Melvillean Notes

Sitting, sitting, restless sitting. Dull woman's work, with sewing. The needle threading its path in and out, in and out, as time passes and day grows old, its age measured in light and shadow. The hands engaged, the eyes downcast, aware of the work: the flight of hands, the flash of needle, and the stitches made, but the mind, half-attentive to the task, so habituated to these daily movements, left to wander. Wander down, far away from the mountain to the sun-gilded palace and the happy one who lives there, for a happy being undoubtedly does.
A mountain window long sat by, in an old mountain house, through which clouds and shadows are looked for and turned into familiar phantoms. The dog, the shaggy dog, who steals away at noon, to return later on and lie, head on paws, by the door. Living, though lifeless, friends that come and go, come and go.
Sitting, sitting, restless sitting.
And the night? Just like the day. Thinking, thinking, always thinking. A wheel that never stops, turned by want of sleep.
The tune of Marianna. To which might be added the mild, firm voice of Bartleby, the scrivener: “I would prefer not to.” Not to compare a copy to its original, not to step round to the Post Office, not to copy at all, not to be a little reasonable, not to leave. His a recurrent theme, a bridge, a chorus to Marianna's telling of strange things; he, in his person, could be one of her strange fancies, brooding, as industry hums around him. A Marius, who, in his mind's eye, in his dead-wall reveries, perhaps sees only ruins.
Bartleby; inflexible, immovable Bartleby: “I would prefer not to.”
A fixture in his employer's chamber, always there, even when he shouldn't be. In a dead-wall stare. Occupied only with thoughts, it seems, behind the screen, of nobody knows what. His history, as with other tasks that are asked of him, he prefers not to answer questions on.
Ah Bartleby! (I echo the narrator.) What kind of cell did you imprison yourself in!
These two narratives, that concerning Marianna of The Piazza and that of Bartleby, as bound in book, join in memory of the departing reader.
But...
Hark! Is that a new faint note I hear? It is, it is, wafted on a sudden breeze, another male voice, less firm and far weaker in tone than Bartleby's, wavering somewhat, but nonetheless decisive: “I cannot go”, repeated.
And neither now can I. For I must know, in fullness, the truth of the circumstances on board the San Dominick from Don Benito's own hand, own lips. I cannot go, I cannot put this third narrative aside until he has escaped and, under oath, given testimony. And when that is given I, like him to Captain Delano must say: “I can go no further; here I must bid you [the reader] adieu”.
Because if I don't, I will hear another Melvillean note and another, perhaps of thunder, perhaps of remote seas against the shores of the Enchanted Isles, perhaps the slow weary draggings of three ponderous tortoises, upon which may follow the sound of a merry feast and of a knife scraping shells.
These notes will never cease to come in Melville's hypnotic tales.

Picture credit: Marius Amid the Ruins of Carthage, John Vanderlyn (source: WikiArt).

Adapted from journal entries, July 2021, on The Piazza; Bartleby, the Scrivener; Benito Cereno; The Lightening-Rod Man, The Enchanted Isles by Herman Melville.

Opportunity, an Eastern Bride

Opportunity, an Eastern Bride,
Running by men's sides;
Leaping over gaps,
To flounder in the mud...
Still veiled.

Opportunity, an episode of passion,
of youth and temptation,
Doomed, in the end,
To forgetfulness,
Or, at best, tenderness and regret.

Opportunity, a melancholy figure,
A shadow buried in a lonely grave,
Who in the background
Looks on wistfully,
Hopelessly, with sealed lips.

Opportunity, an extraordinary gem,
Of an enormous size,
Obtained, partly by the exercise
Of strength, and partly by cunning,
And altogether priceless.

Opportunity, an Eastern bride,
Comes veiled to men's sides,
Her face beheld,
Perhaps once in a lifetime,
With a proud and unflinching glance.

Picture credit: June Bride, Erte (source: WikiArt). 

Joseph Conrad's own words, Lord Jim. Written June 2021.

Cigar

It seems I might be one of the men 'to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten before the end is told...even if there happens to be no end to it.'
I figuratively take my place amongst the other men, lounging in their long cane chairs, and contentedly blow smoke as an old sea captain tells a yarn. I figuratively seat myself in a cosy armchair by a log fire and slip in and out of the story. I figuratively lie in a bed, eyes on the ceiling, and listen to a voice, modulated in tone, for now is the time for sleep and not for scares. I figuratively inhabit again the body of a small child, held intensely by the images unfolding.
Yes; every hour is the after-dinner hour: easy, pleasant, empty.
Though nobody has the least understanding of the person enjoying them, for the glimpses there are are viewed through a thick fog, presumably from the smoke of the after-dinner hour cigar, which only feed 'one's curiosity without satisfying it.' On the whole, just as Marlow, that old sea captain, sums up Jim, I mislead, and arouse not just curiosity but suspicion, though I don't quite wholly comprehend my own artful dodges. (Do I not?) Perhaps, as Marlow says, no man can. What grim shadow of self-knowledge am I escaping from? What shadows do I not wish other people to see? Even here, rather than being economical with the truth, I'm denying its very existence. There is no other truth; I cannot like a country be seen altogether.
The dodges, that to me necessity dictates, are, however, less artful than impulsive, and add to the strangeness I occasionally see reflected in another's eyes. The figurative cigar, then, becomes a must, as its puff-puff clouds and blurs, and averts many an intrusive gaze.

Picture credit: Smoke Me, Paula Klien (source: WikiArt).

A journal entry, June 2021. See Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.

Goneril

The eldest of King Lear's three daughters? No; the wife of Melville's unfortunate man, the man who, so the good merchant's been told, wears a weed on his hat for, though she was according to the told account an unfortunate wife to have, just as the other Goneril for Lear was an unfortunate daughter.
In Shakespeare, Goneril is considered a villain, obsessed with power and overthrowing her elderly father, whereas Melville's Goneril is more shrew than villain and his unfortunate man, made unfortunate through, as the story goes, making her his wife, not the man to tame but to be ruled by her vicious behaviour.
Who knows what induced him to propose, if propose he did, for perhaps he was bullied or tricked into it? For judging by the description the narrator gives of her person it's hard to detect what physical attraction there might have been – in spite of, or perhaps because of, the similarities I read there to myself – but perhaps, as it is suggested, from a distance she was seemed to possess beauty.
What struck people, it seems, were her peculiarities in temper and taste, less than those apparent in her person, whereas it was to these I was originally drawn, seeing, as forementioned, I saw something of myself there. A 'person lithe and straight, too straight for a woman,' with a certain hardness, 'like that of the glazed colours on stoneware', to tarnish her rosy complexion, and her hair 'a deep, rich chestnut.' Her figure naturally impaired the bust, 'while her mouth would have been pretty but for a trace of a moustache.' All in all, her 'style of beauty rather peculiar and cactus-like.'
Yes, there's definitely some chord in me that responds to the above, but if I look in the mirror is that what I see? That would be too revealing to reveal, and would not change my instant recognition on reading this description of Goneril. Her natural antipathy to the peach or grape I do not share, but I can and do, in private, make a satisfactory lunch of hard crackers, though without, of course, the brawn of ham which she it is said she is partial to.
I also, like her, seldom speak at certain parts of the day, though, not it must be stressed because I take time to thaw, but to warm-up to discourse and company. There is a difference, believe me. Unlike her I do not start from an ice-cold place, but from a far milder clime, which waits patiently, and impatiently, for a hint of sun. My nature is, I confess, strange, but not as strange as that of Goneril's.
I might possess, most of the time, her independence of mind, but I wouldn't fling it, as she does, in other people's faces. I do not have her malice; nor therefore her ability to stab and distress and reap delights from it. Although, many moons ago, it was said I employed the evil-eye; a teenage-eye of inward though outwardly shown cursing.
I don't think a man has never been unfortunate enough to have been tormented. Perhaps I'm wrong? If any were it was accidentally, not expertly, done. I can say at least that having never wed I have never divorced a man or hounded him through court; I do not have that virago-force, nor have I had the devil of jealously enter me, which can inflict, truth be said, either gender, and inflict, through it, injuries.
The fortunate man, for I can only assume he was fortunate prior, was unfortunate indeed, we are led to believe, to have met and married a Goneril; or is it the case his unfortunate state is his fortune?
For, just like the good merchant, I have been drawn to discourse, and think, on a Goneril, who, though apparently deceased, likely never existed, in any real fictional form, as wife or woman, being created, as she was (a fiction within a fiction), to solely tug on the sympathies of the unfortunate man's fellow travellers.

Picture credit: Goneril and Regan from King Lear, Edwin Austin Abbey (source: Wikipedia.)

From a journal entry, June 2021. See The Confidence Man by Herman Melville,

Identity is an Orange, in Segments

Identity, multiple. Identity, according to the situation. Identity, dependent on environment and people. Identity, age-appropriate. Identity, unique, but singular only in that one is distinguishable at one time, and in another, another. Identity is more than its physical definitions, which have at their base the individual characteristics by which a person or thing is recognised, for identity, that created within, is an unfixed state. At its centre a fixed core, from which other identities, or, if you'd rather, aspects of your personality, radiate. No-one met with, conversed with, shared intimate moments with, perhaps even a life, will ever know the whole. Identity is an orange, in segments.

Picture credit: Still Life With Oranges, 1881, Paul Gauguin (source: WikiArt).

From journal entry, June 2021.