The Whale (6 page)

He inhaled the sweet musky smell of his horse's sweat and observed chipmunks darting beneath logs in the shade of the woods along the road. He stopped bothering about the flies buzzing their fanatical patterns around his head, even allowing mosquitoes to land on his hands and drink their fill, a blood sacrifice of thanks to the gods. By the time he crested the hill above Lake Mahkeenac and saw Hawthorne's diminutive two-story cottage, set like a dusky ruby in the shoreside meadow, he had become as calm as Buddha staring down eternity. He clopped right up to the waist-high white picket fence and stopped, remaining mounted, taking in the scene of Hawthorne's domicile in silence.

A little dirt path, bordered by white stones, led to Hawthorne's
small, charming porch, which sheltered the white-painted front door. To the left of the red cottage, a garden of tomatoes and lettuces and leafy greens grew in neatly weeded rows of black loam; to the right, a single chicken pecked about in the grass below an oak, whose canopy partially shaded the cottage; and beyond the oak, toward a thick stand of tangled woods that guarded the lake, monarch butterflies flitted and danced around a patch of wintercress with wispy yellow flowers that seemed artfully and intentionally strewn in a pattern of careless beauty. A woodpecker rapped noisily from the woods, providing off-kilter rhythm for the squeaky-wheel cries of warblers. The thick, earthwormy smell of mud wafted up from the lake.

Herman heard footsteps within the cottage, and the door opened abruptly. “Hello, it must be Mr. Melville, is it not?”

Sophia Hawthorne, the slight, brunette wife of the Literary Lion, stepped out onto the porch and walked briskly up the path. She wore her hair in the current fashion, parted severely down the middle, where gray hairs intermixed with dark brown; with each step she took, her curls bounded below her ears like springs. She wore a plain, blue cotton dress, fringed with white lace. Herman dismounted somewhat awkwardly, due to the bulk of the books he had come to deliver, and Sophia gave him a frank, warm handshake.

“Mr. Duyckinck sent along these books,” he said.

“Of course, of course. We've been expecting you!”

Herman had folded a copy of
Literary World
into the knotted twine and wrapping paper, and now he withdrew it and offered it to Sophia. “And I've brought along a copy of the latest
Literary World
, which has an article on your husband.”

“I know, isn't it marvelous? I've only just finished reading it. Mr. Longfellow gave us a copy when he came up from New York earlier today.”

Herman was disappointed that he'd been beaten to the punch,
but he nevertheless waited expectantly for Sophia to praise him for the review. They stared at one another. “Did you notice who wrote the article?” he asked.

“Yes, and isn't it the queerest byline you ever read? We have been puzzling over it all morning.”

Herman fired open the magazine and found his article: indeed, the byline read not Herman Melville but rather “A Virginian Spending the Summer in Vermont.” His first feeling was blind rage; but then he realized that Duyckinck must have published it anonymously in order to leave in the bits about Shakespeare and the germinous seeds. He glanced over the article again and found every one of the wildly flattering things he had said about Hawthorne, which could not properly be called literary and could conceivably bring an unpleasant backlash from readers—an idea he had not considered when writing it. Perhaps Duyckinck was simply protecting him; then so be it, he thought. It would give him the chance to surprise Hawthorne by revealing the author's true identity, in person.

Herman tied Lollie to the fence, and Sophia ushered him into the little cottage. A short entrance hall offered access to a narrow, crudely constructed staircase leading to the second floor. Below the staircase, to the right, two doors opened, one into a bedroom and the other into a tiny parlor. Sophia led him to the door on the left and into the parlor. The whole building would have fit snugly into one wing of Broad Hall, and the parlor, which apparently also served as a dining room and kitchen, was smaller than the bedroom Herman and Lizzie shared.

“Let me get you a cup of water,” said Sophia. “And would you like to wash a little? I could fill a basin. Oh, I've completely forgotten myself. I should tell you that Nathaniel has taken the children for a walk along the lake. They should be back any moment. He'll be so happy to see you.”

Herman reached into his pocket, withdrew the box he had received from the apothecary, and handed it to Sophia. “What weighs so much in such a small package, if you don't mind my asking, Mrs. Hawthorne?”

“Don't let's stand on formalities, Mr. Melville, please call me Sophia, it will make me so much more comfortable.”

“Very well, call me Herman.”

She opened the box and showed Herman a stack of charcoal gray magnets. “They're for my headaches, you see. I have the most alarming headaches from time to time, and I've tried everything to cure them and just don't know what else to do. Short of mesmerism, this is my last idea, and Nathaniel won't countenance mesmerism.”

“Have you considered opium?”

“Yes, before I went to Cuba, I used opium, and laudanum, too, but they're rather expensive.”

“And what took you to Cuba?”

“I was a governess there for a short time, but really my family sent me in the hope that the tropical sun would work a cure on my poor head. The doctors don't know what to do with me, I'm afraid.
Conoces Cuba
?”

“I've never been there, no, but I met some Spanish sailors from Havana on a whaler several years ago.”

“Ah, yes,” said Sophia, with a dreamy, faraway look. “Whaling. How violent!” She went to the dining table, which was pushed up against the far wall of the parlor, and poured Herman a cup of water from a glazed white pitcher. Then she poured some more water into a wooden bowl. She held up the magnets and said, “I'll just put these away and leave you for a moment to refresh yourself,” and she went out to the entrance hall and up the stairs.

Herman set Hawthorne's package on the table, drank down the entire cup of water, and then splashed his face with cool water from
the bowl. He ran his wet hand up and down the back of his sweaty neck and combed his hair with his fingers, while he examined Hawthorne's main room. Four dining chairs were pushed awkwardly under the table in the corner—he guessed that they pulled it out and rearranged the other furnishings for every meal. In the center of the north wall was a potbellied stove, and next to the stove a small cabinet contained cookware, dishes, cutlery, and serving plates. Across the room, below the generous front window, a pair of easy chairs faced each other; a table in between held an oil lamp. Low bookcases lined the walls on either side of the chairs. No portraits or decorations of any kind hung on the walls; it seemed the most humble and blank room in the world, a place where every emotion would have to be invented anew in order to be felt at all.

When he had finished washing, he unconsciously reverted to the manners of a sailor and wiped his hands on his pants. Sophia descended again with steps so light that the stairs barely registered a creak.

“So you read the review in
Literary World
, as well?” Sophia said.

“I did,” said Herman. He took a moment to appraise Sophia more closely, as a rival. She was no great beauty, but her elfin ears lent her an otherworldly air, as did the oddly detached curiosity in her eyes—as if her human form were merely an instrument she had borrowed in order to convey her observations of earth to angels, spirits, and ghosts.

“I do so wonder who it is, this so-called Virginian in Vermont. Is it some kind of joke? Who on earth could possess such a rich heart and be so fine and fearless and full of such astonishing intuitions and not wish to be known? It's quite a mystery. And if I may say so without seeming too full of pride, I think this Virginian is the first person, in print, to say what I myself, in my secret mind, have often thought about Nathaniel's spiritual kinship to Shakespeare. I fear that in other ways, though, this person has misapprehended Nathaniel.”

“Misapprehended how?”

Sophia took up a copy of
Literary World
, found the passage she was looking for, and unwittingly read Herman's own words aloud to him: “‘Where Hawthorne is known, he seems to be deemed a pleasant writer, with a pleasant style—a sequestered, harmless man, from whom any deep and weighty thing would hardly be anticipated—a man who means no meanings.'” She looked up. “Despite the wealth of brilliance the reviewer brings to his interpretations of Nathaniel's stories, he seems never to have heard of him before or understand the fame and controversy that have followed his recent work. It seems a direct contradiction to compare Nathaniel with Shakespeare and then call him a pleasant writer who means no meanings. And if you ask for Nathaniel around Salem, you will find impressions of him there anything but harmless, after
The Scarlet Letter
.”

Herman felt chagrined that he had dashed the review off so hastily, and he wondered now what he could possibly have been thinking when he wrote that sentence. He wondered if, rather than flattering Hawthorne, he might instead have found myriad ways of offending him. “I think I can clear up this misunderstanding rather easily,” he said. “You see, the reviewer had simply never been acquainted with Mr. Hawthorne before; and, while he was writing this review, he asked a few acquaintances for their ideas of his early work. He was speaking of the impression one might have of Hawthorne if one had read only the surface meanings of his earlier stories.”

Sophia considered this for a moment. “How can you speak with such authority about the intentions of this anonymous gentleman, Herman?”

“In fact, I'm on the most intimate terms with him.” Herman had imagined confessing his secret to Nathaniel, but somehow Sophia's critique and the crack it opened in his confidence made him want to tell her first, to test the waters.

“You must tell me who it is, Herman, at once.”

Herman made a low, sweeping bow and then stood back up with an embarrassed grin. “At your service.”

“You? But . . . a Virginian? Vermont? I'm afraid I don't understand it.”

“I think Mr. Duyckinck felt uncomfortable with some of my views regarding your husband and Shakespeare, and perhaps publishing the review anonymously allowed him to feel more at liberty to print them.”

Sophia thought about this for a moment. “I'm afraid that makes no sense at all, but nevermind—what an extraordinary review, Herman! Was it all true, I mean, are these your true opinions of Nathaniel's work?”

“Very much, though I see now that I failed to do him justice regarding the particulars and may have antagonized him with many thoughtless turns of phrase. But I don't believe America has produced a finer or nobler intellect. If I may speak confidentially, however, I have not read the novel that has recently won him so much praise and fame, so I feel that I still may not have plumbed his deepest depths.”

“Well, you must read it immediately. Wait here and I'll fetch you a copy!” Sophia ran upstairs, and in only a few moments she had raced back into the parlor with a copy of
The Scarlet Letter
. “I believe you will find this even better than anything that has come before, and I cannot wait to have your opinions about it. I am always so dazzled by the jewels of beauty in Nathaniel's productions that I look forward to a second reading almost as much as the first; but most of all I enjoy pondering and musing on his work with a friend. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you—I have just espied Nathaniel and the children from the upstairs window, tramping up from the lake. They're practically upon us.”

She turned and rushed out the front door, and Herman saw her through the window running down the hill toward the lake. Just at
the edge of a fantastically tall screen of Buffalo grass, Sophia met Hawthorne and their two children: the steepness of the hill in that spot made Hawthorne seem to materialize out of the earth itself. Sophia gestured excitedly as she talked, and Hawthorne put his hand over his eyes to shade his view toward the cottage; and now, as Herman felt Hawthorne's gaze on the window where he stood, like a pressure against the quivering glass, the invisible winged creatures that had frolicked around Herman's head that morning reappeared and fluttered the air out of his lungs. He sipped little breaths, set
The Scarlet Letter
on the table, and walked out to greet the family, feeling as if, at any moment, he might take flight.

“So you are the Virginian,” Hawthorne said by way of greeting, betraying no surprise whatsoever at this news. Despite the heat of the day, his high alabaster brow appeared cool and dry. He shook Herman's hand, holding his gaze, and Herman fell irresistibly into the depths of that vast inward sea of Hawthorne's dark eyes, where leviathans of thought and emotion swam like gods in the secret fissures at the center of the world. Sophia brought her hands together in front of her heart, as if in prayer, and Julian walked boldly up to Herman and threw his arms around his right leg. Una, their daughter, stood off at a distance, viciously swiping at the grass with a switch.

“I can shout and squeal,” said Julian.

“Please don't, though, young master,” Hawthorne replied.

“We are electing to be idle,” Julian shouted, and then he squealed and ran into the house.

Sophia said, “That sounds like a phrase you taught him, dear.”

“Yes. But, in fact, he is never idle.”

Hawthorne let go of Herman's hand and took Sophia's. Herman shook inwardly with waves of joy and jealousy as Nathaniel and Sophia swung their conjoined hands and sauntered toward the cottage. He was dragged in their wake by the force of Hawthorne's
spiritual weight, and Una came silently behind him. When they had all crossed the threshold, the children ran upstairs together, and Sophia paused a moment before following them up, to point out the package of books and to remind her husband that they owed Herman a dollar and a half.