John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Now tears welled up in Mary's eyes. "He was my first and only love, was Charley Mattassin. I was forty years old when I first saw him, and he no younger, but for the both of us 'twas love at first swiving. His father, Chicamec, had sent him on an embassy to another salvage king, Quassapelagh — "

"Quassapelagh!" cried the Laureate, and caught himself on the verge of revealing his connection with that fugitive chief.

"Aye, the famous Anacostin King that lately broke from jail. God alone knows what mischief lay behind the errand, but 'twas Mattassin's first adventure amongst the English. His plan then was to cross the Bay direct in his canoe, but he got no farther than the straits off Tangier Sound ere a squall o' wind drove him onto the Dorset mainland. 'Twas my good fortune I was going my rounds, and chanced to drive along a path beside the straits. Mattassin — he had no English first name then, of course — Mattassin had lost his canoe in the storm and, seeing he was in English country, had vowed to kill the first white man that passed and steal his horse. He hid himself in the bushes by the path, and when my wagon passed he sprang aboard and knocked me from the seat.

"His first thought was to take my scalp, but on reflection he resolved to rape me first." Mary's eyes shone. "D'ye grasp it, Master Poet? I'd been a whore for twenty-eight years, all told. Some twenty thousand times I had been swived — give or take a thousand — and by almost that many different men; there was no sort or size of man I had not known, so I'd have sworn, nor any carnal deed I was not master of. I had been forced too many times to count, by paupers and poltroons, and more than once myself had been employed to rape young men."

"Stay," Ebenezer exclaimed. "That is impossible!"

"Don't tempt me, dear," Mary warned with a smile. "I know your thoughts, but naught's impossible at the end of a pistol." She laughed and wept at once. "I've not told ye yet the best of all: he was not tall, was Charley, but he was a sturdy wight, and strong in the muscles; yet when he set about to do his deed, I saw he had no more to do't with than any pitiful puppy-dog! He was, I swear't, less blest by half than most boys in their cradles, and withal he meant to soil the honor o' Mary Mungummory! 'Tis as if ye took a bodkin to scuttle a frigate!

"So struck was I by the sight of him, 'twas only his tomahawk reined in my mirth, and I'd no more have resisted, than would a plowhorse the assault of a flea. 'Have done with't, Charley,' says I, making up the name for a tease, 'I've two trappers and a sot-weed factor waiting up the path.' Whereupon he set to work, and 'sbody, ere I knew what struck I was hollowing for joy!"

The Laureate frowned. "I am not privy to such matters, but this hath an air of non sequitur, or some other of the schoolmen's fallacies."

Mary breathed nostalgically. "I have known scholards a-plenty, but no phalluses like this!"

"Nay, Miss Mungummory, you mistake my meaning!"

"And you mine," laughed Mary. "For you must know, sir, the wench that hath been twenty thousand times a harlot is no more a child: she could play Europa's game and be none the worse for't. But just as a blind man, lacking sight, grows wondrous keen of nose and ear, or a deaf-mute learns to hear with his eyes and speak with his hands, so had my Charley, unbeknownst to me, learnt strange and wondrous means to reach his end! Thus had good Mother Nature cleared her debt to him, after the fashion of the proverb: what she had robbed from Peter, she bestowed on Paul."

Ebenezer did not quite see the aptness of the saying, but he understood in substance what she meant.

" 'Tis past my knowledge what arts he practised, and past my power to tell my joy. Suffice it to say, there was enough o' Mother's blood in me that my heart was a castle, and of two hundred men not one had come in sight of't. But my Charley, that had not even a lance to tilt with, in two minutes' time had o'ertopped the breastworks, spanned the moat, hoist the portcullis, had his will of every crenel and machicoulis, and raised the flag o' passion from the merlons of my keep!"

" 'Sheart!" the poet whispered.

" 'Twas some time ere I regained my proper senses, but when I was myself again I laid hold of his hair, summoned all the lusty lore my years had taught me, and so repaid him in his coin that for half an hour he lay nine parts a-swoon. The upshot of't was, he ne'er saw town or father again, and got no closer to Quassapelagh than my wagon, wherein we lived thenceforth like hot-souled gypsies. I played the whore no more, but indented other girls to make my rounds, and clove to Charley like a silly bride."

"How is't he did not lose his hatred of the English?"

Mary chuckled and shook her head. "That is beyond my gifts to say. He was wondrous deep, was Charley, and sharp in the wits: in a month he'd learnt to read and speak our tongue like any gentleman; he made me scour the Province for books, and albeit I could not grasp the half of 'em myself, he always plumbed their meaning at a glance. 'Twas as if he'd thought the selfsame thoughts himself, and better ones. Yet for all they'd arouse him, he would not deign to read 'em himself, but set me to't, albeit 'twas not long ere I'd have to stop and ask him what was meant by such-a-word."

"Indeed!" Ebenezer marveled. " 'Twas thus you learnt to speak of Boccaccio and the Greeks?"

"Aye. How he loved and loathed the lot of 'em, and myself as well! Read him half a tale or half a chapter out o' Euclid, he could spin ye the balance from his head; and if it differed from the text, 'twas the author, like as not, that came off badly. Ofttimes I felt his fancy bore a clutch of worlds, all various, of which the world these books described was one — "

"Which, while 'twas splendid here and there," the Laureate interrupted, "he could not but loathe for having been the case."

"That's it!" Mary cried, her eyes bright. "You have laid your finger on its very root and fundament!"

Ebenezer sighed, recalling Burlingame. "I know a man who hath that genius, and that very manner: he loves the world, and comprehends it at first glance — sometimes even sight unseen — yet his love is flavored with contempt, from the selfsame cause, which leads him to make game of what he loves."

Tears ran freely down the harlot's ruddy cheeks. " 'Twas in like manner he looked on me," she said. "He loved me — of that I'm sure — yet for all my bag o' tricks I was merely woman, and but one woman. My Charley's curiosity and imagination knew no such bounds: I often pleased him, but ne'er surprised him; naught could I do that he'd not already dreamt of."

"And would you say," pressed the poet, much aroused, "that this cosmic love I spoke of was as strong in his flesh as in his fancy? What I mean, did he lust for aught that struck his eye, be't man or maid or mandrake root, and yet despise the world for its meagerness of bedfellows?"

"That and more," Mary answered, "for so possessed was he with this same lust and fancy, he e'en despised himself that he could not fancy more! Marry come up, there never was the like of him in the history of the world!"

But Ebenezer covered his face with his hands and shook his head. "There was and is, wondrous as't may seem. My friend and former tutor, that till now I think I'd never fathomed, fits this picture marvelous well! Do you know the man they call Tim Mitchell?"

Mary's expression changed to alarm. "Are ye one o' Mitchell's spies, put here to draw me out?"

Surprised, Ebenezer assured her that he was not, and declared further, observing her great apprehension, "I did not mean that Mitchell was my friend and tutor, but that just as this Charley is so like my friend in every way — save the color of his skin and that defect of his natural parts you spoke of — so this Tim Mitchell, that I met not three days past, doth in some respects remind me of my friend. Past that I know naught o' the man."