John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

Susan came into the little parlor and stared at Ebenezer without comment.

" 'Twas that or the pistol," he said. Something in her expression alarmed him, and his tone was defensive. Smith reappeared with two women from the kitchen; when the drams were passed round, the Frenchwoman perched on Sowter's knees and the other on Smith's lap.

"So ye fled your master yet again?" Sowter called merrily to Susan. "I swear by Martin's pox, he keeps a light hold on his wenches!"

"Aye, I fled him," Susan said, not joining in the general mirth.

"And did you find another such fool as I," Ebenezer inquired acidly, "to pay your escape and wait your pleasure in Mitchell's barn?" Whether because her wretched appearance — she was shivering, and both her clothes and her face were more ruined than ever — reminded him that his legal wife was a pig-driver, an opium-eater, and the lowest sort of prostitute, or simply because he had never properly thanked her for nursing him back to health, the strangeness of her manner made him feel guilty for having ignored her during the composition of his poem.

"Aye, I found another. A dotard too old for such schemes, says I, though there's no law yet against dreaming." Despite the levity of her words, both her tone and her expression were grave. "I have more cock in my eye than he hath in his breeches, and I'm not cock-eyed. A bespectacled old fool, he was, with a withered arm."

"Nay!" Ebenezer breathed. "Tell me not he had a withered arm!"

"Aye, and he did."

"Yet surely 'twas his left arm was withered, was't not?"

Susan hesitated, and then in the same voice said, "Nay, as I think on't, 'twas his right: he sat at my left in the wagon whilst I told him the tale of my misfortune, and I recall he was obliged to reach over with his far arm to tweak and abuse me."

Ebenezer felt a sudden nausea. "But he was a peasant, for all that," he insisted.

"Not a bit of't. 'Twas clear from his clothes and carriage he was a gentleman of quality, and he said he had arrived that very day from London."

"I'faith," said one of the kitchen-women, "ye'll find no London gentlemen in the curing-house, Susie; ye should have let him swive ye!"

"Nay, God!" Ebenezer cried, so mournfully that the whole company left off their mirth and regarded him with consternation. " 'Tis I he'll swive! That man was Andrew Cooke of Middlesex, my father, come to see how fares his son! The pistol!" He jumped to his feet. "There is no help for't now!"

"Stay!" Smith commanded. "Stop him, Susan!"

" 'Tis the pistol!" the poet cried again, and fled for his chamber before anyone could detain him.

Such was his agitation that not until he was in his room, still lighted by a candle he had left burning on the writing table, did the Laureate recall that he had no pistol with which to destroy himself, nor even a short-sword — his own having been stolen along with the rest of his costume in the corncrib and never returned to him. He heard the company swarming up the stairs from the parlor, and threw himself in despair upon his bed.

The first to reach his door was Susan; she took one look at him and bade the others stay back.

"We'll wait below," Smith grumbled. "But mind, see to't there's no trouble. I shan't have his idle brains all over my house."

All this the poet heard face down in the quilts. Susan closed the door and sat on the edge of his bed.

"Do ye mean to blow your head off?" she inquired.

" 'Tis the final misfortune." he answered. "I have no pistol, nor means to purchase one. Ye'll not be widowed this evening, so it seems."

"Will your father's wrath be so terrible?"

"I'Christ, 'tis past imagining!" Ebenezer groaned. "Yet e'en were he the very soul of mercy, I am too shamed to face him."

Susan sighed. " 'Twill be passing strange, to be the widow of a man that ne'er hath wifed me."

"Nor ever shall!" Ebenezer sat up angrily. "Much you care, with your curing-house salvages and your opium! Marry you my friend Henry Burlingame, that will wife you with your swine — there's a match!"

"The world is strange and full o' wickedness," Susan murmured.

"So at least is this verminous province, whose delights I was supposed to sing!" He shook his head. "Ah, marry, I have no call to injure you: forgive my words."

" 'Tis a hard fall ye've fallen, but prithee speak no more o' pistols," Susan said. "Flee, if ye must, and start again elsewhere."

"Where flee?" cried Ebenezer. "Better the pistol than another day in Maryland!"

"Back to England, I mean: hide yourself till the fleet sails, and thou'rt quit of your father for good and all."

"Very good," the Laureate said bitterly. "And shall I kiss the captain for my freight?"

"Mr. Cooke!" Susan whispered suddenly. She leaned over him and clutched his shoulders. "Nay: Ebenezer! Husband!"

"What's this? What are you doing?"

"Stay, hear me!" Susan urged. " 'Tis true I'm but a whore and scurvy night-bag, and ruined by ill-usage. 'Tis true ye'd small choice in the wedding of me, and ye've small cause to love me. But I say again 'tis a strange life, and full o' things ye little dream of: not all is as ye think, my dove!"

" 'Sheart!"

"I love ye!" she hissed. "Let's fly together from this sink o' perdition and begin anew in England! There's many a trick a poor man can play in London, and I know the bagful of 'em!"

"But marry," Ebenezer protested, snatching at the gentlest excuse he could think of. "I've not one fare, let alone two!"

Susan was not daunted. " 'Tis a peddlepot ye've wed," she declared. "I'd as well turn my shame to our advantage, to rid us o' Maryland forever."

"What is't you intend?"

"I'll hie me to the curing-house anon, and whore the sum."

Ebenezer shook his head. " 'Tis a noble plan," he sighed. "Such a whoredom were more a martyrdom, methinks, and merits awe. But I cannot go."

The woman released him. "Not go?"

"Nay, not though I changed my name and face and escaped my father's wrath forever. The living are slaves to memory and conscience, and should we flee together, the first would plague me with thoughts of Father and my sister Anna, while the second — " He paused. "I cannot say it less briefly or cruelly than this: nine months ago I pledged my love to the London girl Joan Toast and offered her my innocence, which she spurned. 'Twas after that I vowed to remain as virginal as a priest and worship the god of poetry. This Joan Toast had a lover, that was her pimp as well, and albeit 'twas on his account my father sent me off to Maryland, and I had every cause to think his mistress loathed me, yet she was ever in my thoughts, and in my most parlous straits thereafter, I never broke my pledge. Think, then, how moved I was to learn that she had followed after me, out of love! I had resolved to wed her, and make her mistress of my estate, and indeed I'd have done no less had all gone well, so much I love her! Now Malden's mine no more, and my Joan is disappeared from sight, and whether 'twas to escape marrying a wretched pauper she flew, or to join her lover McEvoy, still she came hither on my account, as did he. How could I fly with you to London, when I know not how they fare, or whether they live or die?"

Susan commenced weeping. "Am I so horrid beside your Joan? Nay, don't trouble to lie: I know by sight the beauty of her face, and the loathesomeness of mine. Little d'ye dream how jealous I am of her!"

"The world hath used you hardly," Ebenezer said.

"Ye know not half! I am its very sign and emblem!"

"And yet thou'rt generous and valiant, and have saved both Joan Toast and myself from death."

Susan grasped his arm. "What would ye say, if ye learned Joan Toast was in this very house?"