John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"And I her murtherer!" cried Ebenezer. He sprang up from the chair. "I shall see her grave and end my life as well! Where is her body?"

" 'Tis where it hath been many and many a time since the fall o' the year," Susan said, and laid her hand upon her chest. "Here is the corse of your Joan Toast, before your eyes!"

"Ah, nay, this cannot be!" But the realization that it was had already sent fresh tears down his cheeks. " 'Tis too impossible! Henry — Henry would have known, i'Christ! And Smith, your father — "

"Henry Burlingame hath known me from the night ye came to Mitchell's, and hath preserved the secret at my request."

"But the story of Susan Warren and Elizabeth Williams — "

" 'Tis true, the whole of't, save for one detail: it is the story of the poor girl's plight when I was brought to Mitchell's. 'Twas my likeness to her, and hers to Elizabeth Williams, that had fetched the high price he paid me: soon after he'd enthralled me with his opium, he murthered Susan in a fit o' rage, and buried her as Elizabeth Williams!"

" 'Sheart!"

" 'Twas necessary then," Joan declared, "to hide his crime, for he wanted no attention brought to bear on his business. Therefore he sought out William Smith at Malden and told him the girl had died o' pox; then, to be entirely safe, he promised to make Smith a wealthy whoremaster on condition he avow me as his daughter. The cooper's greed got the better of his sentiment, and of course I had no say in the matter."

"But marry!" Ebenezer cried. "This Mitchell's a greater fiend than his master Coode!"

"I know not who is Mitchell's master, or whether in sooth he hath one, but I know there is some monstrous plot afoot. Mitchell is freighting his opium to every quarter of the Province, and girls like me are set a-purpose to pox the hapless Indians."

The image of this latter, together with the memory of his behavior at Mitchell's and his share of responsibility for her plight in general, were too much for Ebenezer to endure: he was seized with a fit of dry retches that left him lying exhausted across the bed.

" 'Twas merely as a test I mentioned Joan Toast's name, to gauge your feeling for her; and another when I bargained to swive ye for my boat fare: had ye spurned me I'd have marked it to my ugliness, inasmuch as ye'd meant to rape me on the Cyprian when I was comelier. Yet when instead ye had at me in the bedchamber 'twas still no flattery, for ye declared ye'd play the virgin yet at Malden with Joan Toast."

"Only let me die for shame!" Ebenezer wailed. "Fetch me a pistol from below and take revenge for all your suffering! Or summon John McEvoy and tell him what you've endured on my account — I shall share his pleasure in murthering me!"

"I have already seen John McEvoy," Joan replied, "in this very house, not six weeks past. He had heard of your loss of Malden and sought me out through Burlingame whilst ye were ill."

"How must he loathe me!"

"E'en ere he'd seen the state I'd come to," Joan said glibly, " 'twas his greatest wish to kill ye."

"Then fetch him in to shoot me, and have done with't!"

"Hear me out." Joan moved to stand over him at the edge of the bed. "I told him we were man and wife, albeit ye were still virginal, and I loved ye yet despite my sore afflictions; and I told him that for your misfortunes, and my own, and his as well, no one of us could be blamed alone, but all must share the guilt. At last I said I love him still, but not as I love my husband, and that if he did ye harm, 'twould but be injuring me as well. Then I sent him away and bade him return no more, for A woman may have at once three-score o' lovers, but only one beloved at a time. I have had no news of him since, nor do I wish any."

Ebenezer was too overwhelmed to speak.

"Here is six pounds your father gave me to flee Mitchell with," Joan concluded briskly, laying the money on the counterpane. " 'Tis enough for one fare, and two hours in the curing-house will earn the other. The bark Pilgrim sails from Cambridge on the early-morning tide, to join the fleet at Kecoughtan."

"You are too good!" the poet wept. "What can I say or do to show my love?"

"No man can love the wreck ye married," Joan replied. "But if ye truly wish to ease my chore, there is a thing I'd have ye do."

"Anything!" Ebenezer swore, and then realized with horror what she might ask.

"I see your fear upon your face," Joan observed. "Put it by; 'tis not your innocence I crave."

"I swear to you — "

"Pray don't; 'twere a needless perjury. I ask ye but to wear this fishbone ring ye gave me, that hath such a curious value with some planters, and give me to wear in turn your silver seal ring: 'twill make me feel more a wife and less a hedge-whore."

" 'Tis little recompense," Ebenezer said, and though in fact it gave him considerable pain to relinquish the ring his sister had given him, he dared not show his feelings when he pulled it from his finger and Joan slipped the larger fishbone in its place.

"Swear to me thou'rt my husband!" she demanded.

"I swear't to Heav'nl And thou'rt my wife, for ever and aye!"

"Nay, Eben, 'twere too much for me to crave, and you to swear. I dare not hope ye'll even wait."

"May some god strike me dead if I do not! How can you think of't!"

Joan shook her head and turned the silver seal ring on her finger. "I must go to the curing-house now in any case," she said grimly. "The ring will help."

For some time after her departure Ebenezer lay fully dressed across the bed, still overcome by all he'd learned that evening. The candle, freshly lit after supper to illuminate the completion of his poem, had long since burned low and was extinguished by the slight draft from the hallway upon Joan's exit. In one hand he clutched the money she had left him; he fingered the fishbone ring and prayed wordless prayers of gratitude to whatever gods had granted him this means of escaping his father's wrath on the one hand and suicide on the other, and at the same time of discharging, in some measure, his awful obligation to Joan Toast.

"What business hath a poet with the business of the world?" he asked himself rhetorically. "With properties and estates, the tangled quarrels of governments, and the nets of love? They are his subject matter only, and the more he plays a part therein, the less he sees them clearly and entire. This was the great mistake I made in starting: the poet must fling himself into the arms of Life, e'en as I said, and pry into her priviest charms and secrets like a lover, but he must hide his heart away and ne'er surrender it, be cold as the callous gigolo, whose art with women springs from his detachment; or like those holy fathers that wallowed once in sin, the better to hie them to their cells and reject the world with understanding, so the poet must engage himself in whate'er world he's born to, but shake free of't ere it shackle him. He is a keen and artful traveler, that finding himself in alien country apes the dress and manners of them that dwell there, the better to mark their barbarous custom; but a traveler nonetheless, that doth not linger overlong. He may play at love, or learning, or money-getting, or government — aye, even at morals or metaphysic — so long as he recalls 'tis but a game played for the sport of't, and for failure or success alike cares not a fart. I am a poet and no creature else; I shall feel conscience only for my art, and there's an end on't!"

This reflection he had launched by way of justifying his flight with Joan; by the time it assumed the tone of a manifesto, however, a new thought had occurred to him, so abominable that he thrust it from his mind at once, and yet so fascinating in its wickedness that it thrust itself back again and again.

"Ah God, that I should e'en conceive it! And whilst the poor wretch toils and shivers in some salvage's embrace to earn our passage!"