Why would a person do such a thing?
Alma could answer that question from a moral standpoint (Because Prudence is kind and selfless), but she could not answer it from a biological one (Why do kindness and selflessness exist?). Alma entirely understood why her uncle tore at his beard whenever she mentioned the name Prudence. She recognized that—in the vast scope of human and natural history—this tragic triangle between Prudence, George, and herself was so tiny and so insignificant that it was almost farcical to raise the subject at all (and within a scientific discussion, no less). But still—the question would not go away.
Why would a person do such a thing?
Every time Alma thought about Prudence, she was forced to ask herself this question again, and then watch helplessly as her theory of competitive alteration fell apart before her eyes. For Prudence Whittaker Dixon, after all, was scarcely a unique example. Why did anyone ever act beyond the scope of base self-interest? Alma could make a fairly persuasive argument as to why mothers, for instance, made sacrifices on behalf of their children (because it was advantageous to continue the family line), but she could not explain why a soldier would run straight into a line of bayonets to protect an injured comrade. How did that action bolster or benefit the brave soldier or his family? It simply did not: through self-sacrifice, the now-dead soldier had negated not only his own future, but the continuation of his bloodline, as well.
Nor could Alma explain why a starving prisoner would give food to a cellmate.
Nor could she explain why a lady would leap into a canal to save another woman’s baby, only to drown in the process—which tragic event had just occurred, not long ago, right down the street from the Hortus.
Alma did not know whether, if so confronted, she herself would ever behave in such a noble manner, but others inarguably did so—and fairly routinely, all things considered. Alma had no doubt in her mind that her sister and the Reverend Welles (as another example of extraordinary goodness) would unhesitatingly deny themselves food that another might live, and would just as unhesitatingly risk injury or death to save a stranger’s baby, or even a stranger’s house cat.
Furthermore, there was nothing analogous to such extreme examples of human self-sacrifice in the rest of the natural world—not so far as she could see. Yes, within a hive of bees, or a pack of wolves, or a flock of birds, or even a colony of mosses, individuals sometimes died for the greater good of the group. But one never saw a wolf saving the life of a bee. One never saw an individual strand of moss choose to die, by giving over its precious water supply to an ant, out of simple beneficence!
These were the sorts of arguments that exasperated her uncle, as Alma and Dees sat up together late into the night, year after year, debating the question. Now it was the early spring of 1858, and they were debating it still.
“Don’t be such a tiresome sophist!” Dees said. “Publish the paper as it is.”
“I cannot help but be, Uncle,” Alma replied, smiling. “Remember—I have my mother’s mind.”
“You tax my patience, niece,” he said. “Publish the paper, let the world debate the subject, and let us rest from this wearisome, long-nosed fault-finding.”
But she would not be swayed. “If I can see this hole in my argument, Uncle, then others will surely see it, and my work will not be taken seriously. If the theory of competitive alteration is indeed correct, then it needs to be correct for the entirety of the natural world—humanity included.”
“Make an exception for humans,” her uncle suggested with a shrug. “Aristotle did.”
“I am not talking about the Great Chain of Being, Uncle. I’m not interested in ethical or philosophical arguments; I’m interested in a universal biological theory. The laws of nature cannot admit exceptions, or they cannot stand as laws. Prudence is not exempt from gravity; therefore, she cannot be exempt from the theory of competitive alteration, if that theory is, in fact, true. If she is exempt from it, on the other hand, then the theory cannot be true.”
“Gravity?” He rolled his eyes. “My goodness, child, listen to you. You wish to be Newton now!”
“I wish to be correct,” Alma corrected.
In her lighter moments, Alma found the Prudence Problem almost comical. During the entirety of their youth Prudence had been a problem to Alma, and now—even as Alma had learned to love, appreciate, and respect her sister enormously—Prudence was a problem still.
“Sometimes I feel that I would like never to hear the name Prudence spoken in this household again,” Uncle Dees said. “I’ve had it up and down with Prudence.”
“Then explain her to me,” Alma insisted. “Why does she adopt the orphans of Negro slaves? Why does she give her every last penny to the poor? How does this advantage her? How does this advantage her own offspring? Explain it to me!”
“It advantages her, Alma, because she is a Christian martyr, and she relishes a bit of crucifixion from time to time. I know the type, my dear. There are people, as you surely must realize by now, who take every bit as much pleasure in ministration and self-sacrifice as others do in pillage and murder. Such tiresome exemplars are rare, but they decidedly exist.”
“But there we touch upon the heart of our problem again!” Alma retorted. “If my theory is correct, such people should not exist at all. Remember, Uncle, my thesis is not called ‘A Theory of the Pleasures of Self-Sacrifice.’”
“Publish it, Alma,” he said wearily. “It is a fine piece of thinking, all in one piece. Publish it as it is, and let the world argue this point.”
“I cannot publish it,” she insisted, “until the point is inarguable.”
Thus the conversation rotated and circled and ended as always, stuck in the same frustrating corner. Uncle Dees looked down at Roger the dog, curled up in his lap, and said, “You would rescue me if I were drowning in a canal, wouldn’t you, my friend?”
Roger thumped his interesting version of a tail in reply.
Alma had to admit: Roger likely would rescue Uncle Dees if he were drowning in a canal, or trapped in a fire, or starving in a prison, or pinned beneath a collapsed building—and Dees would certainly do the same for him. The love between Uncle Dees and Roger was every bit as enduring as it had been immediate. They were never to be seen apart, man and dog, not since the moment of their introduction. Very quickly after their arrival in Amsterdam four years earlier, Roger had given Alma to understand that he was no longer her dog—that, in fact, he had never been her dog, nor had he ever been Ambrose’s dog, but that he had been Dees’s dog all along, by force of pure and plain destiny. The fact that Roger was born in distant Tahiti, whereas Dees van Devender resided in Holland, had been the result, Roger appeared to believe, of an unfortunate clerical error, now thankfully rectified.
As for Alma’s role in Roger’s life, she had merely been a courier, responsible for transporting the anxious little orange fellow halfway around the world, in order to unite dog and man in the eternal and devoted love that was their rightful due.
Eternal and devoted love.
Why?
Roger was another one Alma couldn’t figure out.
Roger and Prudence, both.
The summer of 1858 arrived, and with it a sudden season of death. The sorrows began on the last day of June, when Alma received a letter from her sister, delivering an awful compendium of sad news.
“I have three deaths to report,” Prudence warned in the first line. “Perhaps, sister, you had best sit down before you read on.”
Alma did not sit down. She stood in the doorway of the van Devender residence on Plantage Parklaan, reading this lamentable communication from distant Philadelphia, while her hands shook in distress.