John Barth - The Sot-Weed Factor

"Is't not the name alone remains? And was't Thames from the day of creation?"

"Marry, Henry, you were ever one for posing riddles! Is't the form, then, makes the man, as the banks make the river, whate'er the name and content? Nay, I see already the objection, that form is not eternal. The man grows stout or hunchbacked with the years, and running water cuts and shapes the banks."

Burlingame nodded. " 'Tis but a change too slow for men to mark, save in retrospect. The crabbed old man recalls his spring, and records tell — or rocks to him who knows their language — where the river ran of old, that now runs such-a-way. 'Tis but a grossness of perception, is't not, that lets us speak of Thames and Tigris, or even France and England, but especially me and thee, as though what went by those names or others in time past hath some connection with the present object? I'faith, for that matter how is't we speak of objects if not that our coarse vision fails to note their change? The world's indeed a flux, as Heraclitus declared: the very universe is naught but change and motion."

Ebenezer had attended this discourse with a troubled air, but now he brightened. "Have you not in staring o'er the Precipice missed the Path?" he asked.

"I do not grasp your figure."

"How is't you convinced me thou'rt Henry Burlingame, when name and form alike were changed? How is't we know of changes too nice for our eyes to see?" He laughed, pleased at his acuity. "Nay, this very flux and change you make so much of: how can we speak of it at all, be it ne'er so swift or slow, were't not that we remember how things were before? Thy memory served as thy credentials, did it not? 'Tis the house of Identity, the Soul's dwelling place! Thy memory, my memory, the memory of the race: 'tis the constant from which we measure change; the sun. Without it, all were Chaos right enough."

"In sum, then, thou'rt thy memory?"

"Aye," Ebenezer agreed. "Or better, I know not what I am, but I know that I am, and have been, because of memory. 'Tis the thread that runs through all the beads to make a necklace; or like Ariadne's thread, that she gave to thankless Theseus, it marks my path through the labyrinth of Life, connects me with my starting place."

Burlingame smiled, and Ebenezer observed that his teeth, which had used to be white, were yellow and carious — at least two were missing altogether.

"You make a great thing of this memory, Eben."

"I'll own I'd not reflect ere now on its importance. 'Tis food for a sonnet, or two, don't you think?"

Burlingame only shrugged.

"Come, Henry; sure thou'rt not piqued that I have skirted thy pit!"

"Would God you had," Burlingame said. "But I fear me thou'rt seduced by metaphors, as was Descartes of old."

"How is that, pray? Can you refute me?"

"What more refutation need I make of this god Memory, than that thou'rt forgetting something?"

"What — " Ebenezer stopped and blushed as he realized the implication of what his friend had said.

"You did not recall sleeping on my shoulder on the way home from Pall Mall," Burlingame reminded him. "This demonstrates the first weakness of your soul-saving thread, which is, that it hath breaks in it. There are three others."

"If that is so," Ebenezer sighed, "I fear for my argument."

"You said 'twas Malaga we drank that night."

"Aye, I've a clear memory of't."

"And I that 'twas Madeira."

Ebenezer laughed. "As for that, I'd trust my memory over yours, inasmuch as 'twas my first wine, and I'd not likely forget the name of't."

"True enough," Burlingame agreed, "if you got it aright in the first place. But I too marked it well as your first glass and well knew Malaga from Madeira, whereas to you the names were new and meaningless, and thus lightly confused."

"That may be, but I am certain 'twas Malaga nonetheless."

"No matter," Burlingame declared. "The fact is, where memories disagree there's oft no means to settle the dispute, and that's the second weakness. The third is, that in large measure we recall whate'er we wish, and forget the rest. 'Twas not until you summoned up this quatrain, for example, that I recalled having slipped upstairs to a whore the while you were composing it. My shame at leaving you thus alone, for one thing, forced it soon out of mind."

"I'faith, my polestar leads me on the rocks!" Ebenezer lamented. "What is the fourth objection to't?"

"That e'en those things it holds, it tends to color," Burlingame replied. " 'Tis as if Theseus at every turn rolled up the thread and laid it out again in a prettier pattern."

"I fear me thy objections are fatal," Ebenezer said. "They are like the four black crows that ate up Gretel's peas, wherewith she'd marked her trail into the forest."

"Nay, these are but weaknesses, not mortal wounds," said Burlingame. "They don't obliterate the path but only obfuscate it, so that try as we might we never can be certain of't." He smiled. "Howbeit, there is yet a fifth, that by's own self could do the job."

" 'Slife, you'd as well uncage the rascal and let us see him plainly."

"My memory served as my credentials, as you told me," Burlingame said. "Blurred, imperfect as it is from careless use, and thine as well, the twain agreed on points enough to satisfy you I am Burlingame, though I could not prove it any other way. But suppose the thread gets lost completely, as't sometimes doth. Suppose I'd had no recollection of my past at all?"

"Then you'd have been Colonel Sayer for all of me," Ebenezer replied. "Or if haply you'd declared yourself my Henry, but knew no more, I'd ne'er have credited your tale. But 'tis a rare occurrence, is't not, this total loss of memory, and rarer yet where no other proof exists of one's identity?"

"No doubt. But suppose again I looked like the man who fetched you to London, and spoke and dressed like him, and e'en was called Burlingame by Trent and Merriweather, and fat Ben Oliver. Moreover, suppose I had before witnesses signed the name as Burlingame was wont to sign it. Then suppose one day I swore I was not Burlingame at all, nor knew aught of his whereabouts, but only a clever actor who had got the knack of aping signatures, and had passed myself as Henry for a lark."

"Thy suppositions dizzy me!" Ebenezer cried.

"However strong your convictions," Burlingame went on, "you'd ne'er have proof that I was he."

"I must own that's true, though it pains me."

"Now another case — "

"Keep thy case, I beg you!" Ebenezer said. "I am cased from head to toe."

"Nay, 'tis to the point. Suppose today I'd claimed to be Burlingame, for all my alteration, and composed a line to fit your quatrain — nay, a whole life story — which did not match your own recollection; and when you questioned it, suppose I'd challenged your own identity, and made you out to be the clever impostor. At best you'd have no proof, would you now?"

"I grant I would not," Ebenezer admitted. "Save my own certainty. But it strikes me the burden of proof would rest with you."

"In that case, yes. But I said at best. If I had learned aught of your past, however, the discrepancies could be charged to your own poor posing, and if further I produced someone very like you in appearance, 'tis very possible the burden of proof would be on you. And if I brought a few of your friends in on the game, or even old Andrew and your sister, to disclaim you, I'll wager even you would doubt your authenticity."

"Mercy, mercy!" Ebenezer cried. "No more of these tenuous hypotheses, lest I lose my wits! I am satisfied thou'rt Henry; I swear to thee I am Ebenezer, and there's an end on't! Such casuistical speculations lead only to the Pit."