer, as some would say a Conscience...? something stash'd in thy Boot-Strap to get thee going upon a cold Day,— and cold shall it be,— a part of thy Soul that doesn't depend on Memories, that lies further than Memories...?"
Mason regards him carefully. Something has happen'd, back in Durham. He puts on a stuffy Manner, that Dixon might rise to. "We don't have that in the Church."
"Why aye, you do...? If there were as much Silence in thy Masses, as in our Meetings, 'twould be evident even to thee."
"You're saying we jabber too much for you? no time to meditate, not Hindoo enough?— Bad Musick, too, I collect. Well. Any silences in my Church, thank you, are the sort most of us can't wait for to be over. All our worries, usually kept at bay by that protective Murmur of Sound, ye see, come rushing in,— Women, Work, Health, the Authorities,— anything but what you're talking about,— whatever that be."
"Mason,— shall we argue Religious Matters?"
"Good Christ. Dixon. What are we about?”
For fourscore years, the Boundary Dispute Had lain in Chancery, irresolute, As Penns and Baltimores were born, and pass'd, And nothing ever seem'd to move too fast. Tho' Maryland's case be stronger on the Merits, Yet Penn's the Friend at Court of certain Ferrets, Who'll worry ev'ry dimly doubtful Acre (The betting in the Clubs is with the Quaker). Let Judges judge, and Lawyers have their Day, Yet soon or late, the Line will find its Way, For Skies grow thick with aviating Swine, Ere men pass up the chance to draw a Line. So, one day, into Delaware's great Basin, With strange Machinery sail Mr. Mason, And Mr. Dixon, by the Falmouth Packet, Connected, as with some invis'ble Bracket,— Sharing a Fate, directed by the Stars, To mark the Earth with geometrick Scars.
- Timothy Tox, The Line
From the shore they will hear Milkmaids quarreling and cowbells a-clank, and dogs, and Babies old and new,— Hammers upon Nails, Wives upon Husbands, the ring of Pot-lids, the jingling of Draft-chains, a rifle-shot from a stretch of woods, lengthily crackling tree to tree and across the water.... An animal will come to a Headland, and stand, regarding them with narrowly set Eyes that glow a Moment. Its Face slowly turning as they pass. America.
At sunset they raise the Capes of Delaware, and lie to for the Night in Whorekill Road, just inside Cape Henlopen. The Astronomers hear Rails whistling, and a feral screaming in the Brakes, that the one imagines as Heat, and the other as Slaughter, tho' they do not discuss this. Somewhere a Channel-Buoy rings, reports arrive all night of Lights upon the Shore...Sailors prowl the Decks, losing Sleep. The sunrise comes chaste beyond all easy Wit. The Coffee is brew'd once, and then pour'd thro' its own Grounds again, by Shorty, the Cook. Among the morning Breezes, Capt. Falconer works his Vessel back out between the Hen-and-Chickens and the Shears, to the main Channel, and with a Pilot willing to take Packet-Wages aboard, begins threading among the bars and Flats of Delaware Bay, toward New Castle, where the Bay, narrow'd by then to a River, takes its great ninety-degree turn Eastward,— the Town wheeling away to larboard brick, white, grayish blue of a precise shade neither Astronomer has ever seen, Citizens and their Children waving, horses a-clop upon the paving-stones, white publick Trim-work shifting like Furniture upon the Sky.
Children, at that time Philadelphia was second only to London, as the greatest of English-speaking cities. The Ships' Landing ran well up into the Town, by way of Dock Creek, so that the final Approach was like being reach'd out to, the Wind baffl'd, a slow embrace of Brickwork, as the Town came to swallow one by one their Oceanick Degrees of freedom,— once as many as a Compass box'd, and now, as they single up all lines, as they secure from Sea-Detail, as they come to rest, none. Here is Danger's own Home-Port, where mates swallow the Anchor and have fatal failures of judgment. Where a Sailor who goes up an Alley may not return the same Swab at all.
'Tis the middle of November, though seeming not much different from a late English summer. It is an overcast Evening, rain in the Offing. In a street nearby, oysters from the Delaware shore are being cried by the Waggon-load. The Surveyors stand together at the Quarter-deck, Mason in gray stockings, brown breeches, and snuff-color'd Coat with pinchbeck buttons,— Dixon in red coat, Breeches, and boots, and a Hat with
a severely Military rake to it,— waiting the Instruments, both, now, more keenly than at any time during this late sea-passage, feeling like Supercargo, pos'd not before wild seas or exotick landscapes, but among Objects of Oceanick Commerce,— as all 'round them Sailors and Dock-men labor, nets lift and sway as if by themselves, bulging with casks of nails and jellied eels, British biscuit and buttons for your waistcoat, Ton-icks, Colognes, golden Provolones. Upon the docks a mighty Bustling proceeds, as Waggon-drivers mingle with higher-born couples in Italian chaises, Negroes with hand-barrows, Irish servants with cargo of all sorts upon their backs, running Dogs, rooting Hogs, and underfoot lies all the debris of global Traffick, shreds of spices and teas and coffee-berries, splashes of Geneva gin and Queen-of-Hungary water, oranges and shaddocks fallen and squash'd, seeds that have sprouted between the cobblestones, Pills Balsamic and Universal, ground and scatter'd, down where the Flies convene, and the Spadger hops.
Stevedores are carrying trunks down the planks, or rolling Barrels down into waggons, where Horses, not much different from British farm horses, stand awaiting loads and journeys. Thoroughbred Cousins clitter-clatter in, hauling an open Carriage-Load of artfully dressed Maidens, who do not seem to be related to anyone on board, coming prancingly alongside, smiling and waving at everyone they can see. These are Philadelphia girls,— who, in the article of reckless Flirtation, the Surveyors will discover, put all the stoep-sitters of Cape Town quite in Eclipse. Dixon, playing the rural booby, grins and waves his hat. "Whatcheer, Poll, is it Thoo?"
Philadelphia Girls, Philadelphia Ways, Heavenly Sights, Schuylkill-side Nights, and Phila-delphia Days...
Debarking passengers are scrutiniz'd by dock-side visitors with varying Motives. Some are actually there to meet Passengers. Some have come to gather information. Others with an interest in the category of traveler term'd "unwary" have pass'd the Morning perfecting before pocket mirrors images of guilelessness. Appropriate Elements hover about the cargoes of small but interesting items such as Gemstones and
Medicines, with Pilferage in mind. Vendors of all sorts have set up to
address the Sailors, three weeks at sea. Those who do not stroll these
Pitches one by one, ignore them, streaking past, eager to be in to Town
before Evening's first illuminate Windows
"Pass it by, Lads, 'tis not for you,— why should you ever need this marvelous Potion, prais'd by the most successful lovers of all time,— you there, ye've heard of Don Juan? Casanova? and how about Old Q, the Star of Piccadilly? What d'ye think keeps him so Brisk, eh?"
"Milkmaid in Your Pocket, right here Jack me Boy,— Milkmaid in Your Pocket,"— proving to be a curious portable Cup, equipp'd with a simple Siphon, for carrying about the Liquid of one's Choice, upon which one may then suck, "— whatever the Circs, during a card-game, out in the Street, back in the Ship."
"Her name is Graziana, Lads, a Daughter of Naples,— you that's been to Naples, heh, heh, and you that haven't, why this is your chance! she may not speak a word of English, but there's something she can do, and she's doing it right now! See her handle it,— see her flatten it,— see her toss it twirling in the Air, with all the female exuberance of her Race, and we haven't even gotten to the Scamozz' yet!"
"The Sign upon the Waggon says it all, Boys, 'Heaven or Bust,' those're the choices, you've been out around the World and you know it's true,— now what are you going to do about it? Go in another Tavern, follow like a train'd Dog another flashing of Satinette, wait one Card too many to gather up even a few small Coins,— stumble back to the Ship, single up all lines, out once again into certain Danger. What do you think Jesus feels like, when he sees you missing another Chance like that? Oh, He's watchin'. He knows."
The Revd MacClenaghan, a rousing Evangelist said to be much in the Whitefield Mold, has just been through Town, and the effects of his Passage appear everywhere. Snooty urban Anglicans for whom Christ has figured as a distant, minor Saint are suddenly upon the streets with their Wigs askew, singing original Hymns about rebirth in his Blood. Presbyterians in great Conestoga Waggons haunt the Approaches to taverns and inns, gathering up sinners of all degrees and persuasions, taking them far out into the Country, and subjecting them to intense sermonizing
until they either escape, go to sleep, or find the true turning of Heart that needs no Authentication. Even Quakers are out in the Street, bargaining with unexpected pugnacity, for a share of this Population suddenly rous'd into Christliness.
"The New Religion had crested better than twenty years before," the Revd Cherrycoke explains, "— by the 'sixties we were well into a Descent, that grew more vertiginous with the days, ever toward some great Trough whose terrible Depth no one knew."
"Or, 'yet knows.' " The intermittently gloomy Ethelmer. As so often, the Revd finds himself looking for Tenebras's reactions to the thoughts of her Cousin the University man. "All respect, Sir, wouldn't the scientifick thing have been to keep note, through the years after, of those claiming rebirth in Christ? To see how they did,— how long the certainty lasted? To see who was telling the truth, and how much of it?"
"Oh, there were scoundrels about, to be sure," says the Revd, "claiming falsely for purposes of Commerce, an Awakening they would not have recogniz'd had it shouted to them by Name. But enough people had shar'd the experience, that Charlatans were easily expos'd. That was the curious thing. So many, having been thro' it together.
"You should have seen this place the time Whitefield came. All Philadelphia, delirious with Psalms. People standing up on Ladders at the Church Windows, Torch-light bright as Midday. Direct experience of Christ, hitherto the painfully earn'd privilege of Hermits in the desert, was in the Instant, amid the best farmland on Earth, being freely given to a great Town of Burghers and Churchfolk.—
They need only accept. How could the world have remain'd right-side-up after days like those? 'Twas the Holy Ghost, conducting its own Settlement of America. George the Third might claim it, but 'twas the Ghost that rul'd, and rules yet, even in Deistic times."
"Say." DePugh considering. "No wonder there was a Revolution."
"Hmph. Some Revolution," remarks Euphrenia.
"Why, Euph!" cries her sister.
"How not?" protests Ethelmer. "Excuse me, Ma'am,— but as you must appreciate how even your sort of Musick is changing, recall what
Plato said in his 'Republick',— 'When the Forms of Musick change, 'tis a Promise of civil Disorder.'''
"I believe his Quarrel was with the Dithyrambists," the Revd smoothly puts in, "- - who were not changing the Forms of Song, he felt, so much as mixing up one with another, or abandoning them altogether, as their madness might dictate."
