“I love reading novels,” the Doctor exclaimed. “You can understand them without thinking too much.”
“But I thought you were a philosopher,” Eliza said, apparently having waxed close enough to him now that she could get away with teasing and pouting maneuvers.
“But when philosophizing, one’s mind follows its natural inclination-gaining profit along with pleasure-whereas following another philosopher’s meditations is like stumbling through a mine dug by others-hard work in a cold dark place, and painful if you want to zig where they decided to zag. But this-” holding up the book “-you can read without stopping.”
“What’s the story about?”
“Oh, all these novels are the same-they are about picaroons-that means a sort of rogue or scoundrel-could be male or female-they move about from city to city like Vagabonds (than whom, however, they are much more clever and resourceful)-getting into hilarious scrapes and making fools-or trying to-out of Dukes, Bishops, Generals, and
“… Doctors.”
Lengthy silence, then, followed by Jack saying, “Errr… is this the chapter where I’m supposed to draw my weapon?”
“Oh, stop!” the Doctor said. “I didn’t bring you all this way to have an imbroglio. ”
“Why, then?” Jack asked-quickly, as Eliza was still so red-faced he didn’t think it would be clever or resourceful to give her a chance to speak.
“For the same reason that Eliza sacrified some of your silk to make some dresses, and thereby fetched a higher price. I need to draw some attention to the mine project-make it seem exciting-fashionable even-so that people will at least think about investing.”
“I’m guessing, then,” Jack said, “that my role will be to hide behind a large piece of furniture and not emerge until all rich fashionable persons have departed?”
“I gratefully accept your proposal,” the Doctor said. “Meanwhile, Eliza-well-have you ever seen how mountebanks ply their trade in Paris? No matter what they are selling, they always have an accomplice in the crowd, attired like the intended victims-”
“That means, like an ignorant peasant,” Jack informed Eliza. “And at first this accomplice seems to be the most skeptical person in the whole crowd-asking difficult questions and mocking the entire proceedings-but as it continues he is conspicuously won over, and gladly makes the first purchase of whatever the mountebank is selling-”
“Kuxen, in this case?” Eliza said.
The Doctor: “Yes-and in this case the audience will be made up of Hacklhebers, wealthy merchants of Mainz, Lyons bankers, Amsterdam money-market speculators-in sum, wealthy and fashionable persons from all over Christendom.”
Jack made a mental note to find out what a money-market speculator was. Looking at Eliza, he found her looking right back at him, and reckoned that she was thinking the same thing. Then the Doctor distracted her with: “In order to blend in with that crowd, Eliza, we shall only have to find some way to make you seem half as intelligent as you really are, and to dim your natural radiance so that they’ll not be blinded by awe or jealousy.”
“Oh, Doctor,” Eliza said, “why is it that men who desire women can never speak such words?”
“You’ve only been in the presence of men who are in the presence of you, Eliza,” Jack said, “and how can they pronounce fine words when the heads of their yards are lodged in their mouths?”
The Doctor laughed, much as he’d been doing earlier.
“What’s your excuse, Jack?” Eliza responded, eliciting some sort of violent thoracic Incident in the Doctor.
Tears of joy came to Jack’s eyes. “Thank God women have no way to rid themselves of the yellow bile,” he said.
At this same inn they joined up with a train of small but masty ore-wagons carrying goods that the Doctor had acquired at Leipzig and sent on ahead to wait for them. Some of these were laden with saltpeter from India, others with brimstone from the Ore Range.*The others-though laden only with a few small crates-sagged and screeched like infidels on the Rack. Peering between the boards of same, Jack could see that they contained small earthenware flasks packed in straw. He asked a teamster what was in them: “ Quecksilber” was the answer.
Mammonled them on,
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From heav’n, for ev’n in heav’n his looks and
thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heav’ns pavement, trod’n Gold,
Then aught divine or holy else enjoy’d
In vision beatific; by him first
Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
Ransack’d the Center, and with impious hands
Rifl’d the bowels of thir mother Earth
For Treasures better hid.
-MILTON,Paradise Lost
THE ENTIRE TRAIN,amounting to some two dozen wagons, proceeded west through Halle and other cities in the Saxon plain. Giant stone towers with dunce-cap rooves had been raised over city gates so that the burghers could see armies or Vagabond-hordes approaching in time to do something about it. A few days past Halle, the ground finally started to rise up out of that plain and (like one of the Doctor’s philosophical books) to channel them this way and that, making them go ways they were not especially inclined to. It was a slow change, but one morning they woke up and it was no longer disputable that they were in a valley, the most beautiful golden valley Jack had ever seen, all pale green with April’s first shoots, thickly dotted with haystacks even after cattle had been reducing them all winter long. Broad fells rose gently but steadily from this valley and developed, at length, into shapes colder and more mountainous-ramps built by giants, leading upwards to mysterious culminations. The highest ridge-lines were indented with black shapes, mostly trees; but the Saxons had not been slow to construct watch-towers on those heights that commanded the most sweeping views. Jack couldn’t help speculating as to what they were all waiting for. Or perhaps they sparked fires in them at night to speed strange information over the heads of sleeping farmers. They passed a placid lake with what had been a brown stone castle avalanching into it; wind came up and raised goose-bumps on the water, destroying the reflection.
Eliza and the Doctor mostly shared the coach, she amending her dresses according to what he claimed was now in fashion, and he writing letters or reading picaroon-novels. It seemed that Sophie’s daughter, Sophie Charlotte, was fixing to marry the Elector of Brandenburg later this year, and the trousseau was being imported direct from Paris, and this gave occasion for them to talk about clothing for days. Sometimes Eliza would ride in the seat atop the carriage if the weather was fine, giving the teamsters reason to live another day. Sometimes Jack would give Turk a rest by walking alongside, or riding on, or in, the coach.
The Doctor was always doing something- sketching fantastic machines, writing letters, scratching out pyramids of ones and zeroes and rearranging them according to some set of contrived rules.
“What’re you doing there, Doc?” Jack asked one time, just trying to be sociable.
“Making some improvements to my Theory of Matter,” the Doctor said distantly, and then said no more for three hours, at which time he announced to the driver that he had to piss.
Jack tried to talk to Eliza instead. She’d been rather sulky since the conversation at the Inn. “Why is it you’ll perform intimate procedures on one end of me, but you won’t kiss the other end?” he asked one evening when she returned his affections with eye-rolling.
“I’m losing blood-the humour of passion- what do you expect?”
“Do you mean that in the normal monthly sense, or-”
“More than usual this month-besides I only kiss people who care about me.”