John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Pimp in Ebenezer's circle was one wiry, red-haired, befreckled ex-Dubliner named John McEvoy, twenty-one years old and devoid of school education, as long in energy and resourcefulness as short in money and stature, who spent his days abed, his evenings pimping for his privileged companions, and the greater part of his nights composing airs for the lute and flute, and who from the world of things that men have valued prized none but three: his mistress Joan Toast (who, whore as well, was both his love and his living), his music, and his liberty. No one-crown frisker Joan, but a two-guinea hen well worth the gold to bed her, as knew every man among them but Ebenezer; she loved her John for all he was her pimp, and he her truly too for all she was his whore — for no man was ever just a pimp, nor any woman merely whore. They seemed, in fact, a devoted couple, and jealous.

All spirit, imagination, and brave brown eyes, small-framed, large-breasted, and tight-skinned (though truly somewhat coarse-pored, and stringy in the hair, and with teeth none of the best), this Joan Toast was his for the night who'd two guineas to take her for, and indignify her as he would, she'd give him his gold's worth and more, for she took that pleasure in her work as were she the buyer and he the vendor; but come morning she was cold as a fish and back to her Johnny McEvoy, and should her lover of the night past so much as wink eye at her in the light of day, there was no more Joan Toast for him at any price.

Ebenezer had of course observed her for some years as she and his companions came and went in their harlotry, and from the talk in the coffee-house had got to know about her in great detail at second hand a number of things that his personal disorganization precluded learning at first. When in manly moments he thought of her at all it was merely as a tart whom, should he one day find himself single-minded enough, it might be sweet to hire to initiate him at long last into the mysteries. For it happened that, though near thirty, Ebenezer was yet a virgin, and this for the reason explained in the previous chapters, that he was no person at all: he could picture any kind of man taking a woman — the bold as well as the bashful, the clean green boy and the dottering gray lecher — and work out in his mind the speeches appropriate to each under any of several sorts of circumstances. But because he felt himself no more one of these than another and admired all, when a situation presented itself he could never choose one role to play over all the rest he knew, and so always ended up either turning down the chance or, what was more usually the case, retreating gracelessly and in confusion, if not always embarrassment. Generally, therefore, women did not give him a second glance, not because he was uncomely — he had marked well that some of the greatest seducers have the faces of goats and the manner of lizards — but because, a woman having taken in his ungainly physique, there remained no other thing for her to notice.

Indeed he might have gone virgin to his grave — for there are urgencies that will be heeded if not one way then perforce another, and that same knuckly hand that penned him his couplets took no wooing to make his quick mistress — but on this March night in 1694 he was noticed by Joan Toast, in the following manner: the gallants were sitting in a ring at Locket's, as was their custom, drinking wine, gossiping, and boasting their conquests, both of the muse and of lesser wenches. There were Dick Merriweather, Tom Trent, and Ben Oliver already well wined, Johnny McEvoy and Joan Toast out for a customer, and Ebenezer incommunicado.

"Heigh-ho!" sighed Dick at a lull in their talk. " 'Twere a world one could live in did wealth follow wit, for gold's the best bait to snare sweet conies with, and then we poets were fearsome trappers all!"

"No need gold," replied Ben, "did God but give women half an eye for their interests. What makes your good lover, if not fire and fancy? And for whom if not us poets are fire and fancy the very stock in trade? From which 'tis clear, that of all men the poet is most to be desired as a lover: if his mistress have beauty, his is the eye will most be gladdened by't; if she have it not, his is the imagination that best can mask its lack. If she displease him, and he slough her off shortly, she hath at least had for a time the best that woman can get; if she please him, he will haply fix her beauty for good and all in verse, where neither age nor pox can spoil it. And as poets as a class are to be desired in this respect over other sorts of fellows, so should the best poet prove the best lover; were women wise to their interests they'd make seeking him out their life-work, and finding him would straight lay their favors a-quiver in his lap — nay, upon his very writing-desk — and beg him to look on 'em kindly!"

"Out on't, then!" said Dick to Joan Toast. "Ben speaks truly, and 'tis you shall pay me two guineas this night! Marry, and were't not that I am poor as any church mouse this week and have not long to live, you'd not buy immortality so cheap! My counsel is to snatch the bargain while it lasts, for a poet cannot long abide this world."

To which Joan rejoined without heat, "Fogh! Could any man of ye rhyme as light as talk, or swive grand as swagger, why, your verse'd be on every lip in London and your arse in every bed, I swear! But Talk pays no toll: I look to pacify nor ear nor bum with aught o' ye but my sweet John, who struts not a strut nor brags no brags, but saves words for his melodies and strength for the bed."

"Hi!" applauded Ben. "Well put!"

"If ill timed," John McEvoy added, frowning lightly upon her. "Let no such sentiments come 'twixt thee and two guineas this night, love, or thy sweet John'll have nor strength nor song, but a mere nimbly gut to bed ye with on the morrow."

" 'Sblood!" remarked Tom Trent without emotion. "If Lady Joan reason rightly, there's one among us who far more merits her favor than you, McEvoy, for as you speak one word to our two, so speak you ten to his one: I mean yon Ebenezer, who for lack of words should be chiefest poet and cocksman in this or any winehouse — John Milton and Don Juan Tenorio in a single skin!"

"Indeed he may be," vowed Joan, who, being by chance seated next to Ebenezer, gave him a pat on the hand.

"At any rate," smiled McEvoy, "having heard not a line of his making, I've no evidence he's not a poet."

"Nor I he's not that other," Joan added smartly, "and 'tis more praise on both counts than I can praise the rest o' ye." Then she colored somewhat and added: "I must own I've heard it said, Marry fat but love lean, for as how your fat fellow is most often a jolly and patient husband, but your bony lank is long all over and springy in the bed. Howbeit, I've no proof of the thing."

"Then 'sdeath, you shall have it!" cried Ben Oliver, "for there's more to extension than simple length. When the subject in hand's the tool of love, prithee give weight to the matter of diameter, for diameter's what gives weight to love's tool — whether 'tis in hand or in the subject, for that matter! Nay, lass, I'll stick by my fat, as't hath stuck by me. A plump cock's the very devil of the hen house, so they say: he treads 'em with authority!"

" 'Tis too weighty a question to leave unsettled," declared McEvoy. "What think you, Tom?"

"I take no interest in affairs of the flesh," said Tom, "but I have e'er observed that women, like men, have chiefest relish in things forbidden, and prize no conquest like that of a priest or saint. 'Tis my guess, moreover, that they find their trophy doubly sweet, inasmuch as 'tis hard come by to begin with, and when got 'tis fresh and potent as vintage brandy, for having been so long bottled and corked."