马森和迪克逊-Chapter 10
As Planets do the Sun, we orbit 'round God according to Laws as
elegant as Kepler's. God is as sensible to us, as a Sun to a Planet.
Tho' we do not see Him, yet we know where in our Orbits we
run,— when we are closer, when more distant,— when in His
light and when in shadow of our own making We feel as com?
ponents of Gravity His Love, His Need, whatever it be that keeps
us circling. Surely if a Planet be a living Creature, then it knows,
by something even more wondrous than Human Sight, where its
Sun shines, however far it lie.
- Revd Wicks Cherrycoke, Unpublished Sermons
"Show us upon the Orrery," suggests Pliny.
"I get to light the Sun," cries Pitt, dashing for the card-table, where the Tapers are kept in a drawer.
Tenebras finds herself, in the general convergence upon the Machine in the corner, quite close to her Cousin Ethelmer, who is trying to remember how old she is. He cannot recall her looking quite this,— he supposes, nubile. And how old does it make him, then? Briefly he beholds the gray edge of a cloud of despair, promises himself to think about it later, smiles, and sallies, "Remember the time you snipp'd off a lock of your hair, and we fashion'd it into a Comet, and placed it in the Orrery?”
"That grew back a long time ago, Cousin."
"When you were quite a bit shorter, as well. I almost had to sit down to kiss you hello. Yet now,— um, that is,—
"Dangerous territory, Sir."
"How so? an innocent peck upon the cheek of a child?"
"Had you thought to inquire of the Child," Tenebra;'s chin rising slowly, "you might have found your education further'd in ways unexpected, Thelmer." Ethelmer for a split second is gazing straight up into her nos?trils, one of which now flares into pink illumination as Pitt's Taper sets alight the central Lanthorn of the Orrery, representing the Sun. The other Planets wait, all but humming, taut within their spidery Linkages back to the Crank-Shaft and the Crank, held in the didactic Grasp of the Revd Cherrycoke. The Twins, push'd to the back, content themselves with the movements of the outermost Planets, Saturn and the new "Georgian," but three years old. Dr. Nessel, the renown'd German Engineer, last spring show'd up unexpectedly in Philadelphia, having travers'd the Sea under wartime conditions, to add free of charge the new Planet to the numerous Orreries he had built in America. In each Apparatus, he fashion'd the Planet a little differently. By the time he got to Philadelphia, he was apply?ing to the miniature greenish-blue globes Mappemondes of some intricacy, as if there were being reveal'd to him, one Orrery at a time, a World with a History even longer than our own, a recognizable Creator, Oceans that had to be cross'd, lands that had to be fought over, other Species to be con-quer'd. The children have since pass'd many an hour, Lenses in hand, gaz?ing upon this new World, and becoming easy with it. They have imagin'd and partly compos'd a Book, History of the New Planet, the Twins provid?ing the Wars, and Brae the scientifick Inventions and Useful Crafts.
"Here then," the Revd having smoothly crank'd Venus, Earth, and the Sun into proper alignment, "— as seen from the Earth, Venus,— here,— was to pass across the Disk of the Sun. Seen from Cape Town, five and a half hours, more or less, Limb to Limb. What Observers must determine are the exact Times this Passage begins and ends. From a great many such Observations 'round the world, and especially those widely sepa?rated north and south, might be reckon'd the value of the Solar Parallax."
"What's that?" Pitt and Pliny want to know.
"The size of the Earth, in seconds of Arc, as seen by an observer upon the surface of the Sun."
"Don't his feet get blister'd?" hollers Pitt, with his brother goading him on, "— isn't he too busy hopping about? and what of his Telescope, won't it melt?"
"All of these and more," replies the Revd, "making it super-remarkable, that thro' the magick of Celestial Trigonometry,— to which you could certainly be applying yourselves,— such measurements may yet be taken,— as if the Telescope, in mysterious Wise, were transport?ing us safely thro' all the dangers of the awesome Gulf of Sky, out to the Object we wish to examine."
"A Vector of Desire."
"Thankee, DePugh, the phrase exact." DePugh is the son of Ives LeSpark, like Ethelmer home on a Visit from School, in this case from Cambridge,— traveling the Atlantick to and fro by Falmouth Packet as easily as taking the Machine to New Castle. He has shown an early aptitude with Figures. God be merciful to him, silently requests the Revd.
Somebody somewhere in the World, watching the Planet go dark against the Sun,— dark, mad, mortal, the Goddess in quite another Aspect indeed,— cannot help blurting, exactly at The Moment, from Sappho's Fragment 95, seeming to wreck thereby the Ob,—
"0 Hesperus,— you bring back all that the bright day scatter'd,— you bring in the sheep, and the goat,— you bring the Child back to her mother."
"Thank you for sharing that with us...recalling that this is Sun-Rise, Dear, -Rise, not sun-Set."
"Come! She's not yet detach'd!"
"Let us see. Well, will you look at that." A sort of long black Fila?ment yet connects her to the Limb of the Sun, tho' she be moved well onto its Face, much like an Ink-Drop about to fall from the Quill of a forgetful Scribbler,— sidewise, of course,— "Quick! someone, secure the Time,— This, or odd behavior like it, is going on all over the World all day long that fifth and sixth of June, in Latin, in Chinese, in Polish, in Silence,— upon Roof-Tops and Mountain Peaks, out of Bed-chamber windows, close together in the naked sunlight whilst the Wife minds the Beats of the Clock,— thro' Gregorians and Newtonians, achromatick and rainbow-smear'd, brand-new Reflectors made for the occasion, and ancient Refractors of preposterous French focal lengths,— Observers lie, they sit, they kneel,— and witness something in the Sky. Among those attending Snouts Earth-wide, the moment of first contact produces a col?lective brain-pang, as if for something lost and already unclaimable,— after the Years of preparation, the long and at best queasy voyaging, the Station arriv'd at, the Latitude and Longitude well secur'd,— the Week of the Transit,— the Day,— the Hour,— the Minute,— and at last 'tis, "Eh? where am I?"
Astronomers will seek to record four Instants of perfect Tangency between Venus's Disk, and the Sun's. Two are at Ingress,— External Con?tact, at the first touch from outside the Sun's Limb, and then Internal Con?tact, at the instant the small black Disk finally detaches from the inner Circumference of the great yellow one, Venus now standing alone against the Face of the Sun. The other two come at Egress,— this time, first Inter?nal, then external Contact. And then Eight more years till the next, and for this Generation last, Opportunity,— as if the Creation's Dark Engineer had purposedly arrang'd the Intervals thus, to provoke a certain Instruc?tion, upon the limits to human grandeur impos'd by Mortality.
The Sky remains clouded up till the day of the Transit, Friday the fifth of June. Both the Zeemanns and the Vrooms speed about in unaccus-tom'd Bustle, compar'd to the Astronomers, who seem unnaturally calm.
"Dutch Ado about nothing," Mason remarks.
Dixon agrees. "And they're usually so stolid, too...?"
Els comes skidding across the floor in her Stocking Feet, heading for the Kitchen with an Apron's load of Potatoes. "Nothing to worry about!" she cries, " 'twill clear up in plenty of time!" Even Cornelius is up on the Roof, scanning the Mists with a nautical Spy-Glass, reporting upon hopeful winds and bright patches. " 'Tis ever like this before a Cloudless Day," he assures them. The Slaves speak inaudibly, and are seen to gaze toward the Mountains. They have never observ'd their owners behaving like this. They begin to smile, tentatively but directly, at Mason and Dixon.
Of whom one is insomniac, and one is not. Afterward, none in the Household will be able to agree which was which. Drops of what proves to be ketjap in the pantry suggest Dixon as the sleepless one, whilst a Wine-Glass abandon'd upon a chicken-Battery indicates Mason. The Rattle-Watch make a point of coming by ev'ry hour and in front of Zeemanns' singing out the Time of Night, adding, "And all's clouded over yet!"
Somehow, ev'ryone is awake at first Light. "The Sun ascended in a thick haze, and immediately entered a dark cloud," as Mason and Dixon will report later in the Philosophical Transactions. Clock-time is o Hours, 12 Minutes, o Seconds. Twenty-three minutes later, they have their first sight of Venus. Each lies with his Eye clapp'd to the Snout of an identical two-and-a-half-foot Gregorian Reflector made by Mr. Short, with Darkening-Nozzles by Mr. Bird.
"Quite a Tremor," Mason grumbles. "They'll have to ascend a bit more in the Sky. And here comes this damn'd Haze again."
Upon first making out the Planet, Dixon becomes as a Sinner con?verted. "Eeh! God in his Glory!"
"Steady," advises Mason, in a vex'd tone.
Dixon remembers the Tale Emerson lov'd to tell, of Galileo before the Cardinals, creaking to his feet after being forc'd to recant, muttering, "Nonetheless, it moves." Watch, patiently as before the Minute-Hand of
a Clock, become still enough, and 'twould all begin to move.... This,
Dixon understands, is what Galileo was risking so much for,— this majestick Dawn Heresy. " 'Twas seeing not only our Creator about his Work," he tells Mason later, "but Newton and Kepler, too, confirm'd in theirs. The Arrival, perfectly as calculated, the three bodies sliding into a single Line...Eeh, it put me in a Daze for fair." Whatever the cause, the times he records are two to four seconds ahead of Mason's.
"With all the other Corrections to make, now must we also introduce another, for observational impatience," supposes Mason,— "styling it 'Leonation,' perhaps,— "As well might we correct for 'Tauricity,' " replies Dixon, "or Delays owing to Caution inflexible."
The girls have also been observers of the Transit, having cajol'd a Sailor of their Acquaintance into lending them a nautickal Spy-Glass, and smoak'd with Sheep-tallow Candles their own Darkening-Lenses,— tak?ing turns at the Glass, even allowing their Parents a Peep now and then,— Jet breathing, "She's really there," Greet adding, "Right on time, too!" and Els,— hum,— we may imagine what Els was up to, and what transpir'd just as the last of the Black Filament, holding the Planet to the Inner Limb of the Sun, gave way, and she dropp'd, at last, full onto that mottl'd bright Disk, dimm'd by the Lenses to a fierce Moon, that Eyes might bear.
As before the Transit the month of May crept unnaturally, so, after it, will June, July, August, and September hasten by miraculously,— till early in October, when Capt. Harrold, of the Mercury, finds a lapse in the Weather workable enough to embark the Astronomers, and take them to St. Helena in. By which time, ev'ryone is more than ready for a change of Company. The North-West Rains have well possess'd the Town,— all Intrigue lies under Moratorium, as if the Goddess of Love in her Visita?tion had admonish'd all who would invoke her, to search their Hearts, and try not to betray her quite so much.
After the Transit, Astronomers and Hosts walk about for Days in deep Stupor, like Rakes and Doxies after some great Catastrophe of the Pas?sions. The Zeemanns' servant difficulties being resolv'd, the Astronomers return to that Table, and for the next four months pursue Lives of color?less Rectitude, with the Food no better nor worse, waiting upon the Winds. In the Mountains, the Bull's Eye is sovereign. All over Town, Impulse, chasten'd, increasingly defers to Stolidity. Visiting Indian Mys?tics go into Trances they once believ'd mindless enough, which here prove Ridottoes of Excess, beside the purpos'd Rainy-day Inanition of the Dutch. The Slaves, as if to preserve a secret Invariance, grow more visi?ble and distinct, their Voices stronger, and their Musick more pervasive, as if the Rain were carrying these from distant parts of Town. Johanna and the Girls, after a brief few weeks in a nun-like withdrawal from the Friv?olous,— Jet going so far as to cover her hair with a diaphanous Wimple she has fashion'd of Curtain-stuff,— are all back to their old Theatrics, this time to the Delight of a trio of young Company Writers lately arriv'd at False
Bay, Mr. Delver Warp and the Brothers Vowtay, coming home from Bengal non-Nabobickal as when they went out, with only enough in their pockets to draw the interest of Cape Belles, who are far less partic?ular than the Vrooms, and fearful that if they don't get it, 'twill be as soon gambl'd away into the Purses of Sea-Sharpers. Corrupted by India, yet poor,— ungovernably lewd, yet unwrinkl'd,— and withal, what a Heaven-sent Source of White Blood are these Lads! Johanna can almost see those Babies now, up on the Block, adorable enough to sell them?selves, kicking their feet in the air and squealing,— and she grows mono-maniackal in her Pursuit, whilst Austra finds herself calculating which of the Sprigs shall be easiest to
seduce, and which, if any, more of a Challenge—
Presently, from across the back-Yards jealously patroll'd by their predatory Hens, come once again sounds of feminine Merriment. Mason looks over at Dixon. "At least they're back to normal over there," he remarks. "For a while, I puzzl'd,— had the Town undergone some abrupt Conversion? Had I, without knowing it?
Dixon recalls when Wesley came to preach at Newcastle,— "His first sermon in the North-East,— the congregations immense,— all the Side, and beyond, transform'd,— belonging to the Spirit. It lasted for Weeks after,— tho' it may have been months, for all I knew of Time in those Days,— I was a Lad, but I could make it out. Little by then surpriz'd me, yet this was the canniest thing upon the coaly Tyne since Harry Clasper out-keel'd the Lad from Hetton-le-Hole...? Nothing like it again, that I've noatic'd...? Until this Transit of Venus...this turning of Soul, have tha felt it,— they're beginning to talk to their Slaves? Few, if any, beat?ings,— tho' best to whisper, not to jeopardize it too much...?"
"The Dutch are afraid," Mason is able to contribute, "unto Death."
"Why, Aye. So do I recollect myself, the first time it happen'd to me...?"
Mason suspicious, sniffing Enthusiasm,— "To you? Do they allow you to talk about that?"
"I've been booted out of Raby Meeting, haven't I...? I can reveal all the mystick secrets I wish...?”
"One first must keep one's Hat on one's Head, correct?"
"Aye, the Spirit ever fancies a bonny Hat,— but the fairly principal thing, is to sit quietly... ? It took me till well out of my Youth to learn, tho' now I'm not sure I remember how, any more...?"
"That's it? Sit quietly? And Christ...will come?"
"We spoke of it as the Working of the Spirit, within. Tis a distinct Change from the ev'ryday...tha wouldn't be able to miss it, should it happen...?"
"Yet then, you say, it passes...."
"It abides,— 'tis we who are ever recall'd from it, to tend to our vari?ous mortal Requirements...? and so another such Visit soon becomes necessary,— another great Turning, and so forth...? Howbeit, 'tis all Desire,— and Desire, but Embodiment, in the World, of what Quakers have understood as Grace...?"
Starting about then, rain-bound, whenever he may, Mason contrives to sit in some shutter'd room, as quietly as he knows how, waiting for a direct experience of Christ. But he keeps jumping up, to run and inter?rupt Dixon, who is trying to do the same, with news of his Progress,—
"Jere! I think it almost happen'd! D'ye get a kind of rum sensation here,"— touching the center of his Forehead,— "is that it?"
"Mason, first tha must sit,— not jump up and down like thah'... ? And then, sit quietly. Quietly—"Back they go, till Mason in his Chair, falling asleep, topples with a great Crash, or Dixon decides he'll step out after all, nip down to The World's End, and see what the Cape Outlawry may be up to.
Little by little, as weeks pass, the turn of Spirit Mason and Dixon
imagine they have witness'd is reclaim'd by the Colony, and by whatever
haunts it. Any fear that things might ever change is abated. Masters and
Mistresses resume the abuse of their Slaves, who reply in Bush tongues,
to which, soon enough hoarse with Despair, with no hope of being under?
stood, they return, as to childhood homes Riding in and out of Town
now may often be observ'd White Horsemen, carrying long Rifles styl'd "Sterloops," each with an inverted Silver Star upon the Cheek-Piece.
When Mason and Dixon encounter Vrooms in the Street they bow, and pass, with each exchange lapsing closer to Silence. By the time the
Southeaster has advanc'd to the Circumference of the Day, there remains nothing to say to them, nor to any who have been their Hosts. "I warn'd you all," Mrs. De Bosch lilts, triumphant, "did I not, ev'ryone. Nor should I be much surpriz'd, if those frightful Instruments they brought, have serv'd quite another Purpose here."
When they leave the Cape, no one is there at the Quay to say good-bye but Bonk, the police official who earlier greeted them. "Good luck, Fel?lows. Tell them at the Desk, I was not such a bad Egg, no?"
"What Desk is that," ask Mason and Dixon.
"What Desk? In London, off some well-kept Street, in a tidy House, there will be someone at a Desk, to whom you'll tell all you have seen."
"Not in England, Sir," Mason protests.
For the first and final time they see him laugh, and glimpse an entire Life apart from the Castle, in which he must figure as a jolly Drinking Companion. "You'll see!" he calls as they depart for the Ship in the Bay. "Good Luck, Good Luck! Ha! Ha! Ha!" Resounding upon the Water ever-widening between them.
"What made them leave home and set sail upon dangerous seas, deter?mining where upon the Globe they must go, was not,— Pace any Astrol-ogists in the Room,— the Heavenly Event by itself, but rather that unshining Assembly of Human Needs, of which Venus, at the instant of going dark, is the Prime Object,— including certainly the Royal Soci?ety's need for the Solar Parallax,— but what of the Astronomers' own Desires, which may have been less philosophical?"
"Love,— I knew it," Tenebrae all but sighs. " 'Twas Love for the Planet Herself."
"Nothing like your own, of course," beams her Uncle. "I recollect that when you were no more than Three, you saw Venus through your Papa's fine Newtonian for the first time. 'Twas in the crescent Phase, and you said, 'Look! the Little Moon.' You told us that you already knew the Moon had a little Moon, which it play'd with.”
"We would go outdoors, long after bed-time, up to the pasture," she is pleas'd to recall, "- - the Observatory wasn't built yet. The Ponies would all stand together, quite cross, and watch us as we came up, their eyes flashing in the light from our Lanthorns, and I always thought I could hear them muttering, for it was clear we were disturbing them."
"Did they bite you?" inquires Pitt.
"Hard?" adds Pliny.
"Rrr!" she raises her Hoop as if to hurl it at them.
"Do find a way," advises Aunt Euphrenia, careering into the room, with her Oboe and an armload of sheet-music, "to wrangle with less Noise, or your old Uncle will have to sell you, as a Brace, to the Italians rumor'd to live South of this City, where you shall have to learn to sing their vulgar Airs, and eat Garlick ev'ry day, as shall ev'ryone else,—
"Hooray!" shout Pitt and Pliny. "For Breakfast, too!"
"Tra-la, say, Food Perversion? nothing to do with the Cherrycoke side of the family," sniffs Aunt Euphrenia, producing the most wicked-looking of Knives, and beginning very carefully to carve a Reed for her Instrument from a length of Schuylkill-side Cane. "Yes lovely isn't it?" she nods after a while, as if responding to a Pleasantry. " 'Twas given me by the Sultan. Dear Mustapha, 'Stuffy' we call'd him in the Harem cham?bers, amongst ourselves..."
When Brae, once, and only once, made the mistake of both gasping and blurting, "Oh, Aunt,— were you in a Turkish Harem, really?" 'twas to turn a giant Tap. "Barbary Pirates brought us actually's far as Aleppo, you recall the difficult years of 'eighty and 'eighty-one,— no, of course you couldn't,— Levant Company in an uproar, no place to get a Drink, Ramadan all year 'round it seem'd,— howbeit,— 'twas at the worst of those Depredations, that I took Passage from Philadelphia, upon that fateful Tide...the Moon reflected in Dock Creek, the songs of the Negroes upon the Shore, disconsolate,— " Most of her Tale, disguis'd artfully as traveler's Narrative, prov'd quite outside the boundaries of the Girl's Innocence, as of the Twins' Attention,— among the Domes and Minarets, the Mountain-peaks rising from the Sea, the venomous Snakes, miracle-mongering Fakeers, intrigues over Harem Precedence and Diamonds as big as a girl's playfully clench'd fist, 'twas Inconve-
nience which provided the recurring Motrix of Euphrenia's adventures among the Turks, usually resolv'd by her charming the By-standers with a few appropriate Notes from her Oboe,— upon which now, in fact, her Reed shap'd and fitted, she has begun to punctuate her brother Wicks's Tale, with scraps of Ditters von Dittersdorf, transcriptions from Quantz, and the Scamozzetta from I Gluttoni.