On the Proper Use of Stars

by Dominique Fortier

  Sir John then invited me to go ashore with him and attempt to communicate with the savages, but it was a waste of effort. Fascinated by the buttons that adorned our uniforms, they had no use for our words and our pantomimes. Sir John eventually offered a small mirror to the oldest man and the gift was greatly appreciated. Catching sight of his own image in the glass, the man did not rest until he had turned it around and around in every direction, seeking to discover the strange being who was hidden behind or inside it. Still mystified, he finally offered it to the man who was standing at his side so he could plunge his hand into his boot, extracting a piece of dried meat almost violet in colour and offering it in return. Sir John held it out to me without having tasted it, which seemed to disappoint our visitors.

  18 March 1846

  The Esquimaux have set up their campsite close to the ships, from curiosity perhaps, or self-interest, either because they believe that these huge creatures made of wood will be able to defend them in case of attack, or because they expect new presents from us, having greatly appreciated the caps, buttons, implements, and various baubles that we gave them. The youngest of the women has fixed to a strip of leather, which she wears around her neck, a tin spoon that was given her, and she displays it as if it were the most precious of jewels. They smile continually, even when our men do their best to drive them to distraction. We hear their dogs howling at every hour of the day and night, a song at once disturbing and reassuring, for it shows us that for the first time in months we are no longer alone on the pack ice. Neptune has taken it into his head to answer them and, pointing his muzzle towards the sky and swelling his chops, he produces long ululations to which the choir of other dogs responds in turn.

  Yesterday we finally convinced them to come and look around inside the ships. Never have I been given to witness such surprise on a human face. Were they expecting to discover ribs, guts, and organs in the quickwork of the Terror and the Erebus? There is no way for us to know, for our visitors speak a dialect that is different from, though apparently related to, the one that Blanky, the ice master, and I jabber – very badly, I admit.

  There is, however, no need for a translator to understand the lustful gazes that our men direct at the youngest of the young women – whose name is Atsanik – and even, in the case of some, her companion, despite the fact that with her wrinkled face and her mouth bereft of teeth she resembles a prune. Atsanik greets these un-subtle tributes with the good humour that she puts into everything, especially, it seems to me, when they come from the youngest and most graceful seamen. Yesterday I saw her place in Adam’s hand a small piece of ivory that she had taken from her coat, then run away laughing like a child. This proximity to women, even if they are Esquimaux, does not augur well in my opinion and I intend to bring it up with Sir John, who should tell them to put up their settlement at a greater distance from us.

  LADY JANE HAS NEVER gone out so much. Ever since the departure of her explorer husband people have been lining up at her door and her appointment book is always full. She is the centre of attention at all the parties she attends. The ladies who had greeted her with chilly politeness when she returned from Tasmania, where Sir John had been governor for seven years before being called back abruptly to the home country, no longer dare put on even the most modest tea party without begging her to honour the event with her presence. While she had savoured her revenge during the first months and taken pleasure in accepting their invitations only to withdraw at the last minute, giving as an excuse some vague headache, eventually she found this state of affairs quite normal and refused to stoop so low as to want to antagonize or further humiliate her former enemies. That would be unworthy of her, now that she has become again the wife, not of some obscure official who has been sent home almost in disgrace, but of the hero of the Arctic, the man who had, by Jove, eaten his boots!

  And so she accepts most graciously the signs of friendship being lavished on her on all sides, limiting herself – if the reception upon her return fr om Oceania had been really too ill-mannered – to creasing her eyes for a second as if she did not immediately recognize the woman who had spoken to her.

  “My dear, how are you? Ah, you do look splendid!” the ladies exclaimed with just a bit of wonder in their voices, as if they were surprised that she had tolerated so well the severity of the Polar climate. Then, thinking perhaps that the hero’s wife had at her disposal some means of communication unknown to ordinary mortals that would let her know what progress her illustrious husband had made: “What do you hear?”

  Lady Jane would reply impassively that the ships had probably mapped the Lancaster Sound some time ago, or even discovered the entrance to the Passage, that they had no doubt stopped for the winter in some protected bay and would complete their mission once summer came. People walked away murmuring, “What a woman.”

  When she did not have an invitation to dinner or to tea, or when she herself was not entertaining some member or other of the Royal Society or the Royal Astronomical Society along with his charming wife, a high-ranking officer of the Admiralty accompanied by likewise, or some obscure geographer, cartographer, scientist who was a magnetism and electrical phenomena buff (those most often being old bachelors), Lady Jane would seat herself at the drawing table that had been a gift from Sir John, who had imagined his wife spending delightful hours there painting watercolours, composing acrostics, embroidering, or engaging in some other pleasant feminine pastime. She would spread out in front of her the maps drawn by Scoresby, Ross, and Parry, studying them with the utmost care, noting systematically the differences, inconsistencies, even the most minor variations they displayed. On heavy cream-coloured paper, she drew confidently the coastlines of the land of ice, which were now so familiar to her she could have traced them freehand with her eyes closed. Where the maps diverged she sketched a light, nearly ethereal line to show the various observations and hypotheses of the mariners who had explored these waters since the turn of the century. The strange result was a map of possibilities where in the middle of a sound there rose and did not rise a range of mountains, where a bay was wrapped in similar, larger bays which embraced their miniature twins, like so many Russian dolls, a drunkard’s landscape crossed three times by the same river which became one again, briefly, before splitting anew. To find her way in these labyrinthine drawings, Lady Jane had assigned to each of the explorers a colour which she applied more or less strongly depending on how much credit she granted to the depiction of the terrain that he had made. The set of motley lines would have been incomprehensible to anyone but her, and if by chance Sir John had been able to see his wife bent diligently over the paper to which she was applying her colours, he would have thought that she really was devoting herself to painting.

  Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy were asleep at her feet, their white bellies exposed to the flames crackling in the hearth. Now and then a shudder ran through their long bodies, their paws twitched in uncoordinated movements while they chased some prey in their dreams. Their breathing quickened and at times an ululation rose up, which Lady Jane silenced promptly with a dainty kick from her silken slipper.

  Would it have occurred to Miss Jane Griffin to marry John Franklin had not her friend Eleanor Anne Porden shown her, so to speak, the way?

  Her first meetings with the famous explorer had barely left an impression, so that she had felt the need, shortly before her marriage, to consult the journal she had kept at the time to strike out some far too nonchalant comments about the man who was destined to become her husband, and to insert elsewhere two or three deliberately vague remarks that could lead one to believe that she had sensed from the outset what an extraordinary individual he was and the no less extraordinary place he would occupy in her life.

  In truth, she had been disappointed by the hero of the Arctic. He had returned some months before from the disastrous journey during which four of the men on his expedition had lost their lives in a rather unclear manner, and had just published a somewhat smug account
of it when she made his acquaintance. Of medium height, ruddy-faced and corpulent, with a voice that was high and powerful, he was always the first to laugh at his own bons mots, which were rare enough. Moreover he was ill-mannered at table and seemed shockingly uninterested in any technical and scientific developments that did not immediately touch on his field of expertise. He never wearied of recounting his adventures – and Jane, hearing him on several occasions describe the same episode to a different audience, could not help noticing that he repeated it in exactly the same words, as if he had written it out, learned it by heart in front of a mirror so as to later narrate it with emphasis – and seemed incapable of paying attention for more than a few minutes to what anyone else had to say. As soon as his interlocutor began to speak he fidgeted, squirming in his seat like a bored child, and soon, unable to take any more, he would interrupt the speaker and launch into a new monologue, holding forth in a stentorian voice. It was impossible not to know how successful the man had been.

  One thing was certain, he bore not the slightest resemblance to the intense heroes who filled the novels that delighted Jane, nor to the ethereal characters who were featured in Eleanor’s poems. Miss Porden had published, at the age of sixteen, a tremendous tale of some 60,000 lines entitled The Veils, which had won the young prodigy immediate recognition and election to the prestigious Institut de France. Eleanor had given a copy of her work to Jane Griffin in the early days of their friendship. It was a strange object, an impassioned ode at once learned and baroque in which romantic exaltation vied with scientific fervour. It was the poem that had driven Jane to seek out the friendship of the younger woman who, while inferior by reason of both station and relations, proved to be, at least, Jane ’s intellectual equal.

  Aged twenty-three when Jane made her acquaintance, Eleanor Anne Porden was a small and dainty person with delicate features and a pale complexion, whose seeming fragility masked a lively mind and a will of iron. Her gentle manner combined exquisite civility with discretion and she expressed herself at all times in a low and musical voice. Jane Griffin had been taken aback to learn, not that the hero of the Arctic was insistently courting the young poetess (which struck Jane as only to be expected), but that the young woman herself, far from doing her best to escape his attentions, accepted them gracefully. If she had been asked to choose a potential husband for her friend, Jane would almost certainly have selected a philosopher with an expressive brow, interested in music and poetry, able to recite the works of the Ancients in Greek; a noble soul, enamoured of the ideal and dedicated to the search for Beauty and Truth.

  Sometimes she even wondered if her friend had some secret grounds for marrying; could it be that her family’s financial straits were even more severe than Jane suspected? Could it be that she had been obliged to consent to this union?

  Jane, however, had a change of heart after the marriage – detained out of town, she had been unfortunately unable to attend. (She nonetheless had sent to the couple a lovely silver ewer, along with a letter expressing her regrets and her best wishes for their happiness.) She was told that the ceremony had been surprisingly simple, given the bridegroom’s taste for the flamboyant, and that it had been marked only by a slight malaise on the part of the bride, who had quickly recovered. Much admiration had been expressed over the full-length, nearly life-sized self-portrait which Franklin had given to his young wife on the occasion, to replace him when he was absent. It was soon hung in the place of honour in the dining room, where, as Sir John would not go away for several months, it served as a silent twin to its model, nobly surveying the table.

  If Jane had feared seeing her friend languish following her marriage, if she had dreaded the young woman’s ceding to the influence of her illustrious husband on all matters until she disappeared into his shadow, she was surprised to note that it was he who showed the most visible changes. First of all, he began to appreciate music, although he had never shown signs of the slightest interest in the matter, going so far as to fall asleep as soon as a lady took her seat at the pianoforte. He had also started to purchase pictures and bronzes sensibly, assembling a fine collection within a short period of time. Finally, he, who observed conscientiously the precepts of the Methodist Church – to the point of refusing not only to write a letter on Sunday but even to read a missive addressed to him – agreed, after a brief discussion, that his wife could carry on with her work (which was itself exceptional) and that she might do so on the Lord’s Day should that be her wish. Of the young and dashing captains who had married a good many of her friends, very few, Jane knew, would have shown the same understanding, or, perhaps more precisely, the same malleability. What was extraordinary was this: John Franklin was prepared to learn, to change, to improve himself. All that was needed was a firm hand to guide him.

  When Eleanor died following a lingering consumption, Jane Griffin had no trouble persuading herself that her friend would have desired more than anything in the world that she, Jane, take her place at the side of her husband and her daughter. Which was done. But it was always in vain that Lady Jane searched the features of Sir John’s daughter for the memory of her mother’s, with whom she shared nothing but a name. While Eleanor Porden was a lively, sensitive person with keen curiosity and wit, Eleanor Franklin was no more or less than a female version of her father, with his sturdy build, round face, pink complexion, and thick features. Furthermore, she was most often sullen and scowling, and she avoided uttering even a word in the presence of her stepmother unless she was virtually compelled to do so.

  The young Eleanor was most often left in the care of a nurse and, when older, entrusted to various relatives with whom she was sent to stay while Jane explored Europe, Africa, or America, or devoted herself entirely to her obligations in London, which left her practically no freedom to saddle herself with a child – a fortiori if the child was as lacking in grace as her hapless stepdaughter.

  The VEILS;

  or

  THE TRIUMPH OF CONSTANCY

  A Poem, in Six Books

  by

  Miss Porden

  Of Earth and Air I sing, of Sea and Fire,

  And various wonders that to each belong,

  And while to stubborn themes I tune the lyre,

  “Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralize my song.”

  A YOUNG lady, one of the members of a small society which meets periodically for literary amusement, lost her Veil (by a gust of wind) as she was gathering shells on the coast of Norfolk. This incident gave rise to the following Poem, which was originally written in short cantos, and afterwards extended and modelled into the form in which it is now respectfully submitted to the public. The author, who considers herself a pupil of the Royal Institution, being at that time attending the Lectures given in Albemarle-Street, on Chemistry, Geology, Natural History, and Botany, by Sir Humphry Davy, Mr. Brand, Dr. Roger, Sir James Edward Smith, and other eminent men, she was induced to combine these subjects with her story; and though her knowledge of them was in a great measure orally acquired, and therefore cannot pretend to be extensive or profound, yet, as it was derived from the best teachers, she hopes it will seldom be found incorrect.

  The machinery is founded on the Rosicrusian doctrine, which peoples each of the four elements with a peculiar class of spirits, a system introduced into poetry by Pope, and since used by Darwin, in the Botanic Garden; but the author believes that the ideal beings of these two distinguished writers will not be found to differ more from each other, than from those called into action in the ensuing Poem. She has there endeavoured to shew them as representing the different energies of nature, exerted in producing the various changes that take place in the physical world; but the plan of her Poem did not permit her to exhibit them to any considerable extent. On the Rosicrusian mythology, a system of poetical machinery might be constructed of the highest character; but the person who directs its operations should possess the scientific knowledge of Sir Humphry Davy, and the energy and imagination of Lor
d Byron and Mr. Scott.

  In personifying the metals and minerals, and the agency of fire, the author has generally taken her names from the Greek language; but as it was impossible to avoid the nomenclature of modern chemistry, she requests, on the plea of necessity, the indulgence of her readers for what she fears will be felt as a barbarous mixture.

  Once, in sweet converse with a knight, I stray’d

  Thro’ the close windings of a woody glade,

  Our hearts by tenderest friendship were allied,

  And some few weeks had made me Alfred’s bride:

  At length with novel charms expands the scene,

  The wood retiring left a narrow green;

  On either side, with various verdure crowned,

  Nor yet by summer’s sultry suns embrowned,