The Whale (18 page)

Hawthorne looked at Herman with something like fear. “Yes, my wife believes you have special powers of discernment.” He took a healthy drink of brandy. “I suppose I do, too.” He looked away
and blushed. “But I hope the world does not pass it by, since I have a new baby on the way. You may read the invisible ink and tell me what I meant, after all, but let ten thousand others read the words that appear plainly in black, and pay to do so.”

Herman again raised his glass in a toast. “To the black
and
the invisible.”

Dimly, at the edge of Herman's understanding, he heard a woman's voice yelling. She seemed to be calling the same words over and over. Finally, he tore his attention away from Hawthorne's beautiful, manly face and understood the words, “Mr. Melville, Mr. Hawthorne, supper.” It was Mary the cook. Herman was mortified that she might start banging a pan with a spoon.

They cast off their blanket and stood, and Herman looked around him and flinched. He and Hawthorne had both finished their cigars, and the window above the loft showed that it was completely dark outside. They had been suspended in time: their conversation seemed to have lasted only a few moments, yet when they emerged from the barn and saw the lights in the house all ablaze, Herman realized that they must have been talking for more than an hour. A few wispy snowflakes were falling as they followed Mary inside.

What is this dream, Herman thought, in which an hour with Hawthorne feels like only an instant and every second away from him feels like an eternity? If the universe were just, it would be the other way around.

 • • • 

At dinner, Una proved outgoing and entertaining and seemed right in her element. Unlike the skitterish and shy child Herman knew from his visits to Lenox, she lit up with enthusiasm at the Melville ladies' questions. Herman had never seen a family that flipped so dramatically from one tendency to its opposite so quickly or so
often as the Hawthornes did: Sophia with her glib bantering on the one hand and morbid confinement on the other; Una with her shyness at home that turned to carnival barking on a visit; Hawthorne himself, who seemed to flip from dark to light as rapidly as a coin spinning through moonlit air. Only Julian seemed fixed in his character, since he was mindlessly rambunctious at all times and appeared to have no secrets at all.

After they had eaten, they retired to the parlor and pulled their chairs up close around the fireplace. Pleasantly exhausted from her encyclopedic chattering at the table, Una curled up on a pillow at her father's feet and quickly fell asleep.

Hawthorne said, “Have you heard that the Harper brothers are soliciting stories for their new magazine?”

Herman nodded. “They asked me for something about the South Seas, but they are paying only in prestige.”

Lizzie chimed in. “Has that currency lost its value? I thought if you earned enough of it, you could trade it for dollars.”

“You can,” said Hawthorne. “But the exchange rate is rather poor.”

“A good name is better than great riches,” Lizzie said ironically, quoting one of Herman's favorite Bible verses directly at him.

“I suppose we should be glad their magazine is a success,” said Herman, ignoring her. “But they have printed six issues now containing almost nothing but pirated English material. Great swaths of Dickens and Trollope.”

“Next to advertisements for vanishing creams and corsets,” said Hawthorne.

“And must everything they produce be called Harper's?” said Herman. “The only name they can think of is their own.” He made an elaborate presentation of serving port. Hawthorne toasted their health and then turned solicitously to Lizzie.

“I'm afraid, Mrs. Melville, that the Harpers and Duyckincks truly
believe they can make Americans fall in love with American authors by printing them alongside English writers that everyone already knows. But I would be more convinced if the strategy did not require outright theft from our English counterparts and virtual theft from us.”

“But how should we fight against it?” said Herman. “We can hardly print and sell books ourselves, and the Harper brothers will never have incentive to pay American authors for their work when they can print Dickens for free. Who will enforce an English copyright on American soil, and if their copyrights cannot be enforced, what value will ours have?”

“The problem, in my opinion, is not the copyright question,” said Lizzie. “The problem lies between the covers of the books. Readers don't really know or care who earns the money from a book—if an author writes something that people want to read, they will buy it. People buy Thackeray and Dickens because they like the stories they write, not because of some abstract considerations concerning the nationality of the writers or the legal standing of their copyrights. People also buy the novels of Catharine Sedgwick and George Lippard—American authors who sell many thousands of books—because they enjoy their work. If there were enough American authors writing the kinds of stories Americans want to read, the publishers would pay them what they deserve, because the sales would justify the advances. Our own writers could then earn a living, and the courts would sort out the copyright question in due time.”

Herman felt stung by her comments. “Surely you are not saying that all American authors should write in the insipid style of Catharine Sedgwick?”

“Of course not.” Lizzie put her hands together in a gesture of prayer and looked to Hawthorne for help. “I am not speaking of the quality of books as literature. I am talking about sales, which is what
you
were talking about.”

“I must agree with Mrs. Melville and even take her point a step further,” said Hawthorne. “The problem, when you look at it honestly, is not that publishers will always seek the most profit possible but rather that the sheer number and variety of English authors far outstrips the number of our own writers. Even if every American writer were paid top dollar for every story and novel, our own publishers would still print English novels and still profit by them. We are a tiny militia fighting a great army, and we have not yet recruited enough soldiers to win the war—but we defeated the British once, and we shall do it again.” He lifted his glass to Lizzie.

Herman was unwilling to countenance this allegiance of Hawthorne and his wife against him. “But every American author is
not
paid top dollar for every novel and story, as you well know, and the copyright issue cuts both ways. Has
The Scarlet Letter
not been pirated in England? I have lost untold sales in England through unauthorized British reprints, and surely this has nothing to do with the number and variety of English authors available to the public—it is immoral moneygrubbing by the publishers, plain and simple, at the expense of individual authors on both sides of the Atlantic, who have no recourse in the courts.”

Herman suddenly realized that he had been shouting. Hawthorne glanced an apology at Lizzie and Augusta, and Herman felt foolish.

“It is a difficult subject,” said Hawthorne, “as you all know too well.”

Augusta said, “Would it not be better to talk more of the great poetry and beauty of books than their sales? Especially since we have such an accomplished writer as our special guest?”

Augusta asked Hawthorne to read from his own
Twice-Told Tales
, and Hawthorne surprised them by giving a dramatic reading of “The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” performing the voices of each character convincingly and somehow enlivening the dour Puritan tale into a
kind of ghost story; and he followed it with the midnight meditation of “The Haunted Mind.” Herman sat in a rocking chair so close to Hawthorne that, when he rocked forward, he occasionally felt the brush of the older man's sleeve against his hand. He closed his eyes and forgot about the marketplace and his own embarrassing outburst and let Nathaniel's words bathe his mind and heart and soul.

 • • • 

When they awoke the next morning, a crusty new glaze of snow covered the ground, and the roads had again become impassable. With the exception of Maria, who stayed inside to look after Malcolm, all of the Melville women joined Una outside, building snowmen and throwing snowballs. Helen, Augusta, and especially Lizzie were thrilled to have an excuse to release some pent-up energy in the fresh air.

Herman was delighted, as well—as long as the snow continued, Hawthorne would be his hostage. He had imagined taking long walks alone with Nathaniel during his visit, but instead, after breakfast, they found themselves returning to the barn for another chat, which was even better than Herman's fantasies; it was so cozy to sit among the animals nestled into the warmth of the hay that Herman could compare his joy only to the happiness that the swaddled infant Jesus must have inspired around Him, in that manger so far away. It pleased Herman that the analogies he could find for his love for Hawthorne so often seemed religious, since the feeling was as encompassing and mystical as sacred devotion.

Hawthorne carried with him this morning a book wrapped in brown paper and twine; and when they had established themselves on the bale of hay in the barn—again with cigars but this time with steaming tankards of tea—he handed the book to Herman. “A gift,” he said. “Which I hope will prove most useful in the writing of your whale story.”

Herman unwrapped the book greedily and discovered a well-worn
and roughly used copy of Archibald Duncan's
The Mariner's Chronicle; Being a Collection of the Most Interesting Narratives of Shipwrecks, Fires, Famines, and Other Calamities Incident to a Life of Maritime Enterprise.
His eyes welled, and he leaned over to embrace Hawthorne, an impulse he checked immediately with an embarrassed, jerky movement; but Nathaniel put his arm around Herman and gave him a warm squeeze anyway, and then left his arm around Herman's shoulder. Herman leaned into him and opened the book. It was autographed by Richard Manning, dated 1812, and then again by Hawthorne himself, dated 1832.

Hawthorne said, “Richard Manning was my uncle. I used to spend summers in Maine with him as a child, and I read this book while I was there. I had a fascination with sea disasters because of how my father died, and I read the stories over and over again, for some reason inserting my father into every calamity, killing him in fires and explosions and pirate attacks. I suppose it was because his death, and even his very existence, had seemed unreal to me then, so I attempted a kind of magic to make him more substantial somehow. It didn't work, of course; but this has been a very important book in my life, and I hope it will be of some value to you.”

Herman could imagine no greater or more thoughtful token of love. He managed to say “thank you” but could muster no other words for a long time. He paged through the volume, wiping away his slowly rolling tears as he read the chapter titles—The Loss of the Hector Frigate; Shipwreck of Madame De Bourk; The Distress and Providential Escape of the Guardian Sloop; Extraordinary Famine in the American Ship Peggy—he felt so loved.

“It's beautiful,” he said. When he finally looked up, he was surprised to see that Hawthorne had teared up, as well.

“It is filled with definitions of things one might find at sea,” Hawthorne said. He took the book from Herman and found a particular
passage. “‘The Maelstrom: This dreadful whirlpool is so violent that everything which comes near it, is drawn in and dashed to pieces.' That might also be the definition of Melville.” He offered the book back to Herman, and they sat for a long moment staring into one another's eyes.

“If we are to be friends,” Herman said, “you must not say such things to me. You know that I love you, and you cannot toy with my affections. I will go mad.”

“I'm sorry,” said Hawthorne. “You're right.” He stood up and walked toward Zenobia, puffing his cigar. Zenobia mooed.

“I don't understand, Hawthorne. I don't understand what you want from me.”

“Don't you?”

“You came close to me last summer, and then you wouldn't speak to me or even write a friendly word all autumn, and now you offer me tokens of . . . well, I don't know what. Can't you just say plainly how you feel?”

“I could, if it were plain to me.” He turned around to face Herman again. “I know that you are unlike anyone I have ever met. When I am around you, I feel at liberty to express myself completely as I see fit, because I am quite sure you will understand me. It's a freedom I have longed for, but I also know that what you want from me, I cannot give.”

“No,” Herman said. “That's not true. What I want from you is to know you.”

Hawthorne waved his hand dismissively. “Are we speaking plainly or aren't we?”

Herman wilted somewhat and gripped the book of seafaring disasters more tightly. “What I want, given that no other possibility seems available, is to be your friend.” He stood up, as well. “I wish there were another name for it, a name that captures the essence of it.”

“You wish to be my lover. That's the name for it. But I am a stranger to that form of love.”

Herman thought that, by his tone, Hawthorne might have meant that he had simply never acted on his desire for a man and not that he had never
felt
such a desire—but he couldn't be sure. Herman said, “Your heart cannot be so overfilled with love that there is no place in it for me.”

“It is not my heart that matters,” said Hawthorne. “We are both married men, and you know that Sophia has another baby on the way. Nothing about that has changed.”

“But has your heart not changed since last summer? Has something not happened in the meantime, that you feel you want to give me gifts and compare me to a maelstrom that might dash you to pieces?”

A fluttering of wings and bock-bock-bocking signaled a disturbance in the chicken coop, which the rooster quickly put down. A feather floated up into a beam of light and then spun down and landed on Zenobia's head.