William Shakespeare — Chapter 3: An erased marginal note in a late-century ledger — Novella Movement 1
SCENE I. A scholar's chamber, wainscoted with shelves of leather spines gone soft with age. Upon a lectern lies an open ledger, its pages brown as tea left steeping overlong. In the chamber's corner, fixed where once a spider kept her loom, a small globed sensor holds its single eye, a coal of steady red that never blinks nor sleeps.
Enter VELLACOT, a scholar, turning leaves.
VELLACOT
Here is a page that speaks, and yet says nothing—
A margin scraped as smooth as a beggar's plate,
Where once, I'll warrant, some close hand had writ
A word too dangerous to let stand in ink.
See how the vellum puckers where the knife
Went scraping after truth, as men go scraping
After buried gold, and leave the earth
More barren for their digging. What was here?
A name? A sum? A curse against some soul
That trusted paper more than it should trust
The men who kept the paper? O thou ledger,
Thou art a grave where buried guilt doth live,
And I the sexton come too late to mourn it.
Enter RASCO, an opportunist, smiling as at an old jest.
RASCO
Talking to books again, Master Vellacot? Faith, I have known men talk to their horses, and their horses answer better sense, for a horse will at least stamp his foot and say "nay." What is't you've found—treasure, or only more of your dust that you love better than treasure?
VELLACOT
A note erased, Rasco. Here, where the ink
Should tell what debt was owed, and to what man,
Some careful hand hath scoured the letters out
As though the very knowledge were a stain
Upon the house's name.
RASCO
Erased, quotha! Why, there's a fashion I could wear well myself, if guilt could be scrubbed off so cheap as ink. [Aside.] Though I mark there's profit in a secret half-told—a man will pay more to keep a whisper hushed than ever he paid to keep it whole.
VELLACOT
What dost thou mutter there, behind thy hand?
RASCO
Nothing, sir, nothing—only that yon little glass-eyed thing above the door has caught us both at our conference, and keeps it, I'll be bound, in some cellar of its own, more faithful than any clerk that ever lived, for it never blots, never sleeps, never takes a bribe to look away.
VELLACOT
[Aside.] O wretched watcher, small and coldly bright,
Thou keep'st what I would lose, and lose what I
Would gladly keep from every eye but mine!
The old scribe scraped his guilt from off the page
And thought it gone—but thou, thou modern spy,
Dost hoard each breath, each glance, each guilty pause,
In some unseen account no knife can scrape.
What is an erased note to such an eye?
A palimpsest of paper hides its sin
Beneath fresh ink—but what shall hide from thee,
Who keep the day entire, and lose not one
Small hour of it to any scholar's knife?
RASCO
You talk high, master, of eyes and accounts, but I talk plainer: whoever scraped that page had reason, and reason smells of coin. Tell me the sum that's missing, and I'll find you the man that's missing it—for a price.
VELLACOT
Thy price is half the riddle, Rasco. Speak—
What service dost thou render for thy fee?
RASCO
Silence, sir. The rarest merchandise there is.
VELLACOT
And who's to buy it?
RASCO
Why, whoever fears
The eye you spoke of, and the note beneath.
VELLACOT
Then thou wouldst sell the darkness for the light,
And call it charity to keep men blind?
RASCO
I'd call it business, sir, and let the parsons call it what they please.
VELLACOT
Get thee behind that door, and let me think—
This ledger holds a wound I must not probe
With such a hand as thine to hold the knife.
RASCO
As you will, master. But remember this: what's scraped away leaves still a shadow of itself, and shadows, sir, are cheaper bought than substance. [Exit RASCO.]
VELLACOT
He's gone, and yet his hunger lingers here
Like smoke that will not leave a shuttered room.
The note is scraped, the ledger's wound half-healed,
Yet something watches on, that never scrapes,
That keeps what men would spend their lives to lose.
What is a secret, in an age like this,
Where every wall hath grown itself an eye?
The old sin hid beneath the scholar's knife;
The new s—
in hides beneath the watcher's eye,
And calls itself Progress, that the old sin called
Silence—and both do serve one hungry master:
Forgetting dressed in some new borrowed coat.
I'll read no further tonight. The page grows dark
Before my eyes, though candles burn full bright.
He sets down the ledger. Enter RASCO again, more softly now, as one returning to a wound he half regrets to touch.
RASCO
Still at your grave-digging, master? I thought you'd have buried that book by now, or it you.
VELLACOT
Thou art returned. What, could not silence hold thee?
RASCO
Silence is a coin, sir, that spends itself the moment it is kept too long in one man's purse. I have thought on your riddle, and I find I like it better shared.
VELLACOT
Then thou hast broke thy own rare merchandise.
RASCO
Not broke, sir—invested. I have found the name.
VELLACOT
What name?
RASCO
The name the knife scraped out. 'Twas writ
In hand as plain as yours—
VELLACOT
Speak it, or choke on't.
RASCO
Your father's, sir.
VELLACOT
Thou liest.
RASCO
I do not.
VELLACOT
Then let the earth stand still, and let the stars
Forget their courses, and the tide refuse
The moon's old sovereignty—for if this thing
Be true, then all the world's a ledger too,
And every man a debtor scraped half-clean.
RASCO
Softly, master, softly—you'll wake the eye above the door, and it keeps no secrets from its makers, though it keep all from us.
VELLACOT
[Aside.] O let it wake. Let it record this too—
My father's name, my father's scraped-out shame,
Set down at last in some unblotting book
That knife nor candle-flame can ever reach.
For what's an ink-stain to a truth so deep?
The vellum healed itself of its own wound
And wore the scar as smooth as innocence—
But guilt, once tasted by the blood, runs on,
From father unto son, a debt compound,
That interest pays in silence, and in dread,
And in the trembling of a scholar's hand
That dares not turn the next page of his line.
RASCO
Well, sir, will you pay, or will you publish? For either way there's coin in't for a man that knows how to hold his tongue at the right price.
VELLACOT
Thou'dst sell my father's ghost for silver, then?
RASCO
I'd sell him twice, if twice he'd fetch the price.
VELLACOT
Get out.
RASCO
As you will. But mark you this, sir scholar: that little red eye keeps better books than ever your father kept, and pays no man to scrape its pages clean. You may burn this ledger if you like—there's another watching still that never sleeps, never blots, never once forgets. What's erased by the hand, sir, is only lost to the hand. [He goes toward the door, pauses.] Good night to you—and to your little glowing clerk above the lintel, that keeps account of all we've said, and will not, I think, be bribed to scrape it out.
Exit RASCO.
VELLACOT
He's gone—and yet he's left the coldest jest
Of all this night lodged deep behind my ribs:
That what my father's knife once thought destroyed
Lives on, not in the page, but in the blood,
And what this age's eye records tonight
Shall outlive knife and vellum both, and stand
When I am dust, and Rasco dust, and all
This chamber fallen into other hands.
The old sin hid beneath a scholar's blade;
The new sin's kept where no blade ever strayed.
What's scraped from paper festers in the bone—
The watcher keeps what conscience call its own.
He looks once toward the small red eye, which does not blink, and lets the ledger close itself, unread.