Mason & Dixon

by Thomas Pynchon

“Recollect, cher Maître, as I do with senses even today a-tremble, your Canard au Pamplemousse Flambé. It is unique in Civilization. Not to mention the sublime Canard avec Aubergines en Casserole . . . mmhhnnhh! I embrace them! The immortal Fantaisie des Canettes . . . ,”— and much more, including Dishes I’d all but forgotten. I should have stood unmov’d, but I’d gone a-blush. “Oh, those old Canards,” I murmur’d. “You see, when one looks in the files of the Ministries, and of other Detectives, for that matter, invariably, under the Heading, ‘Duck,’ the two Humans whose Names most often appear, are Vaucanson, and yourself. Again and again. Can there be a Connection?— the Automaton apparently believes so, having somehow, quite recently, become aware of you. Since then, its Resentment on behalf of all Ducks,— and not only those you personally may have cook’d,— has grown alarmingly. Without doubt, it is forming a Plan, whose details you may not wish to know.” “But this is dangerous! What if its Brain be affected by now? And if it be blaming me for Wrongs I never knew I was committing?”