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Authors: Erica Jong

Fanny (45 page)

BOOK: Fanny
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How, you may indeed wonder, did I entertain Lord Bellars for so many Months without his e’er guessing me to be his orphan’d Fanny? I can but reply that I took the most careful Precautions to have him come to me only by Candlelight; to have him led upstairs to my Bedchamber by my faithful Servant only after blackest Nightfall, and rouz’d again always before Daybreak and quickly led away. My Voice I attempted to Disguise e’en in Fits of Passion, but e’en had I fail’d to do so, I believe that he would scarce have made the Connexion betwixt the innocent Wench he seduced at Lymeworth and the experienced Whore who entertain’d him in London.

For most Men, as I have said, see Women either as Angels or Devils, Marys or Liliths, Virgins or Whores, Saints or Sinners. ’Tis incomprehensible to them that the self-same Wench may be half-Angel and half-Devil, Innocence itself at first, and later the very Embodiment of Experience. We Women know that both Innocence and Experience are fluctuating States, not Absolutes; that they depend as much upon flickering Circumstances as upon fixt Morality; that Virtue is, in fact, a Luxury of the Rich, whilst Sin is oft’ the only Means to Survival of the Poor; but Men do not know this unless they are Geniuses of Mr. Hogarth’s Rank—and Lord Bellars, I grant, was no Genius.

Yet he was no Monster either; he was no more than a Spoilt Rake whose Selfishness had always gone uncheckt. The Age had granted him Pleasures unabated, had indulged his ev’ry Whim—whether lustful or pecuniary; thus he had ne’er learnt Self-Control, Self-Rule, or Moderation of his Passions: Married young to a timid Heiress who could not raise her Voice to him, school’d in Scandal amidst Whores and Rakes, how could he practise that Humility which manifests itself in Kindness? I fervently believe that the Rules I impos’d upon his Impulsive Nature did his Soul more good, i’faith, than his whole willful, Pleasure-seeking Life before he found me in the Hell-Fire Caves!

My curious Rules of Secrecy also prevented Boredom—that greatest Enemy of Lovers—from blunting the Point of Passion. O had I lov’d Lord Bellars in my own plain Face, he would have tired of me in two Months’ Time. But maskt, I could be all Things to him; all Women: French Courtesan or Turkish Harem Slave, Venetian Lady or Provençal Peasant, Spanish Nun or English Trollop. Indeed, I kept him guessing Week by Week, and this piqued his Passion as a Cordial before Dinner piques the most jaded Appetite.

Alas, ’twas true, as I discover’d when I came into Lord Bellars’ Keeping, that Daniel and Kate were now join’d in their evil Purposes like a two-headed Dragon of Old. When Lord Bellars was not making love to me, he was sighing o’er his Son’s sad Fate: to wit, Daniel had fallen into the Scheming Hands of a Trollop from Mother Coxtart’s Brothel.

“Unlike your own Sweet Self,” said Laurence Bellars, “this Wench is bent upon our Family’s Ruin, and will stop at nothing to disgrace my Son and bring him to his Knees.”

O with what divided Mind I heard this Tale! For tho’ I could admit to knowing Kate, I could not admit to knowing Daniel; and tho’ I could verify Kate’s Evil, I could say nothing of what I knew of Daniel’s Character, lest I betray myself as the Fanny of the Past. But ’twas ironical that Kate should have snar’d Daniel on the self-same Night I met his Father in the Hell-Fire Caves (for that I’d glean’d from Coxtart).

“Pray, Sir,” I askt Lord Bellars, “why is it wrong for your Son to have a Mistress when you yourself have one? Doth he not follow in your Footsteps?”

Laurence Bellars laugh’d most derisively. “If you knew my scurvy Son, you’d ne’er say that!” he burst out. “Compar’d to this Kate, you are an Angel, and compar’d to Daniel, I fear I am Virtue’s very Self.”

I long’d to enquire further what transpir’d with Kate and Daniel—but I fear’d I could not without giving myself away, and I fear’d myself always on the Brink of Peril in any case. So I held my Tongue for your Sweet Sake, Belinda (and for my own), and not until many Months had pass’d was I to know the Issue of this other History, and so shall you before my Tale is done.

In my Establishment in Hanover Square, I had a Servant nam’d Susannah, a freed Mulatto Wench from the West Indies who was sworn to deepest Secrecy about my True Identity. She had a Gap betwixt her Teeth as large as her Gen’rous Heart and Skin the Colour of Coffee mixt with Clotted Cream. She was barely older than myself, but wise beyond her tender Years, and she swore she knew all about Newborn Babes; indeed, ’twas why I hir’d her. Moreo’er, she was my constant Companion during my Confinement, playing ev’ry Role from Friend to Mother Confessor to Physician.

How did I pass those Months awaiting your Birth, my own Belinda? Lord Bellars occupied but one single Night a Week, and I had, as well, dropp’d from Sight of all the Brothel Swains. (Nor did I wish to see ’em—e’en those who’d been my Friends—for I was done with Whoredom and Good Riddance! Whate’er the Glitter of it may seem to the foolish Wench who languishes of Boredom at some Country Seat and dreams of London Life, the true Facts of a Whore’s Existence are, i’faith, enough to put one off the Love of Men for all Eternity!)

O I was happy for my six-day Chastity! I read the Classicks and all current Literature. I studied Homer, Virgil, Horace, Boileau, and La Rochefoucauld. And O my Belinda how I wrote!

With you in my Belly ’twas as if I had the very Muse inside me! My Quill flew o’er the Pages as if propell’d by Angels’ Wings, or, i’faith, as if Pegasus himself had seiz’d it and gallop’d away amidst the Stars!

I wrote Tragedies in Verse and Noble Epicks, Romances in the French Style and Maxims modell’d upon La Rochefoucauld’s. I wrote Satyres and Sonnets, Odes and Pastorals, Eclogues and Epistles. But nothing satisfied my most exalted Standards (which had been bred upon the Classicks), and at length I committed all my Efforts to the Fire. I wrote and burnt and wrote and burnt! I would pen a Pastoral thro’out three sleepless Nights only to commit it to the Flames! And yet were my Words not wasted, for ev’ry budding Poet, I discover’d, must spend a thousand Words for ev’ry one he saves, and Words are hardly wasted if, thro’ one’s Profligacy with ’em, one learns true Wit and true Expression of it.

Lord Bellars no doubt wonder’d how I spent his Money, but the Truth was that most of my Guineas went for Books and Foolscap, Quills and Inkstands—all the humble Tools of the Writer’s Trade. The Smell of Ink pleas’d me more than that of the costliest Perfumes; the Touch of fine Paper thrill’d my Fingertips more than the thinnest India Silk. I was besotted with my Craft and all its Tools; I vow’d to write and write until perchance I wrote one Poem worth preserving.

’Tis said by some that bearing Babes is all a Woman’s Fire and Inspiration; that as her Womb fills, her Head empties; that the Act of Bearing substitutes for all Acts of the Imagination. But I swear that ’tis not so! Rather, as my Womb fill’d, my Head teem’d as well with Fancies. As my Belly grew, so did the Children of my Brain!

The Bearing of a Babe puts a Woman thro’ as many Metamorphoses of Mood as the pale Moon hath Phases; and in each of these Phases I wrote—tho’ to say the Truth, I ne’er wrote of Womanhood or bearing Babes. No, I wrote of Imaginary Kingdoms, Grecian Shepherds, Roman Warriors, and Persian Pashas. Who, I wonder’d, would wish to know of bearing Babes? Why, no one! Did Mr. Alexander Pope write of bearing Babes? Did Dean Swift? Or Mr. Addison, or Mr. Steele? Did Boileau or La Rochefoucauld? Did Virgil or Horace? Nay, nay a thousand Times nay! Why then the very Act must be neither a fitting nor correct Subject for my Quill; for if Mr. Pope found it not correct, and if Mr. Addison found it not correct, how should it be Literature at all?

I observ’d with rapt Fascination the divers Phases of my Child-bearing (but wrote of ’em not, in order that I might spend my Ink upon more fitting Lit’ry subjects). At that Time of my Life, I ne’er question’d the Justness of such Judgement. Forgotten was my Great Epick upon Woman’s Lot, begun at that Coaching Inn, The Dumb Bell, and abandon’d to the Siren Song of Lust!

Yet now I ask: what could be more curious and strange than the Cycle of Child-bearing, the Phases of Pregnancy? There is, for instance, the First Phase, when one wishes to quite undo the Babe, because one feels its Presence as an Invasion at one’s very Centre; then the Second, when one feels the first delicate Stirrings of Life within (as if the Tail of a tiny Mermaid had brusht against one’s Heart and all one’s Inner Being were a gentle Sea with small Waves lapping); then the Third, when the Child grows bigger and ’tis very like a Puppy wiggling, tickling, e’en licking within; then the Fourth, when it grows the Size of a great Melon and causes one to make Water four Times an Hour, and indeed wakes up just when one lyes down to sleep, and falls to sleep just when one walks or rides or goes abroad; then the Fifth Phase, when the Child becomes a true Burden, heavier under the Heart than Lead and yet, for all its cumbrous Weight, more lov’d as well (for now it seems real rather than fanciful to the Mother and so she can better bear the Discomfort of its Heaviness); and then the Sixth Phase, when the Mother begins to grow immobile, fearful of Death in Childbed, (with Nights full of Dreams of Monsters, and Days full of Dreams of Childbirth Horrors); then the Seventh, when the Pregnancy grows long as the longest Day of Summer and the Mother forgets she hath e’er been slender of Form or will e’er be again, and ev’ry Step is an Effort not to make Water by Chance in the Street, and ev’ry Motion causes Pain and ev’ry Night is sleepless (because turn as she will this way and that, the Child cannot be accommodated whilst it kicks her Lungs and butts its bony Head against her Bowels); and then the Eighth Phase, the Phase of Immense Impatience and Weariness, when she believes the Child will ne’er be born (and she is glad, for then she may not dye but only endure Pregnancy for all Eternity!); and then the Ninth Phase, when the Moon is full as a Bladder of pale Wine, and the Sea glows with its rotund Reflection and the Mother fears Death more than e’er before; and then, at last, the Tenth Phase, when the Waters break and the Pains begin, slowly at first, and then tumultuous; and she knows she has no Choyce now, but must give birth or burst; for she cannot turn back, cannot take another Road thro’ the Forest, another Canal to the Sea, and she, like her Babe, is pusht headlong into the Dance of Life and Death, turning, whirling, moaning, writhing; and whether she shall live or dye she does not know, but the Pain grows so terrible at the Last that, i’faith, she does not e’en care!

O what a curious Cycle of Life the Goddess hath devis’d for the Race to perpetuate its Kind! Many of the Agonies fall upon the Female of the Species, yet also many of the Joys.

Who but a Woman can speak of pressing her Cheak to the tender pink Cheak of her own Child and her Breasts running with Milk at its very Touch, squirting fine Streams heavenward like the sprinkl’d Stars of the Milky Way? Who but a Woman knows the joy of Feasting her Eyes upon Eyes that cannot focus, of clasping tiny Fingers that can only grasp without knowing what they touch, of kissing tiny Toes that cannot walk and know not whither they shall go or whence they have come? O no Matter how lacking in Reason the Newborn Babe seems to the Masculine Philosopher, ’tis Reason itself to its Mother, so besotted is she with its Charms! Who but a Woman could love a Creature that cries all Night when she would sleep, who wakes up ravenous to eat only when a Plate is set before its Mother and
she
would eat, who partakes of no Polite Conversation but only pushes its Tongue in and out of its Mouth like a very stupid Puppy, and drools and pukes and shits all the livelong Day and Night!

How, indeed, hath our Race surviv’d but thro’ the Love of Women for their Newborn Babes? Common it may be, and yet ’tis also nothing less than a Miracle! For despite the Times when one would toss the Babe into a Dustbin to stop its Crying, the Passion to protect, preserve, and shelter is so much stronger than the Passion to destroy, that truly, most Babes have nothing to fear from their Mothers!

I fervently believe that if a Man had known as much Pain from a Creature as a Mother knows with the Birth of her Child, he would hate it e’erlastingly. But ’tis the Glory and the Credit of our Sex that we bear the Pain with no enduring Grudge and if we begrudge any Creature, ’tis not the Child, but the Man who got the Child (because of the Injustice of our Lot: the greater Weight of Responsibility we bear, yet the lesser Credit which the World accords us for it!).

But I race ahead with my History. Shortly, I will tell of my Lying-in and of the curious Things that came to pass as you, my Belinda, enter’d this World of much Woe and occasional Joy. Yet first, I must tell more of my Servant, Susannah, who shar’d this curious Time with me; for next to Lord Bellars and my Goose Quills and Foolscap, she was my most inseparable and beloved Friend during these amazing Months.

Susannah, I have said, was light brown of Skin, gap-tooth’d, gen’rous-hearted, garrulous. She spoke the Argot of the Islands, but
which
of the Sugar Isles she came from was impossible to know, for she herself remember’d almost nought before a Shipwreck in her fourth Year which washt her to Shore, a tiny Coffee-colour’d Girl, quite near the chalky Cliffs of Dover. She had been sold into an English Family, she recall’d, as a Playmate for their only Daughter; but when the entire Family perish’d at Sea, she alone was sav’d upon a floating Spar, weeping piteously for her Black Mama in the Islands, and having just watch’d her little White Mistress perish in the briny Deep.

Her Fate, thereafter, was harsher and more hackt-about than mine. She was befriended first by a Fine Gentleman who, ’twas later prov’d, lusted after little Girls (and who, when she was but five Years of Age, practis’d his perverse Diversions of the Flesh upon her). Running away from him at length, she was apprenticed to a Quaker Sempstress of cruel Temper (who us’d her as a sort of human Pin Cushion and curst the Colour of her Skin as the Devil’s own Doing). She ran away once more, this Time to London, where she join’d a Pack of Street Urchins who stole Watches and all Manner of golden Baubles for the notorious Mr. Jonathan Wild; but seeing one of her small Friends hang’d at Tyburn (tho’ the Lass was but ten Years of Age), she quit the Life of Crime, dress’d as a Boy, and took up Chimney-sweeping.

BOOK: Fanny
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