The Whale (23 page)

“But in taming it, we do destroy it. Civilization is the name we give to the destruction of nature.”

“Would you have us all become savages, Melville?”

“Were Adam and Eve savages?”

“I believe you may be taking the story of Eden a little more literally than it was intended.”

“We were raised in different churches, you and I.”

Hawthorne poured them each another glass of fine cognac. Herman could not remember a better birthday.

“I would like to tell you a story, Melville, of a scene I saw once in a circus in New York. Nothing much interested me in the circus except a sick monkey, a very large and elderly one, it seemed to me. His keeper brought him some pieces of apple, and some water and some tea. The keeper said that the monkey had quite lost his appetite and refused all ordinary diet, but he came eagerly when he
smelled the apple, and the keeper exhorted him to eat it. But the poor monkey shook his head, with the most pitiable expression I ever saw, at the same time extending his hand to take the keeper's hand, as if claiming his friendship. But the keeper, who was rather a surly fellow, refused his hand; and by and by, he essayed harsher measures and insisted that the monkey should eat; and thereupon ensued a struggle and the tea was overturned upon the straw of the monkey's bed and the slices of apple scattered. Then the keeper scolded the monkey and seized him by one arm and dragged him out of the little cage of his bedroom into the larger surrounding pen, upon which the monkey began a loud, harsh, reproachful chatter. Observing us spectators in front of the pen, the monkey seemed to appeal to us directly and stretched out his lean arm and black hand between the bars, as if trying to claim the grasp of any friend he might have in the whole world. He was pliable, however; for when the keeper called him in a gentler tone, he hobbled back toward him with a stiff and rusty movement, and in the end they affectionately hugged one another. To me, this analogy might be more apt than your New Eden. God has created a circus, with us monkeys as the attraction and his angels as the audience, to whom we must appeal. But ultimately, no matter how we are mistreated, we must return to the embrace of the Creator, for he is our only source of sustenance, even though he be a surly fellow.”

“And what role does the devil play in your circus?”

“Perhaps the devil plays the crank organ that mocks everyone.” Hawthorne took a healthy drink of brandy. “I am analogizing on the fly, Melville, and the details may need some work. What role does the devil play in your New Eden of America?”

Herman squinted through the smoke. “The devil created everything in the first place.”

“But that merely makes you a Zoroastrian, and we know how
unfashionable that is, these days. You should try something more Hindoo, perhaps.”

“Or cannibalistic.”

“Sometimes, Melville, I think you truly aren't a Christian at all.”

Their conversation continued in this vein for some time, becoming more playful and less coherent as the brandy and cigars took effect. By the time Herman had officially subscribed to Zoroastrianism and Hawthorne had become a Coptic, the cognac was three quarters gone, and they had each smoked yet another Havana; and finally, Herman looked at his empty glass and at Hawthorne, wondering if they should finish the bottle; and Hawthorne said that he ought to try to get some sleep, since he had promised to take Julian to the Highwood estate across the lake the next morning to play.

They stood up simultaneously. Hawthorne, who was less used to drinking such large quantities of alcohol, lurched awkwardly into Herman, who caught him and encompassed him in an awkward hug. Hawthorne regained his balance by pushing heavily into Melville's body, and they both stood up straighter, Herman embracing Hawthorne quite strongly now.

The two men stood literally nose to nose, their smoky, brandied breath filling each other's nostrils, the heat of their embrace warming their bodies. Herman realized with heart-stopping joy that he needed but turn his head slightly to kiss Hawthorne. Now! he thought, Let eternity begin now!—and Hawthorne became very still, standing with his body pressed into Herman's but seeming to withdraw spiritually into a shadow inside himself. Herman tried to read the look in Nathaniel's eyes, but he was too close, and Hawthorne's features swam formlessly before him. Herman pushed his pelvis gently into Hawthorne's, with ever so carefully increasing pressure, and he felt Hawthorne respond. He almost couldn't believe it was true, so he rubbed his hip a little against him—but it was
true! Herman turned his head and kissed Nathaniel full on the mouth. Hawthorne did not pull away. Herman kissed him again, a lingering, wet kiss.

For the first time in his life, Herman truly believed in the soul, for he felt his own soul as a phantom rising up inside him, as if it had journeyed from below the earth itself on its way to the heavens. It filled his entire body, until he nearly burst with the strength and energy of the divine within: he was a column of soul connecting the earth and sky through Nathaniel's kiss.

Hawthorne turned his head aside, and a thrill of terror shot through Herman's whole body—he clutched at Hawthorne, who convulsed and gasped, and this shuddering continued wordlessly for a few moments. The room seemed veiled in supernatural shadows. Finally, Hawthorne took a single step backward, so that Herman saw the shock of disbelief in his eyes.

Nathaniel now bent at the waist in a most unnatural way and hung his head, so that his gaze fell to the floor. Herman did not know quite how to address him, and he felt a complicated mixture of elation and disappointment.

Hawthorne's breathing gradually returned to normal, but he continued to stare fixedly at Herman's feet, the mystic shadows in the room deepening. Herman wanted to reach out to him, to take him in his arms, to say some words of love or understanding; but Nathaniel seemed possessed by something deep within himself, as if an abyss had opened before his eyes and he could not look away from it to the solid forms around him. He could only guess at the thoughts struggling against one another in Hawthorne's mind: he tried to think back to the first time he had kissed a man in such a way, tried to remember all the confusing emotions it had inspired.

“Nathaniel,” he breathed.

Hawthorne held his hand up for silence, and then took another step back, awkwardly, as if one of his legs had become wooden.

“Nathaniel, I know how you must feel.” Melville immediately regretted his pleading tone.

“I do not believe you do.”

“Then tell me. Tell me how you feel.” Herman took a step forward, and Hawthorne retreated, until his back collided with the door frame. “Tell me, Nathaniel. Believe me, I will understand.”

Hawthorne glanced furtively over his shoulder up the stairs, but no one was there. “Please be gone, Melville,” he said.

“Nathaniel, let me into your confidence.”

“What is there to say? What would I say to Sophia, if she came in now?”

“But she will not come in now. Please.”

Hawthorne straightened up to his full height, and his forced dignity made Herman sad. “The situation could not be more grave,” said Hawthorne. He lifted his left arm straight out, his index finger pointing toward the front door. “Go.”

“I cannot,” Herman said. “I cannot go. Please talk to me.”

“Begone!” He peered up the stairs toward his son's room.

Herman no longer recognized the person behind Hawthorne's empty, enraged, haunted eyes. This was the New Eden—slightly different from the way he had foretold it—and now he was being expelled. His body felt as heavy as a sperm whale's. He moved gracelessly toward the door.

He placed his hand on the knob and stood for an interminably bleak moment; he wanted to turn around, but he did not want the memory of Nathaniel's face, as it must look now, carved forever into the marbled fissures of his mind; so he opened the door and stepped out into the night without looking back. The moment he crossed the
threshold, he heard Hawthorne's quick steps, and the door slammed with finality behind him.

He walked toward his horse; in his mind's eye, he became the sick, elderly monkey in the story that Hawthorne had told him, the dying, scolded, speechless beast holding out his hand for love but getting, in return, only anger. He saddled up his horse in the moonlight, mounted, and turned toward home—the home that was no home; the home that was the whole homeless world.

A rain shower had been falling all day and persisted now, sometime after nine o'clock at night. Herman stood in a boggy puddle outside Hawthorne's cottage, beard astraggle, his clothes soaked through, his pant legs soiled. Days had passed—maybe weeks—he had lost track of the rising and setting suns, the number of letters he had written that Hawthorne had not answered, the sleepless nights buffeted by Nathaniel's brutal silence.

A gust of wind swayed the trees overhead. Lamplight shone through the windows of the parlor. Inside, Sophia and Nathaniel were hosting a middle-aged woman, with whom they sat talking intensely over cups of tea. Melville knew the woman—he had seen her lecture in Manhattan—Fredrika Bremer, a Swedish novelist and abolitionist. She sat now where Herman had sat enjoying Hawthorne's brandy and cigars: would that moment still exist, Herman wondered, if Hawthorne denied it?

Herman felt all of his hairs stand on end and then lightning sizzled directly above him; in the momentary brilliance, Fredrika Bremer turned her face toward the window and met Herman's gaze directly. They both gasped and then the darkness swallowed Herman again, as thunder shook him from the inside out. He could see her gesturing for the Hawthornes to look out the window, pointing directly at him, and he froze. He could not be caught lurking outside Hawthorne's parlor in the rain. He had to flee or go to the door and knock: however untoward his appearance there, at such an hour, it
would be better to announce himself candidly than be discovered; and yet, what would he say? He willed himself to run but his feet remained glued to the spot. He saw Hawthorne inside opening a box on his mantel and striding purposefully to the front door—he was coming out alone! Herman withdrew a few feet under the boughs of an elm tree.

The door flew open and Hawthorne walked out. He was holding a knife. “Hello!” he said. “Is anyone there?”

Herman answered in a deep bass whisper, which he had learned at sea, a kind of low grunt that cut through the wind and the rain. “Hawthorne, I must speak with you.”

Hawthorne walked cautiously a few feet farther. Herman waved his arms until Nathaniel saw him.

“Melville! Are you mad? You cannot just appear at my window in the middle of the night wagging your beard. Sophia is at home, and we have a guest.”

“Your silence is cruel and pitiless. I demand that we resolve the matter between us.”

“And what matter lies between us?”

“What matter?” Herman cried in despair. Lightning flashed, showing Herman's ginger beard silvered with raindrops. Strands of Hawthorne's wet hair snaked across his face. Thunder clapped, and Herman saw Sophia silhouetted in the doorway. Melville lowered his voice to an urgent hiss.

“I did not come here to argue, or condemn, or judge,” Herman said. “I only wish that you could admit the true nature of the love lying in your heart and thereby attain the highest possible happiness. In your own heart is the strength you need to accept the love you feel.”

Sophia yelled from the doorway, “Nathaniel? Do you need assistance?”

“Hawthorne, do you know your true nature and yet lie to me, or have you misled us both?”

“True nature? That has no meaning here,” said Hawthorne. “The only matter under discussion tonight is whether or not I am an adulterer. And I am not.”

Sophia called again from the doorway. She took a hesitant step out into the rain.

“A moment,” Hawthorne yelled back. He lowered his voice again and said to Herman, “We will settle this another day.”

“I will not be put off to suffer your silence again. You have misused my heart too often in the past.”

Sophia said, “Who is that with you?”

“I beg of you, Melville, go!”

Herman turned toward the cottage and yelled hoarsely, “Sophia!” He strode past Hawthorne, kicking up water and mud with his heavy boots. “Pardon this intrusion, and the lateness of the hour. I had been berrying, and my horse wandered out of sight, and in my fruitless searching I found myself suddenly near your door.”

From the parlor, Fredrika Bremer exclaimed, “Berrying? At night? And in this weather?”

“Come in, Herman,” Sophia said, taking him by the arm and escorting him inside. “Dry yourself a little and have a cup of tea. You can take up the search again when the rain has passed.”

Hawthorne followed Herman inside in great agitation. Sophia brought them each towels, with which they dried their hair and faces, Herman staring all the while at Hawthorne, Hawthorne keeping his eyes on his boots. Melville was drenched through, and he continued to drip even after his towel was saturated, so that he felt unable to take the seat Sophia offered him. A puddle formed around him. Sophia poured four fresh cups of tea, and then said, “I have
completely forgotten myself on such a strange night! Allow me to introduce Mr. Herman Melville. Herman, this is Fredrika Bremer.”

He took her hand. “I have met you once before, madam.” He felt as if he were in a dream. “You spoke at an antislavery rally I attended in New York.”

He remained standing in front of the other three, who all sat down with teacups and saucers. It was as if they were waiting for a show, or at least a better explanation of his presence. Herman suppressed the impulse to perform, to clown and joke his way out of trouble. He had caused this untenable situation: he had raised the stakes by charging into the house, yet now that he was here, he understood that Hawthorne's parlor held no solace, no solution. He saw a riot of fear and anger erupting behind Hawthorne's eyes.

Finally, Fredrika said, “I have read your book, Mr. Melville.”

“Which one?”

“The one where you speak out against the cruelty of the missionaries toward the South Sea Islanders.”

“
Typee
. Or
Omoo
.”

“Yes,
Omoo
. Do you find that your work has made a difference?”

“No.”

Fredrika sipped her tea and looked away. Herman continued to stand in front of them, dripping, without knowing how to end the charade.

Sophia said, “When does your next book come out, Herman?”

“Soon. They are proofreading it in London.”

“And is your new book another call for social change?” Fredrika asked doggedly.

A fine question, Herman thought. What
is
my new book about? He fixed his gaze on Hawthorne, and even took a step in Nathaniel's direction. “It is a book of hatred,” he said. “Of vengeance, of the longing for something denied, which, even if we grasp it in our
hands, is taken from us by the machinations of fate and the misunderstanding of others and the indifferent disregard of nature, which binds our spirits to the gross mortal world, unto death. It is a book about the limits of human suffering, and will, and loneliness.”

“Funny,” Hawthorne said coldly. “The draft I read seemed mainly about blubber.”

Herman stared at Nathaniel in horror. His hands began to shake, rattling his cup and saucer. He looked to Sophia for help but found only bewilderment. He looked to Fredrika Bremer, who was exactly as puzzled as she had been before. When his gaze met Hawthorne's again, Herman's eyes welled with tears. Hawthorne stood, his face flushed red.

“Melville,” Hawthorne said. Herman set his teacup down, turned, and left the house.

The moment the wind and rain hit his face, he began to run, and he did not stop till he had reached the top of the hill overlooking the cottage. No one chased after him; no voices followed him into the night. At the hillcrest, he turned, panting, hands on his knees, staring back at the warm yellow light shining from the parlor, and
wept.