10. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 289-326

Two: America; 29-32

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We meet the Veery brothers, Cosmo and Damian, who make beeswax effigies to be hanged and burned at political rallies -- sometimes, if the effigies are to be decapitated, using spare parts from the neighborhood abattoir. They're so lifelike, Damian says, that "you'd enter any darken'd Room our lads and lasses happen'd to be in, only upon ill advice indeed." Mason and Dixon have discovered that the back rooms of taverns in Philadelphia tend to be reserved for members of various secret societies, and in one of them he finds some of the Veery brothers' creations: heads of the commissioners for the boundary line. So he's creeped out when he attends a meeting of the commissioners. "Those waxen Faces that gaz'd at him with such a midnight Intent, -- here are their daytime counterparts to greet him, with the same, O God in thy Mercy, the same look ... as if deliberately to recall the other night."

Mason finds it hard to sleep in Philadelphia, what with the street noises and the bedbugs, though Dixon has no problem doing so. One insomniac night he goes to the Orchid Tavern, where he has the complexities of Pennsylvania politics -- the reason the Veery brothers can make a living off of effigies -- explained to him. "Religious bodies here cannot be distinguished from Political Factions. These are Quaker, Anglican, Presbyterian, German Pietist. Each prevails in its own area of the Province." The Penns, he is told "tho' Quaker by ancestry are Anglican in Praxis, -- some even say, Tools of Rome." But the political lesson is interrupted by the appearance of Franklin, who gives a demonstration of electricity with the help of volunteers from the audience.

Mason and Dixon's work on their eponymous line begins with the establishment of the southernmost boundary of Philadelphia. The boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland is to be drawn fifteen miles south of this. The commissioners have chosen the northern wall of a house to be the southernmost boundary, because the south wall is in private property. Nearby, "Mr. Benjamin Loxley and his Crew have been busily erecting an Observatory." Dixon, who is in charge of the compass, visits a coffee house, the Flower-de-Luce, which is "frequented by those with an interest in the Magnetick." There he meets "Dr. Franklin's friend Dolly," who turns out to be interested in compasses and maps. She tells him that the Calverts are interested in him and that Cecilius Calvert "believes you a Wizard, a Dowser of Iron.... They imagine, that you and your Instrument will make of them Nabobs, like Lord Lepton, to whose ill-reputed Plantation you must be drawn, upon your way West, resistlessly as the Needle. Then, Sailor among the Iron Isles, -- Circumferentor Swab, -- Beware."

Late in December they awaken to silence outside, which they find eerie, so they set out to find out what has happened to everyone. At the Restless Bee, a coffee house, they learn that the vigilantes known as the Paxton Boys have massacred a group of peaceful Indians and are now marching on Philadelphia. "Mason and Dixon look at each other bleakly. 'Well. If I'd known 'twould be like this in America....' Mason did note as peculiar, that the first mortal acts of savagery in America after their Arrival should have been committed by Whites against Indians." They also worry about the kind of people they will encounter as they move west. "What must we look like? A sizable Band of Arm'd Pioneers, working for the Proprietors? ... mystical Machinery they've never seen ...? Up far too late at night, gazin' at the Heavens...?"

They also recall the Second Jacobite Rising of 1745, although Mason, who was seventeen at the time, while Dixon was twelve, claims to recall it better. Which leads them into a quarrel about the difference of their backgrounds, with Mason asserting, "You, simple Geordie, inhabit a part of England where ancient creatures may yet move in the Dusk, and the animals fly, and the dead pop in now and then for coffee and a chat. Upon my home soil, the Ground for growing any such Wonders has been cruelly poison'd, with the coming of the hydraulick Looms.... My home's no more."

Pitt and Pliny are excited by the notion that Mason and Dixon might have come to blows over their differences, but Cherrycoke doesn't give them that satisfaction, assuring them that they remained friends "till something ... something occurr'd between them, in 'sixty-seven or 'sixty-eight, that divided their Destinies irremediably...." Tenebrae announces that it's bedtime for the boys, but Cherrycoke promises them "Indians tomorrow." After they depart, he tells the remaining audience about the watch that Emerson presented to Dixon before he sailed, telling him to "be vigilant, to the point of Folly, if Folly it takes, in your care of this Watch, for within it lies a secret mechanism, that will revolutionize the world of Horology." In short, it's a perpetual motion machine, which Emerson has always told Dixon is impossible. But when Dixon goes to wind it, he can't find a way of doing so.

Mason is skeptical about this impossible watch, even though Dixon assures him that he never has to wind it. "You might be winding it while I'm asleep, or when screen'd, as we so often are one from the other, by Trees." Then one night Dixon has a dream in which Emerson appears to him and charges him with breaking his contract and threatens terrible consequences. After he awakes, "Tho' sworn to guarantee the Watch's safety, he soon finds his only thoughts are of ways to rid himself of it." As it happens, a land-surveyor named R.C., who is working with them, has been shown the watch and wants it, thinking it might be worth something to the men who are trying to solve the problem of determining longitude. So one night R.C. swallows the watch.

In the months, and then the years, after he swallows the Watch, as the days of ceaseless pulsation pass one by one, R.C. learns that a small volume within him is, and shall be, immortal. His wife moves to another Bed, and soon into another room altogether, after persuading him first to build it onto the House. "Snoring's one thing, R.C., I can always do something about that," brandishing her Elbow, "-- but that Ticking..."

Dixon reluctantly reports the loss of the watch to Emerson, who is surprisingly jubilant at the news. He has to dictate his reply to Dixon's letter because he injures himself celebrating the news of the lost watch, but Mrs. Emerson writes that her husband "wishes me to say, 'Felicitations, Fool, for it hath work'd to Pefection.'" But the only explanation of that remark from Emerson comes in a postscript: "Time is the Space that may not be seen, --"

4. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 94-124

One: Latitudes and Departures; 10-12

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Pliny suggests that they set up the orrery so Cherrycoke can demonstrate the transit of Venus, and Pitt gets out the candle that represents the sun. Their sister Tenebrae, meanwhile, indulges in some mild flirtation with Cousin Ethelmer. The orrery includes the new "Georgian" planet, which would later be named Uranus, because its creator, "Dr. Nessel, the renown'd German Engineer," had traveled to Philadelphia to update, free of charge, the orreries he had built in America. He has even given some surface features to the new planet, which inspired the children to write "a Book, History of the New Planet, the Twins providing the Wars, and Brae the scientifick Inventions and Useful Crafts."

Cherrycoke explains why numerous observations of the transit are necessary to determine "the value of the Solar Parallax." That is, we want to determine the size of the Earth, and the observations of the transit allow us to calculate it as if one were standing on the surface of the sun. DePugh, "the son of Ives LeSpark, like Ethelmer home on a Visit from School, in this case from Cambridge," refers to the sought-after calculation as "A Vector of Desire," a Pynchonian joke on a Lacanian phrase. Cherrycoke calls this "the phrase exact."

We return to the scene in Cape Town where "odd behavior like it, is going on all over the World all day long that fifth and sixth of June, in Latin, in Chinese, in Polish, in Silence, -- upon Roof-Tops and Mountain Peaks, out of Bed-chamber windows, close together in the naked sunlight whilst the Wife minds the Beats of the Clock." They need to record "four instances of perfect Tangency":  the moments when the planet first touches the outer edge of the sun and when it is fully within the circumference, and the corresponding moments as it leaves the solar disk. But it is cloudy on the days leading up to the event. Mason and Dixon are nevertheless calm but they notice that "the Zeemans and the Vrooms speed about in unaccustom'd Bustle," which causes Mason to remark, "Dutch Ado about nothing." (Pynchon leaves no opportunity unpunned.)

The day comes, and the sky is clear enough for observation. They observe carefully, but "Whatever the cause, the times [Dixon] records are two to four seconds ahead of Mason's." And then comes anticlimax.

As before the Transit the month of May crept unnaturally, so, after it, will June, July, August, and September hasten by miraculously, -- till early in October, when Capt. Harrold, of the Mercury, finds a lapse in the Weather workable enough to embark the Astronomores, and take them to St. Helena in.... After the Transit, Astronomers and Hosts walk about for Days in deep Stupor, like Rakes and Doxies after some great Catastrophe of the Passions.

The pursuit of Mason by the Vroom women ends when some young men arrive at the Cape, "a Heaven-sent Source of White Blood.... Johanna can almost see those Babies now, up on the Block, adorable enough to sell themselves, kicking their feet in the air and squealing." Idled, Mason inquires of Dixon about the Quaker practice of sitting quietly until one feels the presence of the spirit, but Mason is too eager for the experience and "keeps jumping up, to run and interrupt Dixon, who is trying to do the same, with news of his Progress, '' 'Jere! I think it almost happen'd! D'ye get a kind of rum sensation here,' -- touching the center of his Forehead, -- 'is that it?'" But they finally give it up after "Mason, in his Chair, falling asleep, topples with a great Crash, or Dixon decides he'll step out after all, nip down to The World's End, and see what the Cape Outlawry may be up to." Finally, they sail away from the Cape, with "no one ... there at the Quay to say good-bye but Bonk, the police official who earlier greeted them."

Cherrycoke's audience is joined by Aunt Ephrenia, "careering into the room with her Oboe and an armload of sheet-music," and as she carves a reed from her oboe we learn that she was once abducted by Barbary pirates and kept in a sultan's harem. Cherrycoke continues with "a part of the Tale that I miss'd," which is the experiences of Mason and Dixon in St. Helena, where they met up with the astronomer royal, Nevil Maskelyne. Uncle Ives asks how they are to know what happened there, but Cherrycoke continues with the story nevertheless. St. Helena, he says, is "an infamous Port of Call, quite alone in the mid-Atlantic, a Town left to shift as it may, dedicated to nought but the pleasures of Sailors, -- which is to say, ev'ry species of Misbehavior, speakable or not."

Maskelyne is there to observe Sirius, "the Island's Zenith-Star." But it's hardly a pleasant place to be.

The Town has begun to climb into the Ravine behind it, and thus, averaged overall, to tilt toward the sea. After Rain-Storms, the water rushes downhill, in Eagres and Riffles and Cataracts, thro' the town, rooftop to rooftop, in and out of Windows, leaving behind a shiv'ring Dog from uphill, taking away the Coffee Pot, till leaving it in its turn somewhere else, for a Foot-Stool, thus bartering its way out to sea. 

The residents of the island "make up a mix'd flock":

Convicts being transported to the South Seas for unladylike crimes in England, with St. Helena one of the steps in their Purgatory, -- young Wives on their way out to India to join husbands in the Army and Navy, a-tremble with tales, haunting the Day like a shadow from just beneath the Horizon ahead, of the Black Hole of Calcutta, -- and Company Perpetuals, headed out, headed home, such shuttles on the loom of Trade as Mrs. Rollright, late of Portland, who keeps opium in her patch-box and commutes frequently enough upon the India run to've had four duels fought over her already, though she has yet to see her twenties out. 

And Mason encounters an old acquaintance, Florinda, whom he met after the death of his wife, when he followed "some of Lust's less-frequented footpaths." He had met her at the hangings at Tyburn, particularly at "the much-heralded Hanging of Lord Ferrers for the murder of Johnson, his Steward."

Mason and Dixon meet with Maskelyne at The Moon, "a punch house on Cock Hill," but Dixon and Maskelyne don't get along particularly well after Dixon, learning that Maskelyne was at Pembroke College, Cambridge, is indiscreet enough to ask him about Christopher Smart, notorious for his insanity. The proprietor of the punch house also can't resist a pun about how Maskelyne is there on "Sirius Business." And Maskelyne is further annoyed by having his birthday celebrated with a cake, reminding him that he has just turned twenty-nine.

Dixon is preparing to return to the Cape, and when Maskelyne steps out, Mason reveals that the instrument Maskelyne is using to measure the position of Sirius doesn't work. Dixon thinks he can fix it, but Mason warns him not to bring up the subject of the instrument with Maskelyne because he has so much invested in it. Dixon is returning to the Cape with the Shelton Clock, and there is a section of dialogue between it and the Ellicott Clock about Dutch clocks, whose mechanisms don't give a warning -- the sound of the mechanism preparing -- before they strike. Mason and Dixon were both annoyed by the surprise striking of the clocks.

1. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 1-29

One: Latitudes and Departures; 1-3

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The narrative begins in a large house in or near Philadelphia at Christmastime (or a "snowy Advent") in 1786. It's not clear yet who the narrator is at this point in the novel, but he (or she) will relinquish it to another voice after the scene is set.

It has become an afternoon habit for the Twins and their Sister, and what Friends old and young may find their way here, to gather for another Tale from their far-travel'd Uncle, the Revd Wicks Cherrycoke, who arriv'd here back in October for the funeral of a Friend of years ago, -- too late for the Burial, as it prov'd, -- and has linger'd as a Guest in the Home of his sister Elizabeth, the Wife, for many years, of Mr. J. Wade LeSpark, a respected Merchant in Town Affairs, whilst in his home yet Sultan enough to convey to the Revd, tho' without ever so stipulating, that, for as long as he can keep the children amus'd, he may remain, -- too much evidence of Juvenile Rampage at the wrong moment, however, and Boppo! 'twill be Out the Door with him, where waits the Winter's Block and Blade. 

So Cherrycoke yields to the entreaties of the twins, Pitt and Pliny, so named "that each might be term'd 'the Elder' or 'the Younger,' as might day-to-day please one, or annoy his Brother." He begins a story about the surveying expedition of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, on which he says he took part. 

Mason is dead, and Cherrycoke, who arrived too late for the funeral, every day makes a visit to his grave. Cherrycoke himself is a rather dubious parson, and Pitt observes that his mother calls him "the Family outcast," and Pliny that "They pay you money to keep away." Cherrycoke claims that back in England he was once almost hanged for posting bills listing the names of perpetrators "of certain Crimes I had observ'd, committed by the Stronger against the Weaker." Judged to be insane, he was sent to sea on the Seahorse. 

We cut to a letter from Dixon to Mason, who is Assistant to the Astronomer Royal, in which Dixon announces himself as Mason's "Second upon the propos'd Expedition to Sumatra, to observe the Transit of Venus." 

Cherrycoke returns to the story, admitting that he wasn't there when Mason met Dixon, but that he had heard the story from them. Dixon was from Durham, in the northeast of England, and something of a bumpkin in the city. He's surprised when Mason mocks his accent, but manages to get even with a joke, which embarrasses the rather too serious Mason. Dixon is taller and "the first to catch the average Eye, often causing future strangers to remember them as Dixon and Mason." He was also raised a Quaker. 

Mason, having expected some shambling wild Country Fool, remains amiably puzzl'd before the tidied Dixon here presented, -- who, for his own part, having ... expected but another over-dress'd London climber, is amus'd  at Mason's nearly invisible Turn-out, all in Snuffs and Buffs and Grays.

They are in Portsmouth, awaiting the embarkation, and decide it's their "last chance for civiliz'd Drink." In a tavern they encounter "a somewhat dishevel'd Norfolk Terrier, with a raffish Gleam in its eye." The dog then sings a song, announcing himself as "the Learnéd English Dog," willing to answer any question. Dixon observes Mason's fascination with the dog, but when Mason starts to ask a rambling question, the dog "sighs deeply" and says, "See me later, out in back." Outside, they meet Fender-Belly Bodine, who is captain of the foretop of the Seahorse, their ship, who notes their interest in the dog. 

Mason's question of the dog is "Have you a soul, -- that is, are you a human Spirit, re-incarnate as a Dog?" The dog replies that he is not there to provide "religious Comfort":  "I may be praeternatural, but I am not supernatural." He tells them that dogs used to be kept by humans for food, so dogs, noting that cannibalism was taboo, "learn'd to act as human as possible." He is "but an extreme Expression of this Process." Bodine expresses interest in buying the dog, but his "Exhibitor," Mr. and Mrs. Jellow, say that he's not for sale. 

Dixon, "who for some while has been growing increasingly desperate for a drink," notices that they are near the Pearl of Sumatra, and Bodine invites the dog, who says, "Pray you, call me Fang," to join them. In the saloon, a vast hive of multiple vices including cock-fighting and other forms of gambling, Fang points out Dark Hepsie, the Pythoness of the Point," and tells Mason that she's the one he should consult for prophecy. Dixon quickly spots that Hepsie is actually an attractive young woman in disguise. When Hepsie notes that they plan to sail on Friday, a day of ill omen, being the day of the crucifixion, Mason suggests that they should sail on another day. 

"Mason, pray You, -- 'tis the Age of Reason," Dixon reminds him, "we're Men of Science. To huz must all days run alike, the same number of identical Seconds, each proceeding in but one Direction, irreclaimable....? If we would have Omens, why, let us recall that the Astronomer's Symbol for Friday is also that of the planet Venus herself, -- a good enough Omen, surely ...?" 

So they take their leave of Hepsie and Fang, though Mason wants to ask them more, and in the morning he can't find anyone who knows anything about them. "He will continue search, even unto scanning the short as the Seahorse gets under way at last, on Friday, 9 January 1761."