Margaret Atwood - Alias Grace

— for which I expressed much gratitude, although I could barely taste anything, as I have no appetite at present.

It is a sad thing to be an invalid, and I pray every night that you may be spared, and will take care not to overtire yourself with too much study and nervous strain, and with staying up all night by lamplight, ruining your eyes and puzzling your brain to pieces, and to wear wool next the skin until the warm weather is fully here. Our first lettuces have appeared, and the apple tree is budded; I suppose where you are it is still covered with snow. I do not think that Kingston, being so far north and on the lakeshore, can be at all good for the lungs, as it must be very chill and damp. Are your rooms well-heated? I do hope you are eating strengthening food, and that they have a good butcher there.

I send you all my love, dear Son, and Maureen and Samantha beg to be remembered to you; and all of us await the news, which we hope will come very soon, of your next Visit to us, until which I remain as always,

Your very loving,

Mother.

From Dr. Simon Jordan, care of Major C. D. Humphrey, Lower Union Street, Kingston, Canada West; to Dr. Edward Murchie, Dorchester, Massachusetts, The United States of America. May 1st, 1859.

My dear Edward:

I was sorry not to have been able to make a visit to Dorchester, to see how you are getting on, now that you have hung your shingle up, and have been busy ministering to the local halt and the blind, while I have been gypsying about Europe, seeking how to cast out devils; which, between us, I have not learned the secret of as yet; but as you may suppose, the time between my arrival at Loomisville, and my departure from it, was much taken up with preparations, and the afternoons were perforce consecrated to my mother. But upon my return, we must arrange to meet, and to lift a glass or two together “for auld lang syne”; and to talk over past adventures, and current prospects.

After a moderately smooth journey across the Lake, I have arrived safely at my destination. I have not yet met my correspondent and, as it were, employer, the Reverend Verringer, as he is away on a visit to Toronto, and so I still have that pleasure to anticipate; although if his letters to me are any indication, he suffers like many clergymen from a punishable lack of wit and a desire to treat us all as straying sheep, of which he is to be the shepherd. However, it is to him — and to the good Dr. Binswanger, who proposed me to him as the best man for the purpose on the western side of the Atlantic — for the price, which is not high, the Methodists being notoriously frugal —

that I owe this splendid opportunity; an opportunity which I hope to be able to exploit in the interests of the advancement of knowledge, the mind and its workings being still, despite considerable progress, a terra incognita.

As to my situation — Kingston is not a very prepossessing town, as it was burned to the ground some two decades ago and has been rebuilt with charmless dispatch. The new buildings are of stone or brick, which will, one hopes, make them less prone to conflagrations. The Penitentiary itself is in the style of a Greek temple, and they are very proud of it here; though which pagan god is intended to be worshipped therein, I have yet to discover.

I have secured rooms in the residence of a Major C. D. Humphrey, which although not luxurious, will be commodious enough for my purposes. I fear however that my landlord is a dipsomaniac; on the two occasions upon which I have encountered him, he was having difficulty putting on his gloves, or else taking them off, he seemed uncertain which; and gave me a red-eyed glare, as if to demand what the Devil I was doing in his house. I predict that he will end as an inhabitant of the private Asylum I still dream of establishing; although I must curb my propensity to view each new acquaintance as a future paying inmate. It is remarkable how frequently military men, when retired on half-pay, go to the bad; it is as if, having become habituated to strong excitements and violent emotions, they must duplicate them in civilian life. However, my arrangements were made, not with the Major — who would doubtless not have been able to recall having made them — but with his long-suffering wife.

I take my meals — with the exception of the breakfasts, which have thus far been even more deplorable than the breakfasts we shared as medical students in London — at a squalid inn located in the vicinity, where every meal is a burnt offering, and nothing is thought the worse for the addition of a little dirt and grime, and a seasoning of insects. That I remain here despite these travesties of the culinary art, I trust you will recognize as a measure of my true devotion to the cause of science.

As for society, I must report that there are pretty girls here as elsewhere, albeit dressed in the Paris fashions of three years ago, which is to say the New York fashions of two. Despite the reforming tendencies of the country’s present government, the town abounds both in disgruntled Tories, and also in petty provincial snobberies; and I anticipate that your bearish and carelessly dressed, and what is more to the purpose, your Yankee democrat friend, will be viewed with some suspicion by its more partisan inhabitants.

Nonetheless, the Governor — art the urging of Reverend Verringer, I suppose — has gone out of his way to be accommodating, and has arranged to have Grace Marks placed at my disposal for several hours every afternoon. She appears to act in the household as a sort of unpaid servant, though whether this service is viewed by her as a favour or a penance, I have yet to ascertain; nor will it be an easy task, as the gentle Grace, having been hardened in the fire now for some fifteen years, will be a very hard nut to crack. Enquiries such as mine are ineffective, unless the trust of the subject may be gained; but judging from my knowledge of penal institutions, I suspect Grace has had scant reason to trust anyone at all for a very long period of time. I have had only one opportunity thus far of viewing the object of my investigations, and so it is too soon to convey my impressions. Let me say only that I am hopeful; and, as you have so kindly expressed a desire to have news of my progress, I will take pains to keep you informed of it; and until then, I remain, my dear Edward,

Your old friend and erstwhile companion,

Simon.

Chapter 7

Simon sits at his writing table, gnawing the end of his pen and looking out the window at the grey and choppy waters of Lake Ontario. Across the bay is Wolfe Island, named after the famous poetic general, he supposes. It’s a view he does not admire — it is so relentlessly horizontal — but visual monotony can sometimes be conducive to thought.

A gust of rain patters against the windowpane; low tattered clouds are scudding above the lake. The lake itself heaves and surges; waves are pulled in against the shore, recoil, are pulled in again; and the willow trees below him toss themselves like heads of long green hair, and bend and thrash. Something pale blows past: it looks like a woman’s white scarf or veil, but then he sees it is only a gull, fighting the wind. The mindless turmoil of Nature, he thinks; Tennyson’s teeth and claws. He feels none of the jaunty hopefulness he has just expressed. Instead he is uneasy, and more than a little dispirited. His reason for being here seems precarious; but it’s his best chance at the moment. When he entered upon his medical studies, it was out of a young man’s perversity. His father was a wealthy mill owner then, and fully expected Simon to take over the business in time; and Simon himself expected the same thing. First, however, he would rebel a little; he would slip the traces, travel, study, test himself in the world, and also in the world of science and medicine, which had always appealed to him. Then he would return home with a hobby-horse to ride, and the comfortable assurance that he need not ride it for money. Most of the best scientists, he knows, have private incomes, which allows them the possibility of disinterested research.