21. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 659-686

Two: America; 68-70

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They are proceeding at about a mile or two per day, and in August tell the crew that "from here to the Warpath, we'll have no time for gentle recreations, but must stand Watch and Watch for as far west as we may." They hire a ferryman named Mr. Ice to take them across the Yochio Geni [Youghgiogheny] River. While they cross, Ice tells them of how his family was massacred by Indians. On the other side of the river, his nephew holds out a coonskin hat, asking for sixpence for the narrative, which outrages Mason's sensibilities.

As they cross the Cheat River and near the Monongahela, they begin to lose axmen, and the Indians grow more alert. "Cheat is the Rubicon, Monongahela is the Styx." There is an interlude about a chicken that becomes mesmerized by the Line, and the mechanical duck is similarly detained by "A simple, immoderate Desire for the Orthogonal," as Professor Voam puts it. Euphrenia interrupts Cherrycoke's narrative to comment, "The Life of an Automaton cannot, however conceiv'd, strike anyone as enviable," revealing that when she was a student in Paris, she earned money by pretending to be a mechanical oboe player.

Dixon "becomes possess'd by the Horizon," a phenomenon that Crawfford has seen before: the fascination with the West. "You will hear of gold cities, marble cities, men that fly, women that fight, fantastickal creatures never dream'd in Europe, -- something always to take and draw you that way." He warns Mason that when "something requires an unpremeditated cessation to the Line, well, -- Mr. Dixon ... may not be inclin'd to stop." Mason is puzzled by the reference to stopping the Line, but then disaster strikes: Two axmen are killed when the tree they are cutting down falls on them. It is a morale blow, but they proceed.

When they cross the Monongahela, more Indians appear. "'It's like Covent Garden on Saturday Night,' Mason grumbles, '-- what are we become, -- a Show they all must see, or lose credibility among ... whatever Indians have for Fops?'" Crawfford advises them that if the sense trouble, the best thing to do is act insane: "These folk respect Madness. To them 'tis a holy state." Dixon and Mason trade quips about each other's credibility as a madman.

But there still remains the problem of crossing the Great Warpath. Mason argues that "only the Mightiest God may command" the stars, and that therefore, because their line is determined by the stars, they "deserve at least the one small respectful Courtesy, of allowing their Line to cross, without a Mark, your Nations' own Great Path." The Indian, Daniel, takes them out on the path and shows them signs that the Catawbas have been there and have placed poisoned splinters on the way. It unsettles both men, but "Mason, stubborn, wishes to go on." Dixon is concerned that the Indians "want to know how to stop this great invisible Thing that comes crawling Straight on over their Lands, devouring all in its Path." Mason and Dixon argue for eleven days, and "at some point exchange Positions, with Dixon now for pushing on, razzle-dazzling their way among the Indians at least as far as Ohio." Mason, now cautious, warns Dixon that the Indians have been eying his red coat "and you are but the minor inconvenience from which 'twill have to be remov'd."

But finally the Indians agree to let them cross the Warpath, and they are only forty miles short of the end of their survey. "Mason is Gothickally depressive, as Dixon is Westeringly manic." But as they are sighting the Ohio, they "are surpriz'd by a Party of Indians in elaborate Paint-Work." They recognize the Indian they know as Catfish, who "is packing a Lancaster Rifle, slung in a Scabbard upon his Saddle, with an inverted Pentacle upon the Stock, unmistakable in the Moon-light." They recognize the rifle, which Catfish says he took "From a White man I have wish'd to meet for a long time. He was a very bad man. Even White People hated him." Mason warns that "The Sign on it has evil Powers" and Catfish should pry it out of the stock. Dixon, "with a look of unsuccessfully feign'd innocence," asks what happened to the rifle's owner. Catfish shows him the scalp.

On November 5, "the Visto is completed, and the Indians depart, -- as if, as long as a Tree remain'd, so might they." As the company breaks up, the November snows arrive. On the way back east, they pick up Timothy Tox, the poet, and agree to accompany him back to Newark, "'So long as he doesn't bring the Golem,' stipulates Mason.... As 'twill prove, the closer they escort Mr. Tox to the Metropolis, the less Evidence for his Creature's existence will they be given, till at length they must believe that the Poet has either pass'd, like some Indian Youth at the Onset of Manhood, under the Protection of a potent tho' invisible Spirit, -- or gone mad."

20. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 623-658

Two: America; 64-67

_____

Zhang tells the story of Hsi and Ho, who failed to predict a solar eclipse, putting them in danger of execution: "We made the Emperor look bad. As a Child of Heaven, he's supposed to know all about these Wonders in advance." They escape from the palace on a giant kite and crash-land into a pond, where they attract the attention of the daughters of Lord Huang. He hires them as his astronomers, but once again they neglect their duties -- distracted by Huang's daughters -- and miscalculate the time of an eclipse, leaving Huang exposed to his enemies in a battle. The story, Zhang says, has alternate endings: In one, Huang wins the battle after all, and banishes Hsi and Ho to the desert where they live out their lives as holy beggars. In the other, Huang is killed and the astronomers "take over Huang's Lands, Fortune, Army, and Harem of Daughters."

In December they return to the Harlands'. "No telling if they'll ever take the line west of Allegheny. All is in the hands of Sir William Johnson" and his administration of the Indian territories. They spend Christmas discussing the star of Bethlehem, with Dixon opining, "'Twas either a Conjunction of Planets ... or a Comet," and Mason asserting, "In seven B.C., according to Kepler, Jupiter and Saturn were conjunct three times, -- and the next year, Mars join'd them.... No one who was out at night could have fail'd to notice that. It must have been the most spectacular Event in the Sky." Zhang points out that Halley's comet appeared in 12 B.C. But Cherrycoke protests to both theories that "Christ was not born any time Before Christ." Zhang further complicates matters:

"If," says the Geomancer, "like all Christian nations, you accept the reckoning of Dionysius Exiguus, -- then, Herod died in four B.C., -- yet the Gospels have him alive when Christ was born, -- the taxation that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem may've been as early as eight B.C. There are a number of these ... strange inconsistencies."

This is too much for Cherrycoke to swallow. Dionysius, he says, translating the name as "Dennis the Meager," "was an agent of God." Whereupon Dixon mutters, imitating Mason's voice, "God should've found another Agent," shocking Cherrycoke. "'I didn't say that,' Mason protests, '-- Did I?'"

In the spring, Mason and Dixon begin hearing voices: "the great Ghost of the woods has been whispering to them, -- tho' Reason suggests the Wind, -- 'No ... no more ... no further.'" Dixon jokes, "Reminds me of a Lass from Escombe." But one day, "Mason and Dixon hear the Voice, stirring the tops of Trees in a black swift Smear down the Mountainside and into the Shade, more to plead than to pronounce, -- 'You are gone too far, from the Post Mark'd West.' ... 'Thankee,' Mason mutters back to it, 'as if we didn't already know.'"

The Implication of the ghostly Speech is clear to them both, -- They will soon be proceeding, if indeed they are not already, with all Guarantees of Safety suspended, -- as if Whatever spar'd them years ago, at Sea, were now presenting its Bill.

"Be they heedful or not, 1767 will be their last year upon the Line." They wait in Philadelphia for word from Sir William Johnson, who is negotiating with the Indians, so "they get a late start this Year, not reaching the Allegheny Front until July, a full year since they left off their Progress West." They visit the Redzingers on the way, reuniting with Zhang, who informs them that his nemesis, Zarpazo, is no longer a threat: He has gone to Florida. Allègre visits them, too, and tells them "I see the Duck seldom of late. Perhaps, by now, she has taken in her charge so many other Souls as troubl'd as my own, that there remains less time for me, -- perhaps, as she has continu'd upon her way, I have even pass'd altogether from her Car."

At Cumberland, they meet settlers with a pack of hunting dogs, and Mason endeavors to find out from one of the dogs, Snake, about an old acquaintance: "I'm assuming that Norfolk Terriers, like other breeds, maintain a Web of Communication about 'em, and I was but curious after the whereabouts these Days of the Learnèd English Dog, or as I believe he is also known, Fang." But Snake is wary of letting people know of "his own Power of Speech, for he's known others, including the credulous Fang in fact, who've trusted Humans with the Secret only to find themselves that very Evening in some Assembly Room full of Smoke and Noise, and no promise of Dinner till after they've perform'd."

A delegation of Indians, sent by Johnson along with an interpreter, Hugh Crawfford, arrives. They "will remain with the Party till the end of October, when, reaching a certain Warrior Path, they will inform the Astronomers that their own Commissions from the Six Nations allow them to go no further, -- with its implied Corollary, that this Path is as far West as the Party, the Visto, and the Line, may proceed." Crawfford informs them that the Great Warrior Path is "one of the major High-ways of all inland America. So must it also stand as a boundary line, -- for when we come to it, we shall not be allow'd to cross it, and go on." Mason protests that it will only take a quarter of an hour to cross and and they'll clean up after themselves. "Cutting it with your Visto would be like putting an earthen Dam across a River," Crawfford insists. He tells them that it's thirty or forty miles from Ohio, but "although on paper it may look like only a few short steps from the Warpath to the River Ohio, I beg you both, be most careful, -- for Distance is not the same here, nor is Time."

The Indians, and their ability to slip into and out of the forest, unnerve Mason. Cherrycoke observes, "Mr. Dixon seems quite content in their company," which prompts Mason to respond,

"Who, Young Jollification? drinks with priests, roisters with Pygmies, -- aye, I've seen that. What cares he, as long as the Tobacco and spirits hold out? ... No, -- 'tis I who am anxious before the advent of these Visitors how Strange, who belong so without separation, to this Country cryptick and perilous, ... passing, tho' never so close, as shadowy and serene as Deities of Forest or River." 

When the instruments are shown to them, the Indians "explain, that for as long as anyone can remember, the Iroquois Nations as well, have observ'd Meridian Lines as Boundaries to separate the one from another." This amazes Zhang, who of course opposes such lines, until he learns that the Jesuits taught them to do so. But an Indian chief named Hendricks says, "Others believe 'twas not the Jesuits, but powerful Strangers, much earlier."

The chapter ends with yet another tall tale, this one about giant vegetables.

15. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 460-490

Two: America; 47-50

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By late May, they reach the Susquehanna, where they make attempts to measure the width of the river, finally determining that it's about seven-eights of a mile wide. While they're there a thunderstorm comes up that terrifies Mason, but which Dixon receives with comparative calm.

Now they receive word that they should "return to the Tangent Point, and run the three and a half Miles of Meridian, or North Line, needed to close the Boundaries of the Lower Counties." The orders present young Nathanael McClean, known as Nathe, with a dilemma: He writes a friend that he has fallen in love with a milkmaid whom he calls Galactica, and that the return east will separate them. "For tho' I know next to nothing about the Sex, yet it seems, in my experience, that their reputation for Patience is gravely over-blown, and the faithful sailor's Sweetheart of Song and Romance as mythical as a Mermaid."

For the next three weeks, they are occupied again with the enigmatick Area 'round the Tangent Point, seeking to close the Eastern boundaries of Pennsylvania and Maryland, -- the Commissioners, to appearance, being anxious upon this score. 

Meanwhile, they discuss what lies ahead to the west of the Susquehanna: "Over Susquehanna begins a different Province entirely, and beginning at the Mountains, another differing from that, and so on, -- beyond Monongahela, beyond Ohio." How far they go depends on what the Penns want, Mason observes, "as Maryland's Grant ends just past Laurel Hill, from there West 'tis Penn's Line alone, dividing Penn lands from Virginia, -- who bear none of the Cost." At stake are the iron and coal deposits in the west.

On June 6, they complete the survey that closes the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania to the east, but the ambiguous area known as the Wedge remains, "resulting from the failure of the Tangent Point to be exactly at this corner of Maryland, but rather some five miles south, creating a semi-cusp or Thorn of that Length, and doubtful ownership." But this is no longer Mason and Dixon's problem. They "are order'd back to Susquehanna, this time to continue the West Line 'as far as the Country is inhabited."

Meanwhile, Darby and Cope, members of the surveying team who work with the chain, are so often asked they are the famous Mason and Dixon that they begin to tell people they are. They even argue over which one gets to be Mason and which Dixon -- the latter being more popular. Eventually, "Maidens in varying ratios of Indignation to Curiosity show up in camp, demanding to see Mason or Dixon, or both. Upon meeting the real Surveyors, 'Well, but you're not him, --' '-- nor you the other.'" Eventually, when Darby and Cope are summoned to see Mason and Dixon, Darby blames Cope, and Cope Darby, for perpetuating the misunderstanding. The chainmen fall to blows, but are interrupted by a delegation of angry axmen who have seen the pay-list and want to protest the hiring of "Darby and Cope, Chinamen." Dixon corrects their misreading of "Chain-men."

Before they cross the Susquehanna, they receive a package from Maskelyne, who has sent them "Fr. Boscovich's Book, De Solis et Lunae Defectibus... [inviting] their Attention to a great Variety of Data within, including a Warning as to the Attraction of Mountains.... 'First the Iron-Lodes disable my Needle,' moans Dixon, 'now the Mountains are about to throw off my Plummet?'" But Mason's worry is that "the Western Slopes of Allegheny may prove less distressing than the Windward side of that wretched Island."

On the other side of the Susquehanna, however, nothing seems very different. The iron-rich earth is red, and the story goes that if it's plowed the right way "it becomes magnetized, too, so that at Harvest-time, 'tis necessary only to pass along the Rows any large Container of Iron, and the Vegetables will fly up out of the ground, and stick to it." The entourage of the expedition has grown, "lengthen'd to a suburbs dedicated to high (as some would say, low) living. Gaming, corn whiskey, Women able to put up with a heap of uncompensated overtime, etc. There is even "the Vásquez Brothers' Marimba Quartet, who often play back-up for the Torpedo, to whom it is the musick of his Youth, his home Waters."

But as the summer goes on, Dixon has the sense that they're being "used" in the service of American politics. Mason posits that Maskelyne could be a French spy working for the Jesuits, which Dixon opines is a "Bit sophisticated for me. Tho' I don't mind a likely Conspiracy, I prefer it be formed in the interests of Trade, -- the mystickal sort you fancy is fair beyond me." Mason takes this to be an allusion to the East India Company." This is, however, only a setup for one of Pynchon's atrocious puns:

"Come, Sir, can you not sense here ... the scent of fresh Coriander, the whisper of a Sarong...?"" 

"Sari," corrects Mason. 

"Not at all Sir, -- 'twas I who was sarong."

Now they near the Redzingers' farm, which causes tension between Allègre and Frau Redzinger. For Peter Redzinger has returned to the farm, having lost his vision of Christ. She tries to tell him about the Frenchman and his duck, but he doesn't listen. Apparently Christ has taught Peter to make golems: "Kitchen-size, -- some of them quite clever, the Tasks they do, -- one that peels and cores Apples, -- ja, even pits Cherries."

Cherrycoke inserts a selection from his Spiritual Day-Book about the German sects in Pennsylvania, which seem to generate "spiritual Wonders." Mason and Dixon are about to encounter some of them when they stop at a tavern called The Rabbi of Prague, which is "headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith" that has its own "private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter Shin, and to signify 'Live long and prosper.'"


There is also supposed to be in the neighborhood a Golem "taller than the most ancient of the Trees" that was "created by an Indian tribe widely suppos'd to be one of the famous Lost Tribes of Israel." They've never seen the Golem, "only heard his steps on the nights when there is no Moon, or his voice, speaking from above the only words he knows, -- 'Eyeh asher Eyeh.'"

"That is, 'I am that which I am,' helpfully translates a somehow nautical-looking Indiv. with gigantick Fore-Arms, and one Eye ever a-Squint from the Smoke of his Pipe. 

They also learn about the author of the Pennsylvaniad, an epic in heroic couplets whose work eclipses that of Alexander Pope: "In the Constellation 'Poesia,' Sir, to frame it in more comfortable terms for you, even the Wasp of Twickenham must be assign'd the Letter Beta, for this Timothy Tox who is its Lumina."

But their conversation is cut short as "great Percussions upon the Earth are heard, coming ever closer. Trees, push'd over, crash to the ground. Bears, Bobcats, and Wolves come fleeing before whatever is just behind." And outside, "great Mud Feet are seen to stir, tall as the Eaves."

12. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 349-381

Two: America; 35-37

_____

Cherrycoke and his audience fall into a dispute about the nature of history, which is more or less appropriate, given the nature of his fabulating narrative, in which he reports quite vividly on scenes he can't have seen. But now he rejoins Mason and Dixon.

He tells his listeners that he was traveling in a coach, "a late invention of the Jesuits ... wherein the inside is quite noticeably larger than the outside." (Perhaps it was the TARDIS.) They encounter, walking along the roadside, "two Women, who prov'd to be mother and daughter." They invite them to ride with them, and the mother, who identifies herself as Frau Luise Redzinger, informs them that they're going to Philadelphia to consult with a lawyer. They warn her against the city, but she insists, "Philadelphia, Sirs, can hold little to surprise me. My sister lives in the most licentious Babylon of America, though they are pleased to call themselves 'Bethlehem.'" She disapproves of her sister, Liesele, who has married a Moravian, which she regards as "a gaudy Christianity ... a wonder their minister is not addressed as Pope," at which "the daughter gives a small gasp." One of the passengers, Mistress Edgewise, advises her to forgive her sister.

It seems that Frau Redzinger's husband, Peter, had an accident in which he fell into a pit of "dried hops nearly twenty feet deep, hot from the Kiln," and that the experience transformed him:

As weeks passed, she tells us, Peter Redzinger's account chang'd, from a simple tale of witness, to one of rapture by beings from somewhere else, "long, long from Pennsylvania," as he expressed it, -- and always at the center of the Relation, unwise to approach, an unbearable Luminosity.

He has become an itinerant preacher, with followers known as Redzingerites. But her problem is that their farm is on the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, so she doesn't know for sure which territory it belongs in. "Luise has been been paying the Quit-rents to Pennsylvania," but her neighbor, Grodt, has his eye on the property and claims that "she dwells in Maryland and owes more back taxes there than she can ever pay," in which the land will fall into escheat and Grodt may be able to get his hands on it.

As they discuss Frau Redzinger's problem, the coachman spots an inn up ahead. As it happens, Mason and Dixon are headed there too. "Bickering energetickally, they make their way toward the lights and at length enter the very Inn where your Narrator, lately arriv'd is already down a Pipe and a Pint, -- only to be brought to dumbfounded silence at the Sight of one whom they've not seen since the Cape of Good Hope." Cherrycoke then reveals to them that he has been commissioned as chaplain to their expedition.

The tavern of the inn, which is run by a Mr. Knockwood and his wife, begins to fill up with people coming in out of the snow.

Here congregate all the Agentry of the Province, Land-Jobbers and Labor Crimps, Tool-Mongers and Gypsy Brick-Layers, as well as the curious Well-to-do from further East, including all the Way back across the Ocean. The Waggoners keep together, seeking or creating their own Snugs, and the Men of Affairs arrange for Separate Rooms. Those that remain, tend to run to the quarrelsome.

Mrs. Edgewise, it seems is a magician with "a diverting repertoire of conjuring tricks" who always attracts an eager audience. Her husband is a gambler. Meanwhile, Luise Redzinger's daughter, Mitzi, is asserting her independence, particularly with regard to her hair: "'I want it all different lengths,' fiercely, 'I don't want to fasten it close to my head. I don't want to cover it. I want people to see it. I want Boys to see it.'"

Knockwood, the landlord, greets the astronomers and tells them that Cherrycoke has been talking about them. They explain that they have taken the American work to fill in between the first transit of Venus and the next anticipated one, which Mr. Edgewise pleased to be "able to utter a recently minted word," refers to as a sandwich. But the word causes the inn's French chef, Armand Allègre, to come screaming from the kitchen, proclaiming that the sandwich, "To the Sacrament of the Eating, it is ever the grand Insult!"

The next morning, Luise Redzinger is surprised by the odors of the chef's cooking, though scandalized by his croissants, with their "shameless over-usage of Butter in place of Lard." She is friendly with the chef, however, won over by his offer to show her how he makes his croissants and his demonstration of his rolling-pin. She asks if his job pays well, and he sighs that it wouldn't matter if it were thousands: "Once the most celebrated chef in France, -- now alone, among foreign Peasants and skin-wearing Primitives, with no chance of escaping." Frau Redzinger is fascinated and "has miss'd completely his effect upon Mitzi, who is sitting there flush'd and daz'd." And before an audience "of what, to his mind, must seem unfeeling barbarians," Allègre begins his tale of exile, "his Iliad of Inconvenience."

He was apprenticed to "the greatest chef in France, -- which is to say, in the World," which elicits protests from his audience, but he continues. After years of work he became a chef and "Paris was at my feet." One day a detective, "let us call him Hervé du T.," came to see him. But he breaks off his story when he notices Mason and Dixon, to whom he says, "I was about to advert to your Brother in Science, whom perhaps you have even met, the immortal Jacques de Vaucanson." After a moment Dixon recognizes the name: "the Lad with the mechanical Duck." Allègre tells them that Vaucanson's robotic duck had been provided with "a Digestionary Process, whose end result could not be distinguish'd from that found in Nature." In the audience, a Mr. Whitpot scoffs at "A mechanickal Duck that shits," but Allègre continues.

One day, a servant found the mechanical duck flapping its wings, and "Within an hour, the Duck was well flown." In his "vainglorious Intent" to provide the bird with mechanisms for "Sex and Reproduction," Vaucanson had "somehow nudg'd the Duck across some Threshold of self-Intricacy, setting off this Explosion of Change." So "now the Duck is a Fugitive, flying where it wishes," and it has become so fast in its flight that it becomes invisible.

The detective has come to warn Allègre that the duck has "somehow, quite recently, become aware of you." The chef may be in special danger because of his fame for his duck dishes: "your Canard au Pamplemousse Flambé ... is unique in Civilization." Allègre is advised to wear leather or even chain mail, "its Beak being of the finest Swedish Steel." He realizes that what the detective wants is for him "to act as a sort of ... Decoy? to attract the personal Vengeance of a powerful and murderous Automaton." They they hear "a loud terrifying Hum outside" and the detective runs away. But when the duck arrives, it speaks to him "in a curious Accent, inflected heavily with linguo-beccal Fricatives, issuing in a fine Mist of some digestive Liquid, upon pure Faith in whose harmlessness I was obliged to proceed." The duck addresses him as "the terrible Bluebeard of the Kitchen, whose Celebrity is purchas'd with the lives of my Race."

But instead of assaulting Allègre, the duck wants him to go talk to Vaucanson, who "has hired an Attorney, -- an infallible sign of Hatred." The problem is that the inventor has given him the power to love, but there aren't any other mechanical ducks for him to love -- except for the backup duck Vaucanson created in case this one failed to work. The duck, who reveals itself as female, wants the chef to ask Vaucanson to give his permission to take the other duck, which is "yet sexually unmodified," to the opera. When the duck leaves, Allègre is baffled: "I was a Chef, not a Match-maker for Automatick Ducks. Merde!"

But finding Vaucanson turns out to be not so easy, not to mention that there are others who would like to get their hands on the duck.

Mysteriously, from about that date, I found myself beneath a Protection unseen, yet potent. Thugs who approach'd me in the Street were suddenly struck in mid-Body vigorously enough to throw them for Toises along the Cobbles, where they lay a-cowering, trying to remember their Prayers.... I could attribute such a degree of Protection (in which I fail'd, till too late, to see the component of Love) to nothing but the Duck.... if Angels be the next higher being from Man, perhaps the Duck had 'morphos'd into some Anatine Equivalent, acting as my Guardian. 

Finally, his friends advise him to flee -- he has developed a reputation that makes it no longer possible for him to work. "Paris is no longer for you, my Friend, you belong somewhere else, -- in China! in Pennsylvania!" And so Allègre leaves, and by taking a variety of vessels, "ev'rything from Pirogue to Pirate Ship," finally arrives in Delaware during the dark of the moon. And at this point his story is interrupted:

"Here then, you wretched little Frog!" The Company groans. It is Mr. Dimdown, Hanger in hand. The Frenchman picks up his Hachoir, and raises one eybrow.

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

Two: America; 29-32

_____

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, --"

9. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 257-288

Two: America; 26-28

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Mason and Dixon arrive in Philadelphia, which Cherrycoke informs his audience was "second only to London, as the greatest of English speaking cities." It is mid-November and "a rousing Evangelist" has just visited the city, leaving a wave of religious enthusiasm behind him. "Even Quakers are out in the Street, bargaining with unexpected pugnacity, for a share of this Population suddenly turn'd into Christliness." Cherrycoke recalls when Whitefield visited and Philadelphia was "delirious with Psalms." This somehow turns the talk of his audience to music, and Ethelmer performs a song "the fellows sing at University": "To Anacreon in Heaven," noting a phrase that ascends "like a Sky-Rocket" and observing

"'Tis ever the sign of Revolutionary times, that Street-Airs become Hymns, and Roist'ring-Songs Anthems, -- just as Plato fear'd, -- hast heard the Negroe Musick, the flatted Fifths, the vocal portamenti, -- 'tis there sings your Revolution.... Is it not the very Rhythm of the Engines, the Clamor of the Mills, the Rock of the Oceans, the Roll of the Drums in the Night, why if one wish'd to give it a Name, --"

"Surf Music!" DePugh cries. 

Cherrycoke resumes his narrative with the encounter of Mason and Dixon with Benjamin Franklin in an apothecary where they have gone to order medicines for their journey into the wilderness. Franklin helps them stock up on laudanum and save money, too: "Strangers, heed my wise advice, -- Never pay the Retail Price." They then adjourn to Franklin's favorite pub, The Blue Jamaica, where, when Dixon goes to relieve himself, Franklin questions Mason about his partner's "Calvert connections," noting that the Jesuit Le Maire "is native to Durham and a particular friend of Dixon's teacher, William Emerson." Mason is shocked to infer that Franklin is asking him to spy on Dixon: "I am sorry the Politics here have become so, as one would say, Italian, in their intricacies."

Dixon returns, and when Mason exits for the same need, Franklin starts to work on Dixon about Mason's "East India Company Connections" and particularly Sam Peach, whose name Dixon feigns not to recognize: "One of thoase lads in The Beggar's Opera...?" Franklin fails in his mission to set the surveyors on each other, but introduces him to some women, Molly and Dolly, and invites them to hear him play the glass armonica at The Fair Anchor that evening. There they meet a Mr. Tallihoe of Virginia, who wants to arrange for them to visit Col. Washington.

So the next day they are off to Mount Vernon, where George Washington "turns out to be taller than Dixon, by about as much as Dixon rises over Mason." Washington is not "the incompetent Fool depicted in the London press, and he smiles when he hears Dixon's northern accent, "though owing to the state of his teeth he is reluctant to do so when in company, -- a smile from Col. Washington, however tentative, is said to be a mark of favor." He notes that he has relatives who talk the way Dixon does. Washington has surveyed the West himself, and they discuss the political and legal conflicts and pitfalls involved.

Washington calls for Gershom to bring them "some Pipes, and a Bowl of the new-cur'd Hemp. And another gallon of your magnificent Punch." Gershom is "An African servant with an ambiguous expression" whom Washington calls, quoting John 1:47, "an Israelite in whom there is no guile." Dixon takes mild offense: the Earl of Darlington used to call Dixon's great-uncle George, who was his steward, the same thing. But Gershom tells him not to take offense "about that Israelite talk" because he is "of the Hebrew faith." And he bends his head to display his yarmulke. When Washington asks for some hog jowls, Mason is surprised that Gershom should be asked to serve pork, but Gershom says "the Sect I belong to, is concern'd scarce at all with Dietary Rules." And Washington observes, "Yet if a Jew cooking pork is a Marvel, what of a Negroe, working a Room?" Gershom, he explains, is a stand-up comedian working "a circuit of Coaching-inns" and earning "an income per annum which creeps dangerously close to that of his nominal Master, me."

Martha Washington, "a diminutive woman with a cheerful rather than happy air, who seems to bustle even when standing still," joins them. Mason and Dixon divide their attention between the Washingtons, Mason discussing astronomy with Martha while Dixon talks with Washington about the history of the Ohio Company, in which Washington's brothers are investors. Washington talks about the expedition of Céléron de Bienville in the Ohio Valley, in which he buried lead plates to mark the claim of the French to the territory. This attracts Mason's attention too, and there is much discussion about the electrical possibilities of lead plates. Washington says he dug up a few, and when Dixon sees them he is startled to see markings in Chinese on them. Washington then grows suspicious of Dixon and asks him for the Masonic password, which Dixon fortunately has learned. Washington is put at ease, and explains that Jesuits from Quebec sometimes show up "to work some mischief down here -- so a fellow has to be extra vigilant, is all."

Later, Franklin explains that the Jesuits are believed to have a form of telegraphy that involves balloons and mirrors, and that there are Telegraph Squads composed of "elite teams of converted Chinese... The Sino-Jesuit conjunction may prove a greater threat to Christendom than ever the Mongols or the Moors. Pray that more than the Quarrel over Feng Shui divides them."

8. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 215-253

One: Latitudes and Departures; 22-25

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Dixon meets a Jesuit priest, Christopher Maire, at William Emerson's home. Maire has worked with the celebrated Croatian Jesuit astronomer Ruggiero Boscovich (or Ruđer Bošković) in Italy. Emerson is a noted English mathematician who has a reputation in Hurworth as a wizard, from his willingness to cast horoscopes and his knowledge of hypnotism -- or Mesmerism.

This information causes Cousin DePugh to interrupt Cherrycoke's narrative to reveal that he has been Mesmerized, and even taught the technique by Mesmer himself.

Returning to his story, Cherrycoke tells them that some in Hurworth believe that Emerson can fly, and that he teaches this art to his students, of which Dixon has been one. But Emerson is really a student of ley lines, ancient lines of demarcation that are best glimpsed at sundown, when the light strikes the land at a low angle and "ev'ry least Ruffle in the Nap of the Terrain is magnified as Shadow," revealing "traces of Roman and earlier ruins." They are purported to have magnetic power, or "Tellurick Energies," as Mason calls them when Dixon talks about them later. Emerson tells his students,

"The Romans ... were preoccupied with conveying Force, be it hydraulic, or military, or architectural, -- along straight Lines. The Leys are at least that old, -- perhaps Druidic, tho' others say Mithraic, in origin. Whichever Cult shall gain the honor, Right Lines beyond a certain Magnitude become of less use or instruction to those who must dwell among them, than intelligible, by their immense regularity, to more distant Onlookers, as giving a clear sign of Human Presence upon the Planet."

But when Dixon announced his plans to become a maker of straight lines, i.e., a surveyor, Emerson denounced his lack of ambition.

Maire tells them that Boscovich wants to "measure a Degree, in America," but Emerson protests that the "King will never allow Jesuit philosophers into British North America" and suspects that the plan is to establish "a great number of Jesuit Observatories, flung as a Web, all over the World." And when he suggests that the Jesuits have designs on China, Maire doesn't disagree. He even goes so far as to suggest that Dixon might want to join the order: "Why, if Authority and Battle be your Meat, lad, or Out-Fit can supply as much as you like." But Dixon balks at the idea of chastity. Maire tells Dixon that he's a perfect candidate for the job of surveying the disputed boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland: "a working Land-Surveyor with astronomical experience. I can assure you of Calvert approval, -- that you come of a Quaker Family must appeal to at least one major faction in Pennsylvania." He even suggests that Dixon's Northern origins would appeal to Jacobites in America.

Emerson proposes that they "'repair to my Local, The Cudgel and Throck.' A moment Dixon has been dreading, for those who drink at this Ale-Grotto of terrible Reputation, do so out of a Melancholy advanc'd beyond his understanding." First they disguise Maire with a wig as "Mr. Emerson's distant Cousin Ambrose, of Godless London." The pub "is even more depressing than I remember it," Dixon says when they get there. Maire continues to try to persuade Dixon to take the American surveying job, assuring him that he won't have to spy for the Jesuits.


They are joined by a Mr. Whike, who has overheard talk of Jesuits. Whike and Dixon are old foes, and their quarrel begins to heat up again until Lud Oafery and his mother enter the pub. Lud is a large man with a curious speech impediment that has to be translated by Whike. Ma Oafery says that she's heard that Dixon is going to America. There is conversation about whether the Earth is round or flat -- the latter being Lud's opinion. Maire humors the opinion, saying that it is "flat as a Funnel-Cake, flat as a Pizza." The word puzzles his audience until he explains that pizza is "a Delicacy of Cheese, Bread, and Fish ubiquitous in the region 'round Mount Vesuvius," and he proceeds to show them how to cook one. The landlady, Mrs. Brain, produces the dough. In the absence of tomatoes, Dixon produces from his "Surveyor's Kit ... the Bottle of Ketjap, that he takes with him ev'rywhere." Mrs. Brain also provides anchovies and some Stilton. And so "what is arguably the first British Pizza" is produced.


But Mrs. Oafery begins to get nervous that it's growing dark and there's a full moon. Lud begins to grow agitated. Emerson says, "Lord's sake, Betsy, what're you saying, that our Ludowick's a werewolf?" Sure enough, "Lud has seen the Full Moon, and now pursues it out into the Street, Whike at his Heels." White calls out to them that Lud is changing.

In trips this shaven, somewhat narrow Youth, a Durham Dandy in Silver Brocade, Chinese Fastenings ev'rywhere in bright Gold, for Contrast, -- and as a Finial, a curiously cock'd Hat with a long Parrot Plume extending from it further than anyone present has even known a Feather to go. "Mother!" pipes the 'morphos'd Lud. "When will you do something about your Hair?" ... "Two, call it three nights," groans Ma Oafery, ev'ry Month, no worse than the Flux, really, -- he has memoriz'd several current Theatrickal Music-Pieces, and sings them to me thro' the Day. He tells Joaks I do not understand. He quizzes with me in Foreign Tongues. Yet I am a Mum, -- I can tolerate it."

We now get a bit of Dixon's parentage. His father, George Dixon Sr., married Mary Hunter, with whom he already had a connection in "the Durham Quaker Web." After Mary's mother died, her father, Thomas Hunter, married again twice. After his death, his third wife married again, to Ralph Dixon, George's father. Mary was almost eighteen when her father died, so she became the ward of her uncle, Jeremiah Hunter, for whom Dixon, the youngest, was named. Jeremiah Dixon was twenty-two and a journeyman surveyor when his father died.

He arranges to meet Mason in London to sign up for the surveying job in America, and sails there on a collier named Mary and Meg that gets lost in the fog before finally reaching the city. Safely arrived, Dixon expresses his condolences to Mason on Bradley's death. In a pub, Mason worries about America and "Savages. Wilderness. No one even knows what's out there. And we have just, do you appreciate, contracted, to place a Line directly thro' it?  Doesn't it strike you as a little unreasonable?" Dixon adds to his concern "the Americans," which Mason downplays: "They are at least all British there, -- aren't they? The Place is but a Patch of England, at a three-thousand-Mile Off-set. Isn't it?" Dixon disillusions him: "No more than the Cape Dutch are Dutch...? 'Tis said these people keep Slaves, as did our late Hosts, -- that they are likewise inclin'd to kill the People already living where they wish to settle." This leaves Mason hoping that "There may be redeeming Qualities to the place."

They also talk about the politics of the Royal Society. It seems that they are in bad repute for not having done the sighting in Turkey, which might have opened up a good silk trade route for Peach. Maskelyne explained this to Mason, who replied, "Ah. Let me see if I'm following this. The Royal Society send Dixon and me to the Cape, thus incurring a Debt ow'd to Dutchmen, rather than to Jews, which any Stationing of Astronomers at Scanderoon would imply." Dixon realizes that "ev'ry Observation site propos'd by the Royal Society prov'd to be a Factory, or Consulate, or other Agency of some royally Charter'd Company."

"Good Christ. Dixon. What are we about?"

6. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 158-182

One: Latitudes and Departures; 15-17

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Maskelyne now insists that he and Mason must move to the other side of the island, which is exposed "to an unremitting and much-warn'd-against Wind," because he needs to correlate readings from that side with the one from the leeward side. And in fact the windy side is so bleak that the soldiers stationed on it set up "various Suicide-Banks and Madness-Pools," and "the Post-Surgeon ... tries never to stir too far from the deepest rooms of the Fort, where the Wind may oppress him least, and is careful to include it in each daily Prayer, as if 'twere a Deity in itself, infinitely in Need, ever demanding." Maskelyne encounters there a German soldier named Dieter who "Enlisted in ignorance that anyplace like this could exist" and desperately wants to leave. Dieter, having learned that Maskelyne is Clive of India's brother-in-law, begs his help in making his escape. But Maskelyne says he can't prevail upon Clive in the matter and offers to pay the twenty pounds Dieter needs to buy his way out of his contract.

Things go badly for Mason, too: He begins seeing the ghost of his dead wife. He's afraid to tell Maskelyne who, he fears, might use it against him someday. But he's sure that once Dixon arrives, he'll tell him the whole story. He'll tell Dixon how he met Rebekah on May Day at "the annual cheese-rolling," when the Gloucester cheeses are "blessed and ritually rolled thrice 'roud the churchyard, and thence down a Hill." Except that this year someone has taken it upon himself to create a giant cheese, an "Octuple Gloucester, ... but actually octupled in all dimensions, making it more like a 512-fold or Quincentenariduodecuple Gloucester, -- running to nearly four tons in weight when green and even after shrinkage towering ten feet high." It is loaded onto a sturdy wagon for transport.

Mason has come to Randwick Church, the site of the cheese-blessing, hoping to see Susannah Peach, daughter of Samuel Peach, "a silk merchant of some repute, and a growing power within the East India Company." His infatuation is such that he has gone to her house when she wasn't there and "knelt by her Bed and press'd his face to the Counterpane of Silk to inhale what he could of her Scent." But while he is waiting, the wagon carrying the cheese breaks down and the great orange wheel starts rolling toward where Mason is standing: "The Victim of a Cheese malevolent, being his last thought before abrupt Rescue by way of a stout shove, preceded by an energetick Rustling of Taffeta. It is Rebekah, and "If she was not, like Susannah, a Classick English Rose, neither was she any rugged Blossom of the Heath."

Here Cherrycoke's audience interrupts, or rather Uncle Ives does: "There are no records of her in Gloucestershire.... Mason was baptiz'd at Sapperton Church, as were his children, -- yet he and Rebekah were not married there. So mayn't they have met elsewhere as well, even a Greenwich?"

Cherrycoke resumes his narrative, with another appearance by Rebekah's ghost to Mason in the wind. After she disappears, he is unable to sleep. Maskelyne finally awakens in the middle of the day to ask him if he had come into the tent about dawn. Mason, not willing to talk to him about his visions, denies it. But Maskelyne asks, "Might it've been Dieter, d'ye think?" And then confusingly asks Mason to forget about Dieter, so that Mason "is abruptly certain that Dieter is a Ghost as well." He realizes that he has to get away from both the wind and Maskelyne for the sake of his sanity, so he builds a bonfire to signal a ship to pick him up.

The fishing boat carries him to a port two or three miles from James's Town, where the absence of the wind "stuns him." Walking toward the town, he spots a sign advertising "the Jenkin's Ear Museum, dedicated to the eponymous Organ whose timely Display brought England in against Spain in the War of '39." Mason decides to visit the museum, but discovers it is surrounded by a wall whose only entrance seems to be through "a tiny Portico and Gate, no more than three feet high." He enters "a sort of Ramp-way leading downward, with just enough height to crawl" and finds himself in a room carved out of the volcanic rock. He is greeted by the museum's proprietor, Nick Mournival, who proclaims, "Helen of Troy's face may've launch'd a thousand ships, -- this is but one Ear, yet in its Time, it sent navies into combat 'round the Globe." He recognizes Mournival as a friend of Florinda, whom he met in a tavern. He endures Mournival's spiel until he finally shows the Ear, which Mason is startled to perceive is listening. Mournival explains that Ear "can't get enough of human speech ... 'tis Ear's great Hunger, that never abates."

"Ear?"
"Oh? What would you call her? 'Nose?'" 

Encouraged by Mournival to whisper his fondest wish into Ear, Mason decides against wishing for Rebekah's return to life and asks, "A speedy and safe passage for Mr. Dixon, back to this place. For his personal sake, of course, but for my Sanity as well." Then, having paid Mournival, he escapes from the museum, though he later can't remember how, "Unless the real Mason is yet there captive in that exitless Patch, and I but my Representative."

Dixon finally hears this tale when they are "a few days out in their Passage back to England." And he tells Mason, "as near as I can calculate, at exactly the instant you spoke into this Object, I heard, as out of a speaking-trumpet, your message." But Mason quickly realizes Dixon is teasing: "Ahrr! You almost persuaded me, -- why can you never just let it be? -- you had the hook right in my Mouth, Sir."

They speculate on why Maskelyne stays on St. Helena, and decide that he may be hoping for some astronomical breakthrough.

They would rather discuss Maskelyne's Affairs, than what waits in England, in their own Futurity. Through his Correspondence, Maskelyne has heard of one Possibility, tho' 'tis far from a Reduction to Certainty. Following the Chancery decision the year before, as to the Boundaries between the American Provinces of Pennsylvania and Maryland, both Proprietors have petition'd the Astronomer Royal for assistance, using the most modern means available, in marking these out, -- one of them being a Parallel of Latitude, five degrees, an Hundred Leagues, of Wilderness East to West.

Mason suggests that Maskelyne would "rather see us permanently abroad," but he doubts, when Dixon suggests it, that they would send them again as a team.

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.

3, Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 58-93

One: Latitudes and Departures; 7-9

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A change in plans has deposited Mason and Dixon at Cape Town, where they take rooms at a house owned by the Zeemanns, but have their meals -- because the Zeemanns' slaves have run away -- at the neighboring home of Cornelius Vroom, his wife, Johanna, and their three daughters. The Dutch mistrust Dixon "as unreliable in any white affairs here. They have noted his unconceal'd attraction to the Malays and the Black slaves, -- their Food, their Appearance, their Music, and so, it must be obvious, their desires to be deliver'd out of oppression." But Mason, the somberly dressed widower, is considered safe.

He is not safe, however, from the attentions of the Vrooms' daughters, Jet, Greet and Els. Jet, the oldest, is 16, but "Els, tho' a mere twelve by the Calendar back home, down here in the Southern World began long ago the active Pursuit of Lads twice her age, not all of them unwilling." When he finds himself alone with the girls, Jet asks him to brush her hair -- "There's a bit in back I can't reach" -- while Els sits (not very still) on his lap and say, "shall I tell you what she really wants you to do with that Hair-Brush?" Their mother enters, sends them away, and proceeds to flirt with him herself, taking note of the erection that the girls have inspired.

That night a slave girl named Austra slips into his bed. She explains that "their Wish is that I become impregnated, -- if not by you, then by one of you.... All that the Mistress prizes of you is your Whiteness, understand? Don't feel disparag'd, -- ev'ry white male who comes to this Town is approach'd by ev'ry Dutch Wife, upon the same Topick. The baby, being fairer than its mother, will fetch more upon the Market." She warns him that "the Mother will set her three Cubs upon ye without Mercy, and make her own assaults as well, all of it intended to keep this rigid with your Desire, -- and the only one in the House you'll be allowed to touch is me."

She's right about the continued efforts of the Vroom women, so Mason asks Dixon, who has been exploring the native culture, about "the various sorts of Magick, that they are said to possess." What he wants, he explains, is "Emphatickally not a Love-Potion, you understand, no, no, quite the contrary indeed." He wants something he can put in Mrs. Vroom's soup that will tame her appetites.

Dixon tries to get Mason to join him in exploring the town outside the Vrooms' house.

They do, to be sure, go out that Evening, as into various others together, in search of Lustful Adventure, but each time Mason will wreck things, scuttling hopes however sure, frightening off the Doxies with Gothickal chat of Headstones and Diseases of the Mind, swilling down great and occasionally, Dixon is told, exceptional Constantia wines with the sole purpose of getting drunk, exploding into ill-advis'd Song, losing consciousness face-first into a Variety of food and Drink, including more than one of the most exquisite karis this side of Sumatra, -- that is, proving a difficult carousing partner, block'd from simple enjoyment in too many directions for Dixon to be at all anger'd, -- rather marveling at him, as a Fair-goer might at some Curiosity of Nature. 

Mason begins to have bad dreams about being threatened by "some Presence with a Krees or Malay Dagger." He blames it on Cape Town, which he calls "one of the colonies of Hell," but Dixon disagrees, blaming Mason's dreams on "all this Malay food we're eating ev'ry day." Mason is upset that Dixon is "enjoying this miserable Viper-Plantation! Why, Damme if you're not going to miss it when we're shut of it at long last." Austra suggests that he consult "a certain Toko, a Negritoe, or Asian Pygmy, of a Malay tribe call'd the Senoi," who advises him that the dream world is as real as the waking world, and that he should ask the figure in his dream for "Some solid Gift you may bring back with you." So Mason asks the dream figure for the dagger, and is shocked to find it in bed with him the next morning. Dixon observes, "Happen 'twill be those Girls, teasing with thee....?" Which sends the two off into a heated (and very funny) dialogue.

The days until the transit pass slowly in Cape Town.

Temporally, as geographically, the End of the World. The unrelenting Vapor of debauchery here would not merely tempt a Saint, -- Heavens, 'twould tempt an Astronomer. Yet 'tis difficult, if not impossible, for these Astronomers to get down for a Chat upon the Topick of Desire, given Dixon's inability to deny or divert the Gusts that sweep him, and Mason's frequent failure, in his Melancholy, even to recognize Desire, let alone to act upon it, tho' it run up calling Ahoy Charlie.

At dinner with the Vrooms, Johanna observes that Dixon has "discovered another Cape delicacy ... our Malays call it ketjap." Dixon has brought his own bottle of to the table, where a particularly nauseous and fatty mutton is being served: "'Girls, don't even want you looking at it. Filthy Asian stuff,' Cornelius commands thro' clouds of aromatic pipe-smoke.  'Even' (puff) 'if something has to be done' (puff) 'to cover up the taste of this food.'" As is usual with ketchup, Dixon has a problem "with its slender Bottle, out of whose long neck he finds he has trouble getting the stuff to flow. 'Strike her upon the bottom,' whispers Els, 'and perhaps she will behave.' Dixon does a quick triple-take among the faces of the women, a Jocularity poised upon his Tongue but peering our warily, not quite trusting the open."

After dinner, the family retires to the porch, the Stoep, where the girls draw the attention of the local boys, whose "talk is of Roof-tops, Arch-ways, Sheds, and Warehouses -- any place secure from Traffick long enough for a Skirt to be lifted or Breeches unbuckl'd. Johanna keeps looking over at Mason, as if offering to translate."

Soon enough Mason and Dixon are desperate. Pretending astronomical Chores up at the Observatory, Bowls and Cutlery conceal'd in their Cloaks, they steal away, thinking of Oceanick Fish, African Game, hot Peppers, spices of the East. "I believe in Vibrations," declares Mason, "-- I believe, that Vibrations from that horrid family get into their food, which is difficult enough to enjoy to begin with." 

They learn that ripe mangoes will be available the next morning, and when they arrive at the market they find Cherrycoke there. The Seahorse has left him behind, explaining that Christian ministers are not welcome where they are going.

Mason finds himself trapped in an upstairs bedroom by Johanna Vroom, who tells him she has "chosen to be a very wicked woman" and starts undoing her bodice. Then Jet knocks on the door, and Mason takes the opportunity to jump out of a window. Then the rainy season begins, and Mason is trapped: Cornelius is up-country and "prevented by floods from returning" and Dixon has been rained in "across town at a certain Malay establishment." Much chasing about ensues.

The girls follow Mason and Dixon up the mountain to the observatory. "They are ascended into Africa. At some point alll note that they can no longer hear the Town. That is all it takes, to deliver them into Africa." At the observatory, which was built by the carpenter of the Seahorse, Mason takes it on himself to try to explain the nature of the transit and their observation of it.

"Thro' our whole gazing lives, Venus has been but a tiny Dot of Light, going through phases like the Moon, ever against the black face of Eternity. But on the day of this Transit, all shall suddenly reverse, -- as she is caught, dark, embodied, solid, against the face of the Sun, -- a Goddess descended from light to Matter." "And our Job," Dixon adds, "is to observe her as she transits the face of the Sun, and write down the Times as she comes and goes." 

They also explain about parallax, and the need for observations from everywhere around the world. "The Girls keep their Glances each looping 'round the others, like elaborately curl'd Tresses, trying to see if they should be understanding this, or, -- being cruel young beauties ev'ry one, -- even caring."

2. Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon, pp. 30-57

One: Latitudes and Departures;4-6

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We have a glimpse of Cherrycoke's audience before he returns to the story. It includes a Cousin Ethelmer, recently "return'd from College in the Jerseys." And we learn of Mr. LeSpark that he "made his Fortune years before the War, selling weapons to French and British, Settlers and Indians alike."

Mason and Dixon have had a little disagreement with Capt. Smith of the Seahorse, who wants them to chip in a hundred guineas each for the privilege of dining at his table, with the result that they end up dining in the Lieutenant's Mess. Moreover, there has been a communication that their destination in Sumatra, Bencoolen (now Bengkulu), has fallen into the hands of the French.

On board the ship, Mason and Dixon make their acquaintance with Cherrycoke, who tells them that Capt. Smith "wishes to be taken as a man of Science," and that he "does not consider his best game to be war." Which is unfortunate because they are soon under attack from the French ship l'Grand. Mason, Dixon and Cherrycoke are sent below where they do what they can with the casualties of the battle, which ends when the French captain learns that the mission of the Seahorse is to ferry a scientific expedition to its destination. "France is not at war with the sciences," proclaims the French captain, adding, "You are leetluh meenow, -- I throw you back. Perhaps someday we meet when you are biggair Feesh, like me. Meanwhile, I sail away, Poohpooh! Adieu!" Capt. Smith feels compelled to give chase when the French sail away, but he has to give it up because of the damage to the ship, which returns to Plymouth for repairs.

Mason and Dixon have a drunken conversation in which Dixon explains that he's been expelled from the Quakers, so he has no compunctions against war. Mason writes to the Royal Society explaining about Bencoolen's fall to the French and asking if another station would do as well, but the Society "wrote back in the most overbearing way, on about loss of honor, strongly threatening legal action if Mason and Dixon were to break their contract."

Another member of Cherrycoke's audience reveals himself. Uncle Lomax is a manufacturer of soap, but "'Philadelphia Soap' is a Byword, throughout the American Provinces, of low Quality. At the touch of water, nay, damp Air, it becomes a vile Mucus that refuses to be held in any sort of grip, gentle or firm, and often leaves things dirtier than they were before its application, -- making it, more properly, an Anti-Soap."

Cherrycoke tells them that they set sail again in a convoy with a larger frigate, the Brilliant. Cherrycoke is quarter'd with Lieutenant Unchleigh, a rattle-head," who protested when he found Cherrycoke reading a book. Cherrycoke explained that it was the Bible, but Unchleigh replies, "No matter, 'tis Print, -- Print causes Civil Unrest." Capt. Smith has been replaced by Capt. Grant, who has been ordered to follow the Brilliant until further orders, which he has been given and told to open at Tenerife. Grant protests that Smith had been ordered to sail to Bencoolen even though the Admiralty knew it was in the hands of the French, so "what if my orders are to some equally impossible Destination?"

We learn a bit about the crew. The ship's band consists of Slowcombe, "a single Fifer, to whom it fell, the noontide the Frenchman appear'd, to inspire the Lads ito battle with his one silver Pipe." There is Jack "Fingers" Soames, "a viperish Lad whose eponymous Gesture, made in answer to all Overtures, however ritual or ev'ryday, strangely lacks any hostile Intent, being exressive rather of a deep-held wish, so far as may be possible within the Perimeter of a Sixth-Rate, to be left alone." And there is Veevle, "legendary thro'out the Royal N. for being impossible to wake to stand Watch," but who if he is caught while awake and tricked into taking the watch for someone else, "becomes the smartest and most estimable of Seamen."

Boredom (and horniness) aboard ship makes the anticipation of crossing the Equator more intense. The "Pollywogs" crossing the line for the first time -- Mason, Dixon and Cherrycoke -- will undergo a hazing ceremony by the crew.

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."