Foe

and some broken sticks of furniture.

‘Yet the story that there is a cannibal in Clock Lane has plainly got about, for yesterday I found three boys at the cellar door peering in on Friday. I chased them off, after which they took up their stand at the end of the lane, chanting the words: “Cannibal Friday, have you ate your mam today?”

‘Friday grows old before his time, like a dog locked up all its life. I too, from living with an old man and sleeping in his bed, have grown old. There are times when I think of myself as a widow. If there was a wife left behind in Brazil, she and I would be sisters now. of a kind.

‘I have the use of the scullery two mornings of the week, and am turning Friday into a laundryman; for otherwise idleness will destroy him. I set him before the sink dressed in his sailor clothes, his feet bare as ever on the cold floor (he will not wear shoes). “Watch me, Friday!, I say, and begin to soap a petticoat (soap must be introduced to him, there was no soap in his life before, on the island we used ash or sand). and tub it on the washing-board. “Now do, Friday!, I say, and stand aside. Watch and Do: those are my two principal words for Friday, and with them I accomplish much. It is a terrible fall, I know, from the freedom of the island where he could roam all day, and hunt birds• eggs, and spear fish, when the terraces did not call. But surely it is better to learn useful tasks than to lie alone in a cellar all day. thinking I know not what thoughts?

‘Cruso would not teach him because, he said, Friday had no need of words. But Cruso erred. Life on the island, before my coming, would have been less tedious had he taught Friday to understand his meanings, and devised ways by which Friday could express his own meanings, as for example by gesturing with his hands or by setting out pebbles in shapes standing for words. Then Cruso might have spoken to Friday after his manner, and Friday responded after his, and many an empty hour been whiled away. For I cannot believe that the life Friday led before he fell into Cruso’s hands was bereft of interest, though he was but a child. I would give mu.ch to hear the truth of how he was captured by the slave-traders and lost his tongue.

‘He is become a great lover of oatmeal, gobbling down as much porridge in a day as would feed a dozen Scotsmen. From eating too much and lying abed he is growing stupid. Seeing him with his belly tight as a drum and his thin shanks and his listless air, you would not believe he was the same man who ·brief months ago stood poised on the rocks, the seaspray dancing about him, the sunlight glancing on his limbs, his spear raised, ready in an instant to strike a fish.

‘While he works I teach him the names of things. I hold up a spoon and say “Spoon, Friday!” and give the spoon into his hand. Then I say “Spoon!” and hold out my hand to receive the spoon; hoping thus that in time the word Spoon will echo in his mind willy-nilly whenever his eye falls on a spoon.

‘What I fear most is that after years of speechlessness the very notion of speech may be lost to him. When I take the spoon from his hand (but is it truly a spoon to him, or a mere thing?-I do not know), and say Spoon, how can I be sure he does not think I am chattering to myself as a magpie or an ape does, for the pleasure of hearing the noise I make, and feeling the play of my tongue, as he himself used to find pleasure in playing his flute? And whereas one may take a dull child and twist his arm or pinch his ear till at last he repeats after us, Spoon, what can I do with Friday? “Spoon, Friday!” I say; “Fork! Knife!” I think of the root of his tongue closed behind those heavy lips like a toad in eternal winter, and I shiver. “Broom, Friday!” I say, and make motions of sweeping, and press the broom into his hand.

‘Or I bring a book to the scullery. “This is a book, Friday,” I say. “In it is a story written by the renowned Mr Foe. You do not know the gentleman, but at this very moment he is engaged in writing another story, which is your story, and your master’s, and mine. Mr Foe has not met you, but he knows of you, from what I have told him, using words. That is part of the magic of words. Through the medium of words I have given Mr Foe the particulars of you and Mr Cruso and of my year on the island and the years you and Mr Cruso spent there alone, as far as I can supply them; and all these particulars Mr Foe is weaving into a story which will make us famous throughout the land, and rich. too. There will be no more need for you to live in a cellar. You will have money with which to buy your way to Africa or Brazil, as the desire moves you, bearing fine gifts, and be reunited with your parents, if they remember you, and marry at last and have children, sons and daughters. And I will give you your own copy of our book, bound in leather, to take with you. I will show you how to trace your name in it, page after page, so that your children may see that their father is known in all parts of the world where books are read. Is writing not a fine thing, Friday? Are you not filled with joy to know that you will live forever, after a manner?”

‘Having introduced you thus, I open your book and read from it to Friday. “This is the story of Mrs Veal, another humble person whom Mr Foe has made famous in the course of his writing,” I say. “Alas, we shall never meet Mrs Veal, for she has passed away; and as to her friend Mrs Barfield, she lives in Canterbury, a city some distance to the south of us on this island where we find ourselves, named Britain; I doubt we shall ever go there.”

‘Through all my chatter Friday labours away at the washing-board. I expect no sign that he has understood. It is enough to hope that if I make the air around him thick with words, memories will be reborn in him which died under Cruso’s rule, and with them the recognition that to live in silence is to live like the whales, great castles of flesh floating leagues apart one from another, or like the spiders, sitting each alone at the heart of his web, which to him is the entire world. Friday may have lost his tongue but he has not lost his ears — that is what I say to myself. Through his ears Friday may yet take in the wealth stored in stories and so learn that the world is.not, as the island seemed to teach him, a barren and a silent place (is that the secret meaning of the word story, do you think: a storing-place of memories?).

‘I watch his toes curl on the floorboards or the cobblestones and know that he craves the softness of earth under his feet. How I wish there were a garden I could take him to! Could he and I not visit your garden in Stoke Newington? We should be as quiet as ghosts. “Spade, Friday!” I should whisper, offering the spade to his hand; and then: “Dig!” — which is a word his master taught him — “Turn over the soil, pile up the weeds for burning. Feel the spade. Is it not a fine, sharp tool? It is an English spade, made in an English smithy.”

‘So, watching his hand grip the spade, watching his eyes, I seek the first sign that he comprehends what I am attempting: not to have the beds cleared (I am sure you have your own gardener), not even to save him from idleness, or for the sake of his health to bring him out of the dankness of his cellar, but to build a bridge of words over which, when one day it is grown sturdy enough, he may cross to the time before Cruso, the time before he lost his tongue, when he lived immersed in the prattle of words as unthinking as a fish in water; from where he may by steps return, as far as he is able, to the world of words in which you, Mr Foe, and I, and other people live.

‘Or I bring out your shears and show him their use. “Here in England,” I say, “it is our custom to grow hedges to mark the limits of our property. Doubtless that would not be possible in the forests of Africa. But here we grow hedges, and then cut them straight, so that our gardens shall be neatly marked out.” I lop at the hedge till it becomes clear to Friday what I am doing: not cutting a passage through your hedge, not cutting down your hedge, but cutting one side of it straight. “Now, Friday, take the shears,” I say: “Cut!”; and Friday takes the shears and cuts in a clean line, as I know he is capable of doing, for his digging is impeccable.

‘I tell myself I talk to Friday to educate him out of darkness and silence. But is that the truth? There are times when benevolence deserts me and I use words only as the shortest way to subject him to my will. At such times I understand why Cruso preferred not to disturb his muteness. I understand, that is to say, why a man will choose to be a slaveowner. Do you think less of me for this confession?’

’April 28th

‘My letter of the 25th is returned unopened. I pray there has been some simple mistake. I enclose the same herewith.’

’May 1st

‘I have visited Stoke Newington and found the bailiffs in occupation of your house. It is a cruel thing to say, but I almost laughed to learn this was the reason for your silence, you had not lost interest and turned your back on us. Yet now I must ask myself: Where shall I send my letters? Will you continue to write our story while you are in hiding? Will you still contribute to our keep? Are Friday and I the only personages you have settled in lodgings while you write their story, or are there many more of us dispersed about London — old campaigners from the wars in Italy, cast-off mistresses, penitent highwaymen, prosperous thieves? How will you live while you are in hiding? Have you a woman to cook your meals and wash your linen? Can your neighbours be trusted? Remember: the bailiffs have their spies everywhere. Be wary of public houses. If you are harried, come to Clock Lane.’

’May 8th

‘I must disclose I have twice been to your house in the past week in the hope of hearing tidings. Do not be