Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

  “More likely,” his Uncle suggests, “any Doctors who’re already there will run you out of town, if they don’t kill you first, because they don’t want the Competition.”

  “But it’s America, Sir! Competition is of her Essence!”

  “Nobody here wants Competition,” Ives LeSpark re-entering, shaking his head gravely. “All wish but to name their Price, and maintain it, without the extra work and worry all these damn’d Up-starts require.”

  “More work for you, Nunk,” supposes Ethelmer.

  “We are like Physicians, there is always enough Work for us, as we treat the Moral Diseases,” replies the Attorney, “nor are we any more dispos’d than our Brother Doctors to meeting other folks’ Prices,— hence our zeal in defending Monopoly.”

  “A form of Sloth,” notes the Revd, “that only Brutality can maintain for long, soon destroy’d if ’tis not abandon’d first.”

  “Rubbish,” several Voices pronounce at once.

  “Looks as if I’ll need Fire-Arms,” reckons DePugh.

  “You know the Uncle to see, then,” advises Aunt Euph.

  “Already your Load increases,” Brae puts in. “A Man oughtn’t to be too weigh’d down.”

  “Franz told us we need bring but the proper Gaze.”

  “Hmm. Let us see.”

  “Be warn’d, Cousin. . . .”

  “He’s Magnetick,” says ’Thelmer.

  Most of Hurworth (the Revd has meanwhile continu’d) believe William Emerson a practicing Magician. Sheep-tenders have reported flights, usually at dusk, Passages of shadows aloft that can only have been one of Emerson’s classes out upon a Field-Trip, for he is teaching them to fly. Toward Sunset, when ev’ry least Ruffle in the Nap of the Terrain is magnified as Shadow, they’ll be out looking for traces of Roman and earlier ruins. In the Twilight they ascend, one by one, dutiful Pupils, Caps tied firmly down, Rust Light upon the Wrinkles in their Clothing, to flock above the Village, before moving out across the Fells, following south-westerly the Ley-Lines he shows them, sighting upon the Palatine Residence at Bishop Auckland, whilst Chapel-Spires, roadside Crosses, pre-historic standing Stones, holy Spring-heads, one by one in perfect Line, go passing directly beneath,— until just at the river, over ancient Vinovium, the Flock will pause to re-group. He is teaching them to sense rather than see this Line, to learn exactly what it feels like to yaw too much to its port or starboard. The Ley seems to generate, along its length, an Influence,— palpable as that of Earth’s Magnetism upon a Needle,— “That is,” Dixon will avow years later to Mason, with every appearance of sincerity, “I knew I could feel those Lines.”

  “Bisley Church,” recalls Mason, “with a history of unending village Meannesses,— false Surveys, ’cursèd Wells, vicious Hoaxes, ruin’d ceremonies, switch’d Corpses . . . and on into Stultification unending, traditional accounts of its construction suggesting, if not the intervention, then at least the cooperative presence of the D—— 1,— was meant for a field near Chalford,— but each night the stones were removed and transported in a right line, through the air, at brisk speed, to the church’s present site. You can take a Map, draw a line straight from the Barrow near Great Badminton we call the Giant’s Caves, to the Long Barrow near The Camp, and you’ll observe it passes directly over Bisley, and might have been the church stones’ route of transport, the ancient Barrows being known sources of, and foci for, the Tellurick Energies.”

  “Oh,— well our Leys were nowhere near as evil as thah’ . . . ? Flying them was indeed quite pleasant, yes quite pleasant indeed,—

  Over Wearside, here at Nightfall, exactly upon this Edge between sunlight too bright to see much by and moonlight providing another reading in coal-blue or luminous bone,— when spirits also are said in these parts to come out,— so beneath them now do the Dark-Age Maps, the long, dogged Roman Palimpsest, the earlier contours of Brigantum itself, emerge at a certain combination of low Sun-angle and Scholarly Altitude above the Fell,— coming up through the Spoil-heaps and the grazing, in colors of evening, in Map-makers’ ink-washes, green Walnut, Weld, Brazil-wood, Lake, Terra-Sienna, Cullens-Earth and Burnt Umber,— as Emerson meanwhile points out to his Flock the lines of the Roman baths and barracks and the temples to Mithras, the crypts in which the mysteries were pass’d on to novices, once long ago invisibly nested at the Camp’s secret core, now open to anyone’s curiosity. “The moral lesson in this,” declares Emerson, “being,— Don’t Die.”

  “The Romans,” he continues, in class the next day, “were preoccupied with conveying Force, be it hydraulic, or military, or architectural,— along straight Lines. The Leys are at least that old,— perhaps Druidic, tho’ others say Mithraic, in origin. Whichever Cult shall gain the honor, Right Lines beyond a certain Magnitude become of less use or instruction to those who must dwell among them, than intelligible, by their immense regularity, to more distant Onlookers, as giving a clear sign of Human Presence upon the Planet.

  “The Argument for a Mithraic Origin is encourag’d by the Cult’s known preference for underground Temples, either natural or man-made. They would have found a home in Durham, here among Pit-men and young Plutonians like yourselves,— indeed, let us suppose the earliest Coal-Pits were discover’d by Mithraist Sappers . . . ? from the Camp up at Vinovia, poking about for a suitable Grotto,— who, seeking Ormazd, God of Light, found rather a condens’d Blackness which hides Light within, till set aflame . . . mystickal Stuff, Coal. Don’t imagine any of you notice that, too busy getting it all over yerselves, or resenting it for being so heavy, or counting Chaldrons. Pretending it solid, when like light and Heat, it indeed flows. Eppur’ si muove, if yese like.”

  Flow is his passion. He stands waist-deep in the Tees, fishing, contemplating its currents, believing, as Dixon will one day come to believe of the Wear, that ’twill draw out the Gout from his leg. Emerson has no patience with analysis. He loves Vortices, may stare at ’em for hours, if he’s the Time, so far as they remain in the River,— yet, once upon Paper, he hates them, hates the misuse,— and therefore hates Euler, for example, at least as much as he reveres Newton. The first book he publish’d was upon Fluxions. He is much shorter than Dixon. He has devis’d a sailing-Scheme, whereby Winds are imagin’d to be forms of Gravity acting not vertically but laterally, along the Globe’s Surface,— a Ship to him is the Paradigm of the Universe. “All the possible forces in play are represented each by its representative sheets, stays, braces, and shrouds and such,— a set of lines in space, each at its particular angle. Easy to see why sea-captains go crazy,— godlike power over realities so simplified. . . .”

  The Telescope, the Fluxions, the invention of Logarithms and the frenzy of multiplication, often for its own sake, that follow’d have for Emerson all been steps of an unarguable approach to God, a growing clarity,— Gravity, the Pulse of Time, the finite speed of Light present themselves to him as aspects of God’s character. It’s like becoming friendly with an erratic, powerful, potentially dangerous member of the Aristocracy. He holds no quarrel with the Creator’s sovereignty, but is repeatedly appall’d at the lapses in Attention, the flaws in Design, the squand’rings of life and energy, the failures to be reasonable, or to exercise common sense,— first appall’d, then angry. We are taught,— we believe,— that it is love of the Creation which drives the Philosopher in his Studies. Emerson is driven, rather, by a passionate Resentment.

  Upon concluding their Course of Study, Dixon’s Class are brought in for a Valedictory Chat with Emerson.

  “Your turn, Jeremiah. What’s your aim in life?”

  “Surveyor.”

  “What, Fool!— Staring yourself Blind . . . ? Chaining through the Glaur . . . ? Another damn’d Lamentation’s added to the List,— ‘Oink, oink.’ ”

  A head-Shake, a Deferential Grin, yet, “These are busy times in Durham, Sir, the Demand for Enclosure having made Nabobs already of
more than one plain Dodman. It may happen overnight, upon the Proceeds of but one Commission,— for, prudently invested,— ”

  “Assuming you know what ‘prudently’ is, even so,— there are only so many of these big spenders. What happens when you run out of ’Squireocracy?”

  “Business can but increase,— between enclosure and subdivision . . . ? why there’s work enough in Durham, the very day, for an hundred Surveyors.”

  Emerson gazes at nothing anyone can make out, for a long time. “You and your Class-mates all know,” he murmurs at last, “of my confidence in Astrology,— yet here, facing thee, Plutonian Counter-example, must my Faith halt, and tremble. Regard th’self,— born under the Sign of the Lion, destin’d thereby for optimism, ambition, power in the larger World,— yet what do I behold instead, but a tepid, slothful Mope, with the Passions of a Pit-prop, whose dreams extend no further than siting Gazebos for jump’d-up Mustard-Farmers from Tow Law? whose naked Aim is but to accumulate Money, ever more Money, with as little work as possible? Tell me,— what natal Sign does that, I would have to say, exclusively, suggest to you?”

  “The Bull,” mumbles Dixon, aware this is also Emerson’s natal Sign, but not wishing to seem too pleas’d with it. “Don’t think I haven’t had the same thought, Sir, but I looked for it in the Parish records, and there I am, end of July.”

  “Happen you’ve somewhat in the region of Pisces I don’t know about? For there’s the Sign of Enclosure . . . Leonian Fire kept ever within . . . ? artfully hidden . . . ? Aye, of course,— that must be it.”

  “Why then advise me, as tha did from the outset, that my Destiny was to inscribe the Earth . . . ? Why show any of us the Leys as tha did, and the great Roman streets,— direct as Shafts of Light’s what tha call’d them. . . .”

  “To weed out you who are too content with Spectacle,” Emerson replies.

  “Of the Pupils thou’ve declined to teach further, there are enough of us to form a Club,” complains Dixon.

  “You wanted only the flying, Jeremiah. ’Twas never about Flying.”

  “What else could it’ve been . . . ?”

  “Fret not, you will execute Maps of breath-taking beauty, which is a form of Flight not at all dishonorable.”

  “Not what Ah have in mind, tho’ Ah do thank thee, may I say Friend Emerson, now we’re no longer master and— ”

  “Tha may not . . . ? I am still Sir to you. Chain-carrier, go,— some fool’s stately Ditches await thee.”

  Not that many years later, here is Dixon in his Teacher’s Parlor, trying not to look at, much less eat, the Refreshments, observing instead the wordless messages between Emerson and Maire, and speculating as to who might have ow’d whom what, in arranging this Conference, in which Dixon seems to be some sort of desirable Package, if not Prize.

  “I am off to St. Omer,” the Priest says, “the merciless Environment of children, the company of most of whom I would not willingly have sought.”

  “Is it your Oath of Obedience?” The Geordie O, as if a Comment upon Maire’s failure to seem Jesuit enough, prolonged only just short of giving offense.

  Maire sighs. “You have never met one of us before?”

  “Aye, mind yourself, Dixon, you’ve studied De Litteraria Expeditione et Soforthia,— show some respect.”

  Dixon, whose hat until now has been upon his head Quaker style, sweeps it off smartly enough, blurting, “Pray thee Sir, my admiration for thah’ great Traverse, is match’d only by some of my feelings about Newton . . . ?”

  It gets him a wan smile. “I can imagine how you taught them that, William,— the march from Rome to Rimini, across plains and over mountains, with galloping Horses, Telescopes,— perhaps, knowing your ways, a few Brigands as well. How could it fail to appeal to boys’ imaginations? I should be taking down Memoranda.”

  “I’ve tried to scribble an Angle or two whilst upon horseback,” says Dixon, “— I stand ’maz’d to hear of Father Boscovich’s long poem of the Tale at first Hand, that he wrote, as you went . . . ?”

  “Indeed, and in Scribe as fair as that produc’d upon an oak desk in a solid house far from the sea. ’Twill soon, I’m told, be printed in London. He did also alight now and then to attend to less literary Tasks, such as measuring two degrees of Latitude, for the first time in History, but,— let me draw back from the brink of Conjugate Capital Sin, and only add, that I commend and celebrate mio caro Ruggiero, as much as will satisfy you,— and may God be with him, in his present sojourn in London.” His (as many suppos’d) secret Arrival the year before last, having been intended to reassure the British as to the continu’d Neutrality, in the present War, of the strategic Dalmatian Port of Ragusa,— Fr. Boscovich’s birth-place, as it happen’d.

  “What need of Deity,” growls Emerson, “in London, among the Nabobs and philosophers? Stirring speeches to Diplomats . . . Glass of Madeira and a pipe at the jolly old Goose and Gridiron. Election to the hallow’d Society itself . . . Wonderful stuff, why aye,— yet what’s his game, now, Kit?”

  Nodding submissively, as if it had been coerc’d from him,— a silent “Very Well,”— “Brother Ruggiero wishes to measure a Degree, in America.”

  “How forthright, look at this.”

  “Latitude or Longitude?” inquires Dixon.

  “Latitude. No further inland than necessary.”

  Emerson snorts. “No Rome to Rimini this time . . . ?”

  “He’d settle for a fraction of a Degree.”

  “He’ll get none, Sir. This King will never allow Jesuit philosophers into British North America . . . ? along either co-ordinate, be their motives unblemish’d as candle-wax,— and as to that,— what are your motives, why does the Society of Jesus after thirteen years suddenly want to start measuring Degrees again? How does it help you thump any more Protestants than you already do, basically?”

  “Mayn’t we be allow’d some curiosity as to the shape and size of the planet we’re living on?” replies Maire, unblinking, just short of questioning the civility of his host.

  “Why aye, so may we all . . . ? But what your line-running Mate Boscovich also wants, indeed openly enough for word of it to’ve reach’d even the tilth-stopp’d Ears of this country Philosopher, is a great number of Jesuit Observatories, flung as a Web, all over the World it seems,— modeled somewhat, I’m told, upon the provisions made for observing the Transits of Venus. An obvious Question arises,— how often will Emplacements like that ever be needed? Any Celestial Event close enough for it to matter which part of the Earth ’tis observ’d from, being surely too rare to merit that sizable an investment . . . ? Therefore,—” Emerson’s notorious “therefore,”— intended, Dixon has at length discover’d, to bully his students into believing there must have been some train of logic they fail’d to see,— “the inner purpose, rather, can only be,— to penetrate China. The rest being but Diversion.”

  Maire, face forbearing, shrugs, “This is the Epoch of our Exile, William. Day upon Day, Jesuits are being expell’d from the kingdoms of Europe. Maria Theresa, God save her, is all but our last Protector. Our time here in the West may be more limited than any of us wishes to think about. Even within our Faith we are as itinerant Strangers. We must consider possible places of refuge. . . .” He crosses his hands upon his Breast. “China . . . ?”

  Emerson sputters into his tea. “Eehh!— what makes you think the Chinese’ll like you Jezzies any better than the Bourbons do?”

  “They might. They’re not Catholic.”

  “Nor would yese have to worry about Expulsion or Suppression, Chinese much preferring to,—” Emerson makes a playful Head-chopping gesture. “What charms as it frightens us plain folk,” he goes on, “is how Jesuits observe Devotions so transcendent, whilst practicing Crimes so terrestrial,— their Inventions as wondrously advanced as their use of them is remorselessly ancient. They seem to u
s at once, benevolent Visitors, from a Place quite beyond our reach, and corrupted Assassins, best kept beyond the reach of.”

  “Fair enough,” says the priest, “yet, Jeremiah, here you’ve a Choice at last, between staying at home, and venturing abroad . . . ? For tho’ your Faith teaches equality and peace, I’ve yet to meet one of you Quaker Lads who hasn’t the inward desire to be led into some fight. (Lo, William, he blushes.) Why, if Authority and Battle be your Meat, lad, our Out-Fit can supply as much as you like. The Wine ration’s home-made but all for free,— the Uniform’s not to everyone’s taste, yet it does attract the Attention of the ladies, and you’ll learn to work all the Machines,—

  So,—

  Have,—

  A,—

  ‘Nother look,— at the Army that

  Wrote the Book,— take the Path that you

  Should’ve took— and you’ll be

  On your way!

  Get, up, and, wipe-off-that-chin,

  You can begin, to have a

  Whole new oth-er life,—

  Soldj’ring for Christ,

  Reas’nably priced,—

  And nobody’s missing

  The Kids or th’ Wife! So,

  Here’s the Drill,

  Take the Quill,

  Sign upon the Line or any-

  Where you will,

  There’s Heretics a-plenty and a

  License to kill, if you’re a

  Brother in the S. of J.!”

  At the close of which the Priest unhelpfully blurts, “(Celibacy of course being ever strictly enjoin’d.— ) / If you’re a Brother in the— ”

  “What, no fucking?” Dixon acting far too astonish’d, as some otherworldly Accompaniment jingles to a halt.