Free The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth

blind to the attractiveness of any kind of life. And more immediately, the prospect of returning to London with a clear conscience pleased him.
    Therefore he said, halfheartedly but not cheerlessly, "Just as you wish, Father. I shall try to do well."
    "Why, thank Heav'n for that!" Andrew declared, and even contrived a thin smile. " 'Thus far hath the Lord helped us!' Leave me now for the nonce, ere I collapse from very weariness."
    Andrew settled back in bed, turned his face to the wall, and said no more.
     

5
Ebenezer Commences His Second Sojourn
    in London, and Fares Unspectacularly
     
    Because of the great unrest in the nation at this time, occasioned by the conflict between James II and William of Orange, Ebenezer, at his father's advice, did not return to London until the winter of 1688, by which time William and Mary were securely established on the throne of England. The idle year at St. Giles was, although he had no way of realizing it at the time, perhaps Ebenezer's nearest approach to happiness. He had nothing at all to do except read, walk about the countryside or London-without-the-walls, and talk at length with his sister. Although he could not look to his future with enthusiasm, at least he had not to bear the responsibility of having chosen it himself. In the spring and summer, when the weather turned fine, he grew too restless even to read. He felt full to bursting with ill-defined potentialities. Often he would sit a whole morning in the shade of a pear tree behind the house playing airs on the tenor recorder, whose secret he had learned from Burlingame. He cared for no sports; he wished not even to see anyone, except Anna. The air, drenched with sun and clover, made him volatile. On several occasions he was so full of feeling as to fear he'd swoon if he could not empty himself of it. But often as he tried to set down verses, he could not begin: his fancy would not settle on stances and conceits. He spent the warm months in a kind of nervous exaltation which, while more upsetting than pleasurable at the moment, left a sweet taste in his mouth at day's end. In the evenings, often as not, would watch meteors slide down the sky till he grew dizzy.
    And though again he could not know it at the time, this idle season afforded him what was to be his last real communion with his sister for many a year. Even so, it was for the most part inarticulate; somewhere they'd lost the knack of talking closely to each other. Of the things doubtless most important to each they spoke not at all -- Ebenezer's failure at Cambridge and his impending journey; Anna's uncertain past connection with Burlingame and her present isolation from and lack of interest in suitors of any sort. But they walked together a great deal, and one hot forenoon in August, as they sat under a sycamore near a rocky little steam-branch that ran through the property, Anna clutched his right arm, pressed her forehead to it, and wept for several minutes. Ebenezer comforted her as best he could without inquiring the reason for her tears: he assumed it was some feeling about their maturity that grieved her. At this time, in their twenty-second year of life, Anna looked somewhat older than her brother.
    Andrew, once his son's affairs seemed secure, grew gradually stronger, and by autumn was apparently in excellent health again, though for the rest of his life he looked older than his years. In early November he declared the political situation stable enough to warrant the boy's departure; a week later Ebenezer bade the household goodbye and set out for London.
    The first thing he did, after finding lodging for himself in a Pudding Lane boardinghouse, was visit Burlingame's address, to see how his old friend fared. But to his surprise he found the premises occupied by new tenants -- a draper and his family -- and none of the neighbors knew anything of Henry's whereabouts. That evening, therefore, when he'd seen to the arrangement of his belongings, he went to