The Confusion

by Neal Stephenson

  But life, and this letter, are both too short to be wasted on the English and so I shall go straight to the point and pray you'll forgive my bald way of speaking.

  My services are much in demand of late, as trade has stopped, owing to some confusion in the world of money. I do not understand it at all. You, I am certain, understand it perfectly. In between my perfect ignorance and your perfect knowledge stand the rest of humanity—innumerable persons of greater or less dignity, who phant'sy they understand it. Whatever the case may be, these persons know that your humble and obedient servant, Captain Jean Bart, is, at the present time, the only person making money in France (some small-minded pedants would assert that this is only by virtue of the fact that I steal things by force from their rightful owners; but this is a fine distinction that I shall leave to the Jesuits, so that one of them may one day come to me on my death-bed and inform me whether I'm bound for Heaven or Hell). Call it what you will, I bring money to France and deposit almost all of it into the King's coffers, in accordance with certain rules and procedures that have seen set down, or so I am told, to govern my métier, viz. Privateer. In consequence, I have been noticed by many persons, foreign and domestic, who are owed money by our government. They write me letters, sidle up to me at soirées, tug on my sleeve at the many levées and couchées to which I am invited; they loiter before my house, overhaul me on the high seas, pursue me down streets and garden-paths, send me wine, plant the most alluring whores in my very bed, mutter to me in the confessional, and threaten to kill me, all in the hopes that I shall, by some prestidigitation, channel the next treasure-ship to this or that port, so that it may fall into the hands of this or that local official who shall route the proceeds to this or that account.

  You might recall that two years ago I took a large amount of silver from Lothar von Hacklheber, who waxed very wroth, and sent me the most impertinent letters, claiming that the money had been meant to cover some French government loan that had been made down in Lyon. I replied to his representative that Lyon was a long way from Dunkerque—I even offered to draw him a map—and I threw up my hands, knowing little and caring less of these Lyonnaise follies. In time, von Hacklheber stopped importuning me about this; but then after an all too brief respite he got after me again, claiming that the contrôleur-général had failed to make good on that Lyon loan. It seemed that he or his agents had inquired in every pays and arrived at the conclusion that the only way he would ever get his money back was through Dieppe; for in that port he had come to some sort of understanding with the local officials, such that, of the King's revenue that happened to come in there, some moiety would be diverted to the House of Hacklheber in repayment of the loan that it had extended to France.

  Of course, I ignored him; though this did stick in my memory, for I recall that you had some sort of unpleasantness with Lothar von Hacklheber, though you would not part with any of the details; and in his communications, which were often of a most bizarre character, he made liberal use of your name.

  A little bit more recently, I have begun to receive communications of a markedly similar nature from none other than the contrôleur-général himself, M. le comte de Pontchartrain, who is keen that I should get in the habit of bringing my prizes to the port of Le Havre. For it would seem that he has so arranged matters that any of the King's revenue passing through that port shall be channeled to some destination that is pleasing to him. He too has mentioned your name; for he knows of my passionate, wholly inappropriate and scandalous, and (so far) unrequited affection for you.

  Now as a practical matter nothing of value has entered either Dieppe or Le Havre for some weeks, as both were attacked, bombed, and burnt by the British, in the manner I have already described. These disturbances have not hindered me from plying my trade, and so I have, during the same interval, garnered much treasure I would fain unload. Instead I have, perforce, kept it stored away in the holds of diverse ships—which, being moving targets, are perfectly safe from the British Navy. Why, in the hold of my own ship Alcyon, where I sit writing these words, are stored three-quarters of a million livres tournoises worth of silver and gold. I'll not unload such treasure in Dunkerque, for, as much as I love my hometown, its land connexions to France are too tenuous, and infested by highwaymen and Vagabonds. Dieppe or Le Havre, being closer to Paris, would be better—but which?

  Far be it from me to spite the contrôleur-général, and so Le Havre is the obvious choice—yet just a few weeks ago you bestowed on me the honor of escorting you to Hamburg, so that you could pursue some errand among the Tatars, the Cossacks, or the Germans (as a sea-going man, I am unclear as to whatever fine distinctions might be observed, by geographers, among these landlocked tribes). Rumor has it that you are near Leipzig, the seat of Lothar von Hacklheber. It would seem, therefore, that my actions in respect of the gold and silver that is stored in my hold must have consequences for your venture. But I can't for the life of me make out what those consequences might be, and what is the best course for me to take.

  To summarize, I am surrounded by persons who ask much of me but give me nothing that I desire. Far away are you, my lady, who have done more for me than anyone alive—and all simply because you are infatuated with me (don't bother denying it!). Yet you have never asked me for anything. And so, perversely, it is you, and no one else, whose bidding I would do in the matter. I hope that this finds you in good health in Crimea, Turkestan, Outer Mongolia, or wherever it is you have got to. Please know that I am awaiting some clarification from you as to whether I should call next at Dieppe, Le Havre, or some other port.

  Your tumescent love slave,

  (Capt.) Jean Bart

  MAY 1694

  And why then are we to despise Commerce as a Mechanism, and the Trading World as mean, when the Wealth of the World is deem'd to arise from Trade?

  —DANIEL DEFOE, A Plan of the English Commerce

  PRINCESS WILHELMINA CAROLINE of Brandenburg-Ansbach wrinkled her nose, and flipped her braid back over her shoulder. " ‘Tumescent love slave'—is this some sort of French idiom? I can't make heads or tails of it."

  "Noise! It is an idiocy that Captain Bart threw in at the end, for he knew that he had to wind up the letter, but could not make out how, and became desperate, and lost his wits. Thank God he is more even-tempered in battle! Pray don't dwell on that, my lady—"

  "Why do you call me that? It's weird. Stop it!"

  "You are a born Princess, and very likely to be a Queen some day. I am a made Duchess."

  "But to me you are Aunt Eliza!"

  "And to me you are my little squirrel. But the fact remains that you're doomed to be a Princess whether you like it or not, and you're going to have to marry someone."

  "As happened to my mother," said Caroline, suddenly serious.

  "Please do not forget that it happened twice. The second time around, she had to marry someone who was not suited for her. But the first time she was in a good marriage—to your father—and a perfectly wonderful Princess came of it."

  Caroline blushed at this, and looked at the floor of the carriage. A whip-pop sounded from outside, and it lurched forward. They'd been stalled, for a time, outside the north gate of Leipzig. Caroline's eyes came up off the floor and gleamed in the light of the window. Eliza continued: "Why did your mother later end up in a bad marriage? Because things had gone against her—things she was powerless to do anything about, for the most part—and in the end she had very little choice in the matter. Now, why do you suppose I'm letting you read my personal correspondence from Captain Bart? To pass the time on the road to Leipzig? No, for if we only wished to make time pass, we could play cards. I show you these things because I am trying to teach you something."

  "What, exactly?"

  It was a good question, and brought Eliza up short. For a few moments there was no sound in the carriage except what came into it from without: the clopping of shod hooves, the crashing of rims on road, the oinking and grunting of the suspension. A shadow env
eloped them, then fell away aft: They'd passed through the gate into Leipzig.

  "Pay attention, that's all," Eliza said. "Notice things. Connect what you've noticed. Connect it into a picture. Think of how the picture might be changed; and act to change it. Some of your acts may turn out to have been foolish, but others will reward you in surprising ways; and in the meantime, simply by being active instead of passive, you have a kind of immunity that's hard to explain—"

  "Uncle Gottfried says, ‘Whatever acts cannot be destroyed.' "

  "The Doctor means that in a fairly narrow and technical metaphysical sense," Eliza said, "but it's not the worst motto you could adopt."

  And now for the tenth time in as many minutes Eliza reached up to scratch and probe at her face. In half a dozen places, small disks of black felt had been glued to it, covering crater-like excavations that smallpox had made in her flesh, but not had the good grace to fill back in before it had departed her body.

  Most of what she knew about the progress of the disease, she knew second-hand, from Eleanor and the physician who had come to tend to her. Eliza herself had descended into a sort of twilight sleep. Her eyes had been open, and impressions had reached her mind, but the span of time she had spent in this trance—about a week—seemed both very long and very brief. Very brief because she remembered little of it—it was "when I had smallpox" to her now. Very long because, during it, she had heard every tick of the clock, and felt the budding of every pox-pustule, its growth as it peeled layers of skin asunder a slow steady agony that sparked whenever two pustules found each other and fused. In some places—particularly her lower back—those sparks had built to a wide-spread fire. Though Eliza had been too delirious to know it, these had been the moments when her life had hung in the balance, for if that fire had spread any further or burnt any brighter, her skin would have come off, and she'd not have survived it.

  It was at such times that a physician would emerge to tell a room of hand-wringing loved ones that the case was very grave, and that the patient's life hung in the balance. Had it gone any further, the report would have changed to "not expected to survive," and everyone would have known, from this, that the disease had moved on to its sausage-grinder phase. In Eliza's case this had not happened. Fate had flipped a coin, and it had come up heads. The disease had nearly flayed her lower back and some parts of her arms and legs, and done damage internally, too. But it had spared her eyesight and left perhaps three dozen pocks on her face, of which most could be seen only in direct sun; of the ten or so that were obvious even by candlelight, some could be hid by a lock of hair or a high-collared dress, and the remainder got the black patch treatment. Eliza did not seriously intend to begin every day for the rest of her life by gluing these horrid objects to her skin, but today was special; she was venturing out of the dower-house of Pretzsch for the first time since she had arrived there six weeks earlier. She was going into Leipzig—which passed for a big city in these parts—and she was going to meet some people.

  Of the six weeks at the dower-house, the first had been spent in (in retrospect) the prodrome of the illness, and culminated with the sending away of Caroline and Adelaide and the visit of the Elector and his mistress. After that it had been all pustules for two weeks. Eliza had not really come awake and begun to weave her impressions into coherent memories again until the twenty-fourth day; which happened to be the same day that the distant church-bells of Torgau and Wittenberg had begun to toll, announcing the deaths of the Elector of Saxony and his mistress. Eleanor was a widow for the second time. She was henceforth the Electress-Dowager of Saxony. Which meant she was living in the right house for once: The dower-house was where a dowager was supposed to live. The new Elector was Johann Georg's brother, August. August the Strong. He already had a hundred illegitimate children and was said to be hard at work on the second hundred, and his passion for engaging wild beasts in single combat would do nothing to improve Saxony's reputation at Versailles; but he had not been hit on the head, he bore no ill will toward Eleanor, and he didn't want to screw Caroline, so it looked like a win.

  Eleanor had been called away to Dresden to attend her husband's funeral. And after Eliza's mattress and bedclothes had been immolated in a great bonfire down by the Elbe, and the scabs had fallen away to reveal her new face and body, Caroline and Adelaide had at last returned from Leipzig along with most of Eliza's retinue. So much for the fourth week; weeks five and six, then, had been time for Eliza to get her strength back. She had an idea that the pox had done to her entrails the same sort of things as it had done to her back, and so there had been problems for a while with eating, digestion, and elimination. Even if she'd bounced back like a rubber ball, there'd have been a delay while new garments were sewn for her, in smaller dimensions to fit her wasted frame, and with collars, sleeves, &c., to cover heavily cratered parts of her body. But the day before yesterday she'd noticed, all of a sudden, that she was bored. Yesterday had been devoted to the laying of plans. This morning she'd departed from the dower-house in a little train of borrowed and rented carriages. On the spur of the moment she'd decided to bring Caroline along with her (for Eleanor was busy organizing a Dowager-household), and little Adelaide, too (for she became obstreperous now if she did not have her Caroline to play with).

  "WHAT IS THIS VENTURE of yours that Captain Bart speaks of in his letter?" Caroline asked her.

  "Ay! That's difficult to explain!" Eliza said. "But I do not have to explain it, for you to get the point—which is that Captain Bart, ordinarily the most decisive, the most ruthless man on earth, cannot make up his mind whether to take his cargo to Dieppe or Le Havre, and feels obliged to send me a letter in Leipzig before acting. If I sat at home knitting and playing cards, he would feel no such compulsion, believe you me; but because I'm on the move, I am an unknown variable in the equation—"

  "Which makes it more difficult for him to solve!" Caroline said. "Uncle Gottfried has been teaching me how to solve such problems using a thing he invented called matrices."

  "Then you know more of it than I," said Eliza, not for the first time feeling a bit envious of this girl. "And you may show off your skills to your teacher now."

  "Uncle Gottfried is here?"

  The carriage had rolled to a stop. Eliza opened the door herself and allowed a footman to help her down. Caroline leapt out a moment later, landing bang on both feet, followed, after brief intervals, by her skirts and her braid.

  They were in a square before a church from whose open doors organ-music was chanting. Not far away was the town square of Leipzig with its great dark Rathaus along one side, and narrow streets radiating from it, lined with trading-houses. Eliza was slowly turning round and round, taking the place in. But the look on her face was not of wonder but rather distracted, even a bit suspicious. "It is so small," she said.

  "If you'd been living in Pretzsch it would seem ever so large!"

  "Oh, but when we came here last—ten years ago, almost to the day—we'd been living in a shack in the mountains and it did seem large!"

  "Who is this ‘we?' "

  "Never mind…but it is funny how one's mind works. I have built up a phant'sy of this as a great metropolis, whose trading-houses are immensely rich and powerful, but look at it…there are merchants in London, in Amsterdam, who could buy this whole town and slip it into a vest-pocket."

  "Perhaps you should buy it then!" Caroline said, as a jest.

  "Perhaps I already have." Eliza paused, blinked, and let out a breath, as if purging herself of all old memories and overblown phant'sies, then peered around sharply. "I have affairs to transact, and must leave you, for a few hours. Come!" She led Caroline through the doors of the church. It was empty just now. The organ-music was just someone practicing—someone not very accomplished, for he kept making mistakes, and each time he did, he came to a stop, and struggled to find the rhythm.

  This place—the Nikolaikirche—lacked the dark, spooky look of so many churches. The vault was a semicircular barrel supp
orted by fluted columns—but not of the Doric, Ionian, Corinthian, or any other known order of architecture. For the capitals were made to resemble sheaves of slender vertical palm leaves. The high vaults above, sluiced with clear white light rushing in through high windows, gathered themselves together and plunged down into these rich bundles of light green leaves, from which clusters of fruit peeked out. The altar rail described a broad half-circle with a gap in the center, like a pair of arms sweeping out to embrace the congregants. The font was a gilded goblet. Behind it, steps led up to an altar, above which a quicksilver Jesus hung from a plank. This part of the church—the Altarraum—was a sanctum of polished wine-colored and fleece-gray marble with many windows, giving a view of budding linden trees startled by pockets of breeze speeding invisibly through a blue heaven. The patterns in the marble suggested powerful turbulent motion—rapids, say, or lightning streaking through boiling clouds—arrested and silenced. Recalling the notion that if you knew the position and velocity of every particle in the universe at one moment of time, you'd know all—you'd be God. At the back of the church was a balcony claimed by a great organ of silver pipes in a white case in Roman style, lilies and palm leaves rampant. Hunched doggedly at the console was a man in a great periwig and a coat brocaded with hundreds of wee flowers. An elderly man in academician's robes loitered nearby, gazing down curiously at Eliza, Caroline, and other members of the entourage who were now straggling up the aisle; for Adelaide had been woken out of a nap by the stoppage of her coach, and had pursued her mother, and been pursued in turn by nurses, and by Eliza's guards, who were under orders not to let Adelaide out of their sight so long as they were on the hostile ground of Leipzig. The organist noticed all this, and raised his hands from the manuals, and the throaty singing of the organ-pipes seeped away, leaving in the still air of the church only the faint hiss of some leakage in the valves, and panting of a couple of pudgy schoolboys who'd been dragooned into pumping the bellows. Eliza applauded, and after a moment Caroline, recognizing the organist, followed suit.