John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

He found three of the group to which Burlingame had introduced him. One was Ben Oliver, a great fat poet with beady eyes and black curly hair, a very rakehell, who some said was a Jew. Another was Tom Trent, a short sallow boy from Christ's College, also a poet: he'd been sent to prepare for the ministry, but had so loathed the idea that he caught French pox from a doxy he kept in his quarters by way of contempt for his calling, and was finally dismissed upon his spreading the contagion to his tutor and at least two professors who had befriended him. Since then he'd come to take a great interest in religion: he liked no poets save Dante and Milton, maintained a virtual celibacy, and in his cups was wont to shout verses of Scripture at the company in his great bass voice. The third, Dick Merriweather, was despite his surname a pessimist, ever contemplating suicide, who wrote only elegiac verse on the subject of his own demise. Whatever the disparity in their temperaments, however, the three men lived in the same house and were almost always found together.

"I'God, 'tis Eben Cooke the scholar!" cried Ben upon seeing him. "Have a bottle with us, fellow, and teach us the Truth!"

"We thought you dead," said Dick.

Tom Trent said nothing: he was unmoved by greetings and farewells.

Ebenezer returned their greetings, drank a drink with them, and, after explaining his return to London, inquired after Burlingame.

"We've seen none of him for a year," Ben said. "He left us shortly after you did, and I'd have said the twain of you were off together on some lark."

"I recall hearing he'd gone to sea again," Dick Merriweather said. "Belike he's at the bottom of't now, or swimming in the belly of a whale."

"Stay," said Ben. "Now I think on't, didn't I have it from Tom here 'twas Trinity College Henry went back to, to earn his baccalaureate?"

" 'Twas what I had from Joan Toast, that had it from Henry the last night ere he left," Tom said indifferently. "I'll own I pay scant heed to gossip of goings and comings, and 'tis not impossible I misheard her."

"Who is this Joan Toast then, pray, and where might I find her?" asked Ebenezer.

"No need to seek her," Ben laughed; "she's but a merry whore of the place, and you may ask what you will of her anon, when she comes in to find a bedfellow."

Ebenezer waited until the girl arrived, and learned only that Burlingame had spoken of his intention to ransack the libraries of Cambridge for a fortnight — for what purpose she did not know, nor did any amount of inquiry around the winehouse shed more light on his intentions or present whereabouts. During the next week Ebenezer lost no opportunity to ask after his friend, but when it became clear that no clues were to be found, he reluctantly abandoned his efforts, wrote Anna a distressed note informing her of the news, and in the following months and years came almost to forget Henry's existence — though to be sure, he felt the loss acutely whenever the name occurred to him.

Meanwhile, he presented himself at the establishment of the merchant Peter Paggen, and, on producing letters from his father, was set to totting up accounts with the junior apprentices at a little desk among many others in a large room. It was understood that if he applied himself diligently and showed some ability in his work, he would be promoted after a week or so to a post from which he could observe to better advantage the workings of the plantation trade (Mr. Paggen had extensive dealings in Maryland and Virginia). Unfortunately, this promotion was never granted him. For one thing, no matter how hard he tried, Ebenezer could not concentrate his attention on the accounts. He would begin to add a column of totally meaningless figures and realize five minutes later that he'd been staring at a wen on the neck of the boy in front of him, or rehearsing in his mind a real or imaginary conversation between himself and Burlingame, or drawing mazes on a bit of scratch-paper. For the same reason, though he had by no means the troublemaker's temperament, his untamable fancy more than once led him to be charged with irresponsibility: one day, for example, scarcely conscious of what he was about, he involved himself entirely in a game with a small black ant that had wandered across the page. The rule of the game, which he invested with the inexorability of natural law, was that every time the ant trod unwittingly upon a 3 or a 9, Ebenezer would close his eyes and tap the page thrice, smartly and randomly, with the point of his quill. Although his role of Deus civi Natura precluded mercy, his sentiments were unequivocally on the side of the ant: with an effort that brought sweat to his brow he tried by force of thought to steer the hapless creature from dangerous numbers; he opened his eyes after every series of taps, half afraid to look at the paper. The game was profoundly exciting. After some ten or fifteen minutes the ant had the bad luck to be struck by a drop of ink not a half inch from the 9 that had triggered the bombardment: flailing blindly, he inked a tiny trail straight back to the 9 again, and this time, after being bracketed by the first two taps, he was smitten squarely with the third. Ebenezer looked down to find him curled and dying in the loop of the digit. Tears of compassion, tempered with vast understanding and acceptance of the totality of life and the unalterable laws of the universe, welled in his eyes; his genital stiffened. At last the ant expired. Suddenly self-conscious, Ebenezer glanced around to see whether anyone had noticed him, and everyone in the room laughed aloud: they had witnessed the whole performance. From that day on they regarded him as more or less mad instead of simply odd; luckily for Ebenezer, however, they believed him to have some special connection with their employer Mr. Paggen, and so made little of the incident except among themselves.

But it would not be fair to suggest that Ebenezer was entirely responsible for his impasse. There were a few occasions during the first year when he managed to do his work satisfactorily, even intelligently, for several weeks running, and yet no mention was made of transferring him to the promised post. Only once did he muster courage enough to inquire about it: Mr. Paggen made him a vague reply which he accepted eagerly, in order to terminate the interview, and never spoke of it again. Actually, except for infrequent twinges of conscience, Ebenezer was quite content to languish among the junior apprentices: he had learned the job and was frightened at the prospect of learning another. Moreover, he found the city suited to his languor; his free hours he spent with his friends in the coffee-houses, taverns, or theaters. Now and again he devoted a Sunday, without much success, to his writing-desk. And in general he came quite to forget what it was he was supposed to be doing in London.

It was withal a curious time in his life. If not actually satisfying, the routine was at any rate in no way unpleasant, and Ebenezer floated along in it like a fitful sleeper in a warm wash of dreams. Often, chameleonlike, he was but a reflection of his situation: were his companions boasting the tenuousness of their positions he might declare, in a burst of camaraderie, "Should old Andy discover my situation, 'twould be off to Maryland with me, sirs, and no mistake!" As often he went out of his way to differ with them, and half-yearned for the bracing life of the plantations. Still other times he'd sit like a stuffed stork all the afternoon without a word. So, one day cocksure, one day timorous; one day fearless, one craven; now the natty courtier, now the rumpled poet — and devil the hue that momently colored him, he'd look a-fidget at the rest of the spectrum. What's red to a rainbow?

All of which is to say, if you wish, that insofar as to be is to be in essence the Johnny-come-Friday that was John o' Thursday, why, this Ebenezer Cooke was no man at all. As for Andrew, he must have been incurious about his boy's life in London, or else believed that A good post is worth a long wait. The idyl lasted not for one, but for five or six years, or until 1694 — in the March of which, when a disastrous wager brought it to a sudden end, our story begins.