The Pox Party Read online

  Mr. 03-01 came before us, and said, “The Novanglian College of Lucidity has entered a new and even more astonishing chapter. Allow me to introduce Mr. Sharpe. He will address you. Mr. Sharpe, would you prefer to sit or stand?”

  “I shall pace,” said Mr. Sharpe. “Thank you, Mr. Gitney.” Mr. Sharpe began his rounds. With Mr. Sharpe, I found in the years that followed, there was no facing a person, unless for assessment. Otherwise, he was turned always to the side, his hands clasped behind him or held before him, never at his sides; him choosing to subsist in the manner of those Ægyptian friezes where men, lateral with antiquity, tally their grain.

  To us he said: “Point A: My friends, the question we must ask ourselves is this: Can a forest animal eat itself for sustenance? Have you seen a badger devour its own flanks? Indeed, good people, can any living thing feast upon its own flesh indefinitely, and yet remain whole? Outside of the menagerie of fancy, the answer is ‘No.’ A fox, let us say, that pursued this course should be involved in perpetual cartwheels.” He paused and put his hands before his mouth, as if pondering.

  We stared at him in bewilderment.

  He swiveled to present his other profile, and continued: “I use this quaint illustration not only to put you at your ease by eliciting laughter at a risible scenario — for I am a man who appreciates a jest — and I found myself, last night at the inn, quite delighted by the thought of the fox, look you, the comical fox, his own white teeth bloodied with his own blood, gagging on his own pelt as he swallowed his legs — down the gullet! — but also to make a point. Point B. A point of great gravity: No institution, like no fox, may long be sustained on its own flesh. We must devour elsewhere if we are not to devour ourselves, and so perish!

  “Point C: You gentlemen have done marvelous work here. Mr. Gitney has shown me your publications. Your scrutiny into the most obscure sciences has attracted the notice of the world. But you cannot simply pursue these ends without results that will aid the common man. This is a revolutionary age, my friends. You have been living in the turrets of a fairy-castle — which is a fine view — excellent prospect — until you realize that fairy-castles, my friends, consist in their architecture of tea-cake and icing. They are (a) frail; they are (b) sticky. And there are those below the battlements of this your confectionary keep who starve. It is time, sirs, madams, to become part of the world. It is time to enter the market, rather than feeding on your own stale flesh.”

  This all seemed excellent sense; an opportunity for renewal and usefulness.

  Mr. Sharpe surveyed us. “Which one of you is the painter?”

  07-03 raised his hand.

  “Your name, sir?”

  “07-03,” he said.

  “Eh —,” interposed Mr. 03-01, rising. He explained to us, “Eh — I am afraid . . . I am afraid that our system of metric designation has come to an end. Mr. Sharpe, reviewing the practice, has determined that it contributes to hierarchy and rank. So we shall . . . cast aside our numbers, my friends . . . like shackles . . . and instead . . . names. Names for all.”

  “It is a glorious new day,” said Mr. Sharpe.

  Dr. 09-01 — now abruptly Trefusis — raised his hand. He remarked, “The alchemical worm Ouroboros that encircles the world devours itself.”

  “Pardon?” said Mr. Sharpe.

  “The alchemical worm Ouroboros of ancient myth. Its teeth are sunk in its tail.”

  “Precisely,” said Mr. Sharpe. “Precisely. This is the kind of bizarre academic interlude that profits absolutely no one.” He turned back to the painter. “Sir, you, Mr. Painter. Do you see the spots where pictures lately hung, now sold off to pay the debts of your academy’s intransigence? I would like a simple mural there depicting the sciences and arts allegorified, sitting on top of Utility.”

  The painter hesitated. “Sitting atop Utility? Are they . . . hurting him? What is Utility?”

  “Perhaps an ox,” said Mr. Sharpe. “With an humble countenance.”

  Over the course of the next several days, Mr. Sharpe met with each of the academicians to determine which philosophical projects should be pursued, and which put aside. In the end, they were each stinted various courses of inquiry that should in some measure produce more visible results than their previous studies: They now spent their days melting and rendering the subcutaneous fats of animals, or determining which birds ate which pests, or tracing the genealogy of the more amorous peaches.

  The arts were not much marked in the new regime. Mr. Sharpe and the new investors made us sensible of how unprofitable were the products of crayon, quill, and fiddle. Our attention was directed at those pursuits which would yield clear benefit to ordinary men.

  And is this, after all, not just? On this head, are not the afternoons spent playing Corelli with my mother — afternoons defunct, now that her harpsichord was sold — do these not seem like the arts of idleness? A galling, sweet example of privilege exercised?

  I should say that chief among the peculiarities of the new regime was the use of surnames in address. So unaccustomed were we to appellations other than the numerical that we hesitated each time we spoke a name; we fumbled for words. So doth even the most absurd of habits, after a time, inscribe itself as law, and come to resonate as ineluctable truth.

  Mr. Sharpe betrayed an early dislike for my mother, whose arts and airs excited in him nought but irritation. He spoke to her flatly, turned to the side; then swiveling to survey her heighth rapidly, he delivered his determinations respecting her inquiries, and was done with her. He engaged in no flirtation. He said he would not, at present, allow for expenditure on any dresses of fine stuffs, but rather recommended she brood on worsted and prunella twill. He would not brook special dishes being prepared for her at supper-time. He could not abide her luxuries; and when she wore the blood-speckled dress to shame him, he revealed no interest or consternation.

  For some few weeks, I continued my studies as before, Dr. Trefusis guiding me without remark through stories of slaves who had achieved greatness. He prompted nothing; he betrayed by no comment that I should consider the courses described in these narratives. He simply supplied the texts, aided with the translations, and rapped my hand when I failed at declension or agreement.

  This came to an end at the turn of the fourth week from the day I first laid eyes upon Mr. Sharpe. That individual requested to visit my tutorial with Dr. Trefusis. To this, we could do nothing but render assent.

  He did not arrive punctually at the opening of the lesson. Dr. Trefusis and I sate awkwardly in silence, the pretense of tuition abandoned; knowing that the coming lesson would be but a simulation of learning; and being unwilling to begin this pretense without an audience.

  After a time, Dr. Trefusis shrugged, went to the desk, and drew forth the text, and, he having set it before me, we began to read of the plebian revolution in Rome.

  At this point, there was a rap on the door, and Mr. Sharpe side-stepped into the chamber and bowed. “Pray continue,” he said. “Mind me not.”

  Continue we did. Dr. Trefusis had chosen Latin for the day, the better to show my excellence in the subject. The text was not a difficult one, and I encountered no obstacles in my translation. This gave me confidence, and when I saw Dr. Trefusis smile upon Mr. Sharpe after I had performed a particularly felicitous rendering, I was so bold as to smile upon the man too, as if to say: We all pursue excellence together.

  “Yes, fine,” said Mr. Sharpe.

  “The boy is extraordinarily gifted,” said Dr. Trefusis. “His grasp of sciences would be enough to recommend him as an excellent student; but his achievements in Classical literature and music suggest genius. He speaks Latin like a native of Augustus’s Rome, he speaks French and Greek passably, and we are endeavoring to form him as an English prose stylist as well.”

  “I suppose I shall be the judge of all that,” said Mr. Sharpe.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Trefusis.

  “You misunderstand,” said Mr. Sharpe. “I appreciate your efforts in trai
ning the child, but I feel that this experiment has been severely mismanaged.” He pressed his hands, as if in prayer, against his nose. He said sadly, “I have read many of the boy’s translation exercises. The course you have pursued is all wrong. You have engaged in entertainment rather than instruction. More to the point, you have prejudiced the results.”

  “Sir,” said Dr. Trefusis, “I see no such thing.”

  “Precisely why I am afraid that you must retire from this experiment.” He gestured carelessly towards me. “The subject’s people are a story-telling people. Their converse is formed largely of tales of fallen heroes and the most absurd myths respecting talking jungle animals. Such propensities are hardly evidence of a rational society. And yet, you have been cultivating the same propensities in your lessons with the boy. You have nourished him on narrative. Narrative, sir, is precisely what we wish to wean him from.

  “We wish to determine whether the subject is capable of growth in his rational faculties. That alone. This would constitute growth away from his hereditary savage nature. Do you see? What you have been doing is feeding him precisely the kind of story that he would have been receiving in his native land. It is to this that he has responded, not the abstract logic of the language. He evinces considerable enthusiasm at these stories — seems to be involved in them. You are, look ye, granting him an unfair advantage. You are training him, as a vine, upon a considerable armature, when we wish to see precisely whether he can flourish on his own.

  “I, on the other hand, will teach him logic and grammar without narrative. We wish to judge his abstract thinking, not his commitment to tale-telling, which is, in any case, merely a relapse into the pagan stupor of his forebears.”

  He turned, at last, to me. “From this point out, you shall translate only fragments. You shall be debarred from literature and history. The history of a race fallen fifteen hundred years ago is, in any case, of little moment to us now. There is no utility in it.”

  Dr. Trefusis was aghast. “You will ruin the boy,” he said.

  “You have done that already,” said Mr. Sharpe. And, turning to me: “Now. Let us begin.”

  For the next several hours of that day I labored over a Greek legal dispute regarding the ownership of twenty-five oxen ravaged by the mange. Following that, Mr. Sharpe set me to chopping firewood.

  I did not complain, rather inclined to split timber than to labor at case and tense beneath his sallow eye; and having fled the lesson, I took some pleasure in the coolness of the air in the yard, the monotony of lifting, settling, appraising, and striking, throwing aside, and hauling up another limb for riving.

  This chore being completed, I was sent upstairs with Bono to set out new candles in the bedroom sconces; and thereafter, set to shucking sweetcorn in the kitchen. This I did not find remarkable, it often being the case due to the illness or absence of one of the younger servants that some small duties had to be performed.

  Over the next days, however, the roster of tasks grew longer; and I perceived that this was to be my lot. The permanency of the arrangement was confirmed two days later when Mr. Sharpe announced that he had sold the indentures of several of our servants to other households; that those same servants must gather their few possessions and remove themselves to their new homes.

  It was Mr. Sharpe’s intention that those of us who remained would do the work of those who had been sold; I was to be trained by Bono as a valet, and serve my master Mr. Sharpe at his pleasure. That gentleman believing that my education had been, up until that time, entirely lacking in any common-sensical preparation for the vocations established for men of my race, he averred that it would be a disservice to me to allow me to continue in scholarly pursuits save that of (a) Latin and (b) Greek (for these last were the substance of the experiment practiced upon me). He said it would be laughable for me to continue to study luxurious and abstract knowledge when a world of practical utility awaited my laboring hands.

  Thus my studies altered forever in their essential nature as in their outward form. No longer did my teachers lay open for me the book of Nature and speak of botany and zoology; no longer was I given the works of Shakespeare and Pope to con. Instead, I spent some two hours a day in the translation of fragments from Greek and Latin; the texts being chosen for their convolution, recondite meaning, dryness, and insipidity.

  I was disallowed the use of the house’s library, for fear that liberty amongst the volumes there would allow me to study and so unfairly prejudice the results of the experiment. I was forbidden to read any of the Latin volumes of history and song to which I had turned; forbidden to read narratives in English; forbidden often even the practice of my violin.

  It must be thought that such a deprivation would have deeply grieved me; but curiously, it did not, for many months; and this was due to the deep regard I had for Bono, who now was commanded to teach me the ways of service.

  I looked to Bono with all the adulation of a younger brother, astonished always at his wisdom and his easy knowledge of solutions to the nice problems of household management; and I was not a little awestruck by his friendly disdain for me. I would willingly have followed him through any passageway to any laboring engine, up any staircase to any senseless task, any polishing or brushing or burnishing, just to spend time in his presence, who seemed so fearless and sure in the world.

  Over the next months, he taught me how to remove stains, how to ensure that leather was supple. As we had but one footman left, he taught me the niceties of waiting on guests and receding motionless when nothing more was needed. He taught me how to bait the horses. He taught me how to offer my hand to a lady without offending with forwardness. He taught me that there are taxonomies in candlesticks as subtle and arcane as those of the Lepidoptera and arachnids: He taught me that some candlesticks are to be submerged in boiling water and rubbed dry with flannel to remove tallow; some are to be shined with rotten-stone; he taught me that the silver must be lifted from the water first, before the others, and rubbed with whiting; that steel candlesticks should not be submerged in water at all, but must be massaged with oil and emery. He taught me to serve; he taught me to hide.

  I remember best one of the first lessons he gave me. I walked abroad with him through the city, learning the routes by which I would have to walk when I delivered messages.

  “Down there’s Mr. Byles. Up here’s Mr. Sandson. He don’t tip, even if you compliment his son’s aim with blocks. If ever you has to take something to Mr. Pettit, he’s down Foster Street. Don’t you let him start talking about the Indian Wars and the fall of Louisberg. It’ll last you ’til after the curfew, and the watchmen will snatch you for tardy and Negro.”

  I nodded.

  He reached inside his frock-coat, and drew forth a letter. “You know to always carry this,” he said. He handed the letter to me. It said,

  Sirs —

  My slave Pro Bono Gitney hath business abroad at the houses of Mr. Ogilvy and Mr. Trevor. I will thank you not to molest him in the course of his duties. This letter serving as a pass from

  Your respectful servant,

  Mr. Josiah Gitney

  “Each time you walk alone in the city, best to have one of these. Otherwise, close to dark the watch’ll assume you’re off to explode the rum distillery or steal chickens from widows. Always — you always keep your papers on your poxy little person. Mr. Gitney, he’ll let you write them yourself.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re a great one for nodding,” he said. He jarred me with his elbow so I swerved and almost ran full into four slaves carrying a woman of distinction on a sedan-chair. “You got to stop nodding,” he said. “That’s what I’m telling you. Don’t nod when there ain’t a need to nod, see? You got to be blank.”

  He held out the written pass. “This is what they want us to be,” he said. “They want us to be nothing but a bill of sale and a letter explaining where we is and instructions for where we go and what we do. They want us empty. They want us flat as paper. They want
to be able to carry our souls in their hands, and read them out loud in court. All the time, they’re on the exploration of themselves, going on the inner journey into their own breast. But us, they want there to be nothing inside of. They want us to be writ on. They want us to be a surface. Look at me; I’m mahogany.”

  I protested, “A man is known by his deeds.”

  “Oh, that’s sure,” said Bono. “Just like a house is known by its deeds. The deeds say who owns it, who sold it, and who’ll be buying a new one when it gets knocked down.”

  Day succeeded day, filled with fragments. Mr. Sharpe hardly spoke to me. I appeared at the appointed hour in the school room. He parlayed not, but simply handed me sheets of quotations, bowed briefly, and walked out. He pursued more stimulating projects, whilst I, alone in the chamber, labored through his Classical obscurities.

  The languages swift became intractable. Whereas before, I had anticipated my lessons as the hour most gratifying in the day, now, in measure equal to my former pleasure, I dreaded their advent.

  Whippings were the desert of failure.

  These were not as harsh as the first I had received from Lord Cheldthorpe; they were transacted with a birch wand, rather than a whip, and were but a stroke or two; but they were more regular.

  I still may bring to memory the smell of the varnish, my face smothered against the desk, my hands stretched before me in a gesture of offering and obeisance.

  Mr. Sharpe did not seem sensible that these hands he cut with the ferule were the same which, an hour later, bleeding, bandaged, arranged his frock-coats according to his order. To mark the silk of his coats with blood would have merited the most grievous punishments, so Bono and I wrapped my hands tightly in cloth; but with my hands thus bandaged, I could not help but fumble. I received further reprimands for my labored and deliberate service, or, as he called it, my sloth. For this, he whipped my hands again.