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When I first met him for more than just a brief moment, he was eighteen years old and had an abundance of ideas in his head. His bold proposal to lead my expedition (because that's what I called it at the time: "my expedition") amazed me; he so quickly and willingly offered to go out into the wild, completely unknown world. I attributed this desire for adventure solely to his youth, the main trait I saw in him at the time, but, as it turned out later, he had many more motives.
Although I dismissed him politely but firmly, something made me remember him, probably for the trivial reason that he was a gentleman from Virginia. Virginia gentry was a peculiar group in its own way, distinct from other people of the United States; there were many of them and they were everywhere, wherever one went, but at the same time, meeting another member of this group brought exceptional satisfaction and a sense of unity. To be a gentleman of Virginia, one had to be born with British phlegm, American patriotism, and French desire for expansion. Lewis had it all, but in some inexplicable way, he did not fit in with the tranquility of Virginia. He caused trouble in the army and did not want to return to his family home, of which he was now the head.
To be honest, I don't remember much about that first, rather fleeting encounter. I was polite to him, he was quiet, but not ingratiating; however, his somewhat wilder nature was revealed in some of his words and gestures. When I offered him a seat, he accepted, and I noticed that he was nervously tapping his foot under the table in a quick, uncontrolled manner that revealed it to be one of his habits.
He accepted my refusal gracefully, perhaps even a little too quickly, as if that was what he had expected all along. When I got to know him better later, I realized that sometimes he gave up too easily, while other times he was overly stubborn and wouldn't stop until he achieved his goal. This inconsistency could have made him a dangerous leader of the expedition, but his many other strengths compensated for this weakness. However, I didn't think about that at the time; the expedition was still an elusive dream. Later, I rarely thought about that dearly cherished idea or the figure of Meriwether Lewis.
***
In February 1801, I suddenly found myself in a situation where I needed a secretary, and strangely enough, I almost immediately came to the conclusion that Meriwether Lewis would be the ideal choice, as if the thought of him had been lurking in the back of my mind, just waiting to be revealed at the right moment. I also remembered the ambitious plans I had relished and the immediate readiness of this boy.
But Lewis was no longer a boy; I had first spoken to him almost ten years ago, and he had changed significantly during that time. When he stood in the doorway of the presidential residence, I saw before me a tall, determined man with a furrow between his eyebrows. He extended his hand and introduced himself as if I didn't already know him (though perhaps I didn't, not at that time).
I took his hand and shook it; the handshake was firm and decisive, and I felt that I already liked him.
I showed him around the house, first showing him his bedroom, then his study. He smiled and confessed that he was extremely pleased with the offer.
"I'm afraid this job may not bring you many exciting events, nor will it be overly lucrative," I emphasized with some embarrassment as we stopped in front of the window. He looked out at the street thoughtfully, and I realized I knew exactly where his mind was; he knew a different world and different views from the window.
"I know," he replied simply. "You are not deceiving me in any way by offering me this job, sir, as everything you are telling me now was already included in the letter. I was aware of what awaited me."
"However, I promise you one thing, and I intend to fulfill it with all certainty: you will be moving in respectable circles and you are going to meet people who can be useful to you."
Part promise, part final test; he responded with a contented smile, but without the greedy gleam in his eye that I had seen many times before and had learned to recognize. Deep down, I breathed a sigh of relief. So Lewis was not one of those voraciously power-hungry people. "Good," I thought. "Welcome to your new life."
***
The next day, he went out to the garden early in the morning. When I woke up, I saw him walking with his hands behind his back. Despite the chill of the April morning, he looked so blissful that I decided to join him before breakfast.
I approached him quietly, or rather in a way that I hoped would be quiet, but he heard me. He turned to me with an apologetic expression.
"I apologize if I have violated any rules, sir" he said by way of greeting.
"Good morning! You have not violated any rules," I replied. "How was your sleep?"
"Excellent, although, of course, my opinion may be biased by all the nights I've spent in inns."
I knew he wasn't serious; he had slept in far worse places than inns in his life.
"I'm glad to hear it, Mr. Lewis. And how do you like my garden?"
"No doubt the plants will soon feel bolder, and then it will be lovely, but it's not bad already."
"However, you must admit that the beauty of this place is incomparable to the garden at Monticello! Ah, how nice it would be to be there in the spring, without any worries!"
"Do you miss it?" he blurted out.
"That goes without saying! And you, don't you miss Locust Hill?"
He fell silent. He thought for a long moment.
"It's a good place," he said at last. "But..."
"But...?" I asked gently.
"But I don't know if it's home," he confessed with a blush. "I haven't found a place I could call that yet."
"Sometimes home isn't a place. Sometimes it's people - or one person - whom you love."
"Yes, I suppose you are right, sir" he said slowly. "But I don't think I've found that person yet."
He blushed even more and fell silent. I didn't press him; we said nothing more for the rest of our short walk.
It was the first of our many conversations about love.
***
It was early May when I got to know a side of his nature that had been hidden from me until then.
For the first time, I hosted a party with more than a dozen guests in his presence, and the house was bustling with preparations. The Madisons were coming to stay with us for a few weeks. When I told him about it, he allowed himself to tease me for the first time, saying with a laugh that his company must be exceptionally boring and dull if I was talking about this visit with such anticipation. I replied solemnly that this was not the case at all. He explained that he was only joking, but I said that I did not want him to think or say such things, even in jest.
His company was truly charming. Although he did not have a complete education, he was one of those wonderful people who easily absorb any knowledge. He was perceptive and courageous, at least when it came to external threats.
As it turned out, he was rather defenseless when faced with threats from within.
At the appointed hour, the guests began to sit down at the table. I conversed cheerfully with Jemmy and Dolley, as if I hadn't seen them in ages, and I admit with embarrassment that at first I didn't notice the absence of one of the guests, though I should have; after all, he had been sitting at my table every day for several weeks.
It was Dolley who pointed out the absence to me.
"Where is your secretary, Thomas? I would like to meet him."
I looked around, instinctively searching for the familiar figure sitting in his usual place, the chair that in my mind had already been christened "Meriwether Lewis's chair." He was not there, nor anywhere else in the room.
"I'll go look for him," I replied, suppressing my bad feelings, given that Lewis was not known for being unpunctual. "Perhaps he lost track of time."
I doubted my own words and, walking down the hallway to the East Room, wondered if he would really be there. When I had breakfast with him the day before, he seemed to be looking forward to the party. But then I realized that I hadn't seen him once in the many hours that followed. Lord, could it be that yesterday morning was really the last time he went out for a meal? How did this happen? Was I so absorbed in the preparations that I completely forgot about him?
I scolded myself for the sting of fear in my heart. He probably just has minor problems with his clothes or is trying to manage his perpetually unruly hair. Maybe he forgot about the party (although he's not forgetful. No one is that forgetful). Or maybe, maybe...
I knocked; no one answered, so after a long moment I entered without invitation.
The sight that met my eyes froze the blood in my veins; my secretary was lying curled up on the bed, half-dressed (shirt, pants, unbuttoned vest, and cravat clenched in his fist, crumpled as if he had tried to tie it but given up).
I rushed over to check his pulse, to help him, but I discovered that his eyes were open. They stared blankly at the space above my shoulder.
"Meriwether!" I cried anxiously, not even noticing that his name had slipped out. "What happened to you? Are you feeling unwell?"
Finally, he looked at me, although it seemed to be difficult for him.
"No..." he replied. "I am feeling fine."
Hearing this news, which seemed ridiculously unbelievable, I felt helpless. Not knowing what to do, I sat down on the edge of his bed, like a mother sitting down to sing a lullaby to her child falling asleep.
"Dinner has already started," I informed him, although with dark circles under his eyes, pale, almost gray skin, and hair even more disheveled than usual, he did not look like someone ready to attend an elegant party. "But if you want, I'll excuse your absence to the guests."
"No!" he shouted surprisingly wildly. "I'll be there in a moment. Just... just..."
He tried to get up, but failed; he fell weakly back onto the bed.
I gently took the unfortunate cravat from his hand and adjusted the pillows under him.
"I'll have the servants bring you some food. When you feel better, we'll talk. Now lie down and don't try to get up, for God's sake!"
"No, really..." he tried to insist, but I had already left the room.
"I'm afraid Mr. Lewis isn't feeling well enough to join us," I explained to the guests. They expressed their regret and hoped for his quick recovery, and that was the end of it, but my thoughts were still with him. I told Lewis we would talk later, and I intended to keep my word. I wanted to find out what I had witnessed, what had caused him to skip meals for two days. I realized that I was unaware of something very important about him, but I intended to change that. Lewis would rest, eat something, and then we would calmly explain everything to each other—that's what I naively thought at the time. I should have seen that it wouldn't be that easy.
We had been feasting for half an hour when he appeared in the doorway, still pale, disheveled, and with fatigue in his eyes, but fairly steady on his feet.
"Mr. Lewis!" I said, unable to contain my indignation. "You shouldn't have gotten up!"
He silenced me with a glance and went to his place at the round table. As he passed by, I noticed drops of sweat like jewels on his skin.
I gritted my teeth and promised myself that I would have this conversation with him as soon as possible.
***
"Do not worry," he said firmly, clasping his hands on his lap. His leg was tapping quickly on the floor like it had done back then, when he was still a boy sitting in front of me.
"How can I not be worried?!" I asked in despair. "Please tell me what it was."
I softened my tone, realizing that he had involuntarily become frightened. Well, he had a right to be insecure; after all, we had known each other for only a short time. But I had no intention of making him feel unwelcome here.
"Tell me, Meriwether," I repeated softly, this time deliberately using his name. "It's important to me."
And he told me. He told me that he sometimes had fits of melancholy that he couldn't control. That he sometimes thought about death. That he feared it, but also waited for it. And I listened and trembled.
"But I promise," he concluded, folding his hands as if in prayer. "I promise it won't interfere with my duties."
Now, after many years, I know what I should have said then: “I am with you. Don’t hesitate to ask me for help.” But I didn’t say that; I just looked at him uncertainly and replied, “Good…”
He smiled, and that smile expressed all his relief.
***
At the end of May, Jemmy and Dolley left. Now it was just me, Lewis, and the servants in the big, empty house. We spent the next few months quite peacefully.
In the summer, we walked more often in the garden; the plants seemed to make him want to confide and talk. That's how our next conversation about love began: between one flower bed and another, on a hot, lazy day.
"If it's not too bold a question," he asked uncertainly. "What kind of woman was your wife?"
"Wonderful," I replied without hesitation; the period when talking about my Martha was painful for me was over, and now I enjoyed reminiscing her. "She was wise, kind, and understood me. I think that's the most important thing in love, Meriwether. Mutual understanding."
"Sometimes I think I'll never fall in love," he confessed, not looking me in the eye. "It seems too deep, too delicate, too important. And I cannot look deeply, care for delicate things, or maintain what is important."
I think it was then that I fully understood that he had never had a conversation of this kind with his father. How could he have?
"It's not a matter of effort, my friend. Love is a gift, not a burden. Yes, it sometimes brings pain, but it is not suffering per se. It will be the answer to your needs, mental and physical."
He blushed slightly, but I continued, determined to fill this important gap in his life.
"Love is the duality of soul and body. When you find a woman who satisfies both, you will know that it is not a bond of the soul—friendship—nor a bond of the body—desire. It will be true love. And that feeling will find you, my friend, do not fear."
He sighed but nodded. I hoped he really believed me.
***
Hunger.
I saw it in Dickerson's eyes as he looked at Lewis, leaning toward him across the table and listening intently to his every word. My secretary, already quite slewed, laughed loudly and seemed pleased with the attention he was receiving. He was behaving more like a schoolboy than a mature, responsible man.
I tried to hear what they were saying, but they were sitting too far away and the noise of conversation around me drowned out their fiery exchange.
"Mr. Lewis and Mr. Dickerson seem to be quite enjoying each other's company," Dearborn remarked with an indulgent smile.
“No doubt,” I muttered, glancing over again. Now they were almost dangerously close to each other, and something in their posture, in their eyes, warned me that some misfortune was about to happen.
But nothing happened; Meriwether said something to his companion, one or maybe two words, judging by the movement of his lips, and moved away casually, with an almost triumphant smile, sipping from his glass. Dickerson lowered his gaze, his face red, but soon looked Lewis in the eye again and replied, also briefly.
“Gentlemen, excuse me, but Mr. Dickerson needs to go home now," Meriwether said, standing up. He turned to Dickerson, who was still slightly flushed. "I'll walk you home, sir, if you don't mind."
“Oh... Yes, of course," he stammered. "I think it's a wonderful idea. You'll do me a great pleasure, sir."
I suddenly wanted to stop them, fearing, for some unknown reason, the consequences of my secretary's courtesy, but they were already leaving. I could do nothing, lest I make a fool of myself.
I just watched them helplessly.
***
I invited him to live with me in Monticello, but he refused, for the admirable reason that it would be easier for him to visit his family. So I did not insist for long.
He promised to visit me often, and he kept his promise. He came on horseback almost every day, often had dinner with me, then stayed a while and returned home.
Then, with the arrival of autumn of 1802, I gave him the news: ten years after he had offered and been rejected, he would become the captain of an expedition to the unexplored territories of America.
From that point on, our conversations revolved almost exclusively around this one topic: the expedition, the expedition, and again the expedition. I didn't mind, although I did miss those delicate, mundane, but in their own way important matters such as flowers in the garden, art, literature, or love.
We only strayed into the latter topic once; I was teaching him the names of the constellations and involuntarily asked:
"They look beautiful, don't they?"
He nodded. His eyes sparkled like those stars.
"Martha and I used to watch the night sky a lot. We would come up with new names for the constellations that we thought were better. She was good at it."
"It must be wonderful to sit like this with someone you love," he muttered with a touch of envy. I knew that tone well; Meriwether was growing more desperate to love and be loved.
I didn't tell him again, there under that ink-dark sky, that I knew he would find his love; maybe I made a mistake then.
***
Once, when I opened a letter from him, I noticed part of the message written in our cipher. It wasn't the cipher itself that surprised me, but the nature of the encoded information.
"little bout of melancholy lately. nothing to worry about."
I knew it wasn't as trivial as he was trying to make it seem; if it had really been a "little bout," he wouldn't have written a word about it to me—I knew this because once I had received a letter from Mr. Clarke reporting that Lewis's condition had worsened, while Meriwether himself had not deigned to mention it. Hence, I knew that the current situation was serious.
I immediately ran to write a reply, realizing with despair that it would not reach him in time. Sitting by the window that sleepless night, I feared the worst and cursed the slowness of the mail.
In the end, however, the worst did not happen; after a terrible delay, I received a letter from Clarke in which he described the situation, much more extensively than Lewis, it must be said.
"Capt. Lewis has recentlly suffered an Attack of hypochondria, which I thought I should report to you," Clarke wrote. "For three days, the situation was reelly bad & we thought that his despair might find an Outlet in highly unresonable Behaviour. We even considered using the same measures on him that Odysseus' crew used on theire captain to protect him from the sirens. From this level of our Desperation, you must be able to deduce the danger the captain was in. But fear not! I took care of him & can now say with certainty that he is no longer in danger. The storm in his Mind has subsided and he is feling better. And should it be of importance to you, Capt. Lewis has not lost the obedience & respect of our men."
After reading these words, I understood that, although I am helpless, Meriwether now has another protector, one better than me.
***
"Oh, how good, how wonderful it is to see you back!" I exclaimed, taking him in my arms. Finally, after more than two years, I could do it.
The journey had changed him in a strange way; he seemed both gentler and stronger. More gentle—because new sorrows and worries had carved new wrinkles on his face and woven gray strands into his brown hair. His eyes were also more tender; they had taken on a softness that told its own silent story of many tears shed in secret. Stronger—because he now stood as straight as a tall tree in the forest, like a proud oak, his chin lifted. When he sat down, I discovered that he had gotten rid of his habit of tapping his foot. There was also a new authority in his voice.
As we exchanged everything we had lost over the past two years (Meriwether, for now, in a greatly abbreviated form), Clarke entered the room with an apologetic look on his face and asked if he could talk to "Meri" - that's what he called him - for a moment
I agreed, of course; after a while, I heard their agitated voices around the corner of the hallway.
"You're leaving?! Now? Why? What about the party? They need us both!"
"I'm sorry, Meri, I really can't..."
"Lewis and Clark, that's what they call us. Always together! If you don't have any consideration for me, think about what people will say!"
"You never cared about people's opinions."
"And you've always cared too much about it. Please, Billy..." Meriwether's tone became almost pleading.
"I'm sorry, dear. I'll be back when I have time."
Meriwether didn't press the issue any further. After a moment, he came up to me alone. His eyes were not wet, but full of quiet fury.
"I'm afraid Mr. Clark won't be joining us for dinner tonight," he said, seemingly calm, and I nodded, pretending I didn't know that already. "But we'll manage without him, won't we?"
I fought the urge to tell him he sounded like a pouting lover.
***
He didn't look particularly thrilled when I told him I was rewarding him with the governorship of Louisiana. He smiled—weakly—and thanked me politely.
"Are you sure... you're happy?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied, a little too quickly. "It's a great honor, Mr. Jefferson."
His words sounded artificial and stiff, but I ignored it; later I would understand that it was convenient for me that Lewis accepted the position, not for him.
***
"Lewis, I have to tell you that I am disappointed in you," I said, sitting down on the only free chair in the room. His pale eyes followed me uneasily, like those of a wild animal cornered by hunters with no escape; in fact, he looked like a half-wild creature, too pale, too disheveled, too thin. "Apparently, you haven't submitted your quarterly estimates, and the Treasury Department is accusing you of recklessness in handling government funds. In addition, we've been waiting so long for your progress on the journals. But it's not the time it takes you to do the work that worries me the most, it's that you're lying to people about your progress. Why?"
He didn't answer. He just curled up more on his bed and clutched the almost empty bottle to his chest in a protective gesture. I felt a sudden surge of anger.
"You blasted fool!" I exclaimed, forcefully taking the wretched bottle from him. "Stop drinking so much! You have to stop!"
"I can't," he replied in a hoarse voice. "I can't. It helps. Please, please!"
With his last words, he was almost begging. His eyes, too big for his emaciated face, looked at me with despair, but I did not give in.
"I'm confiscating your whiskey and laudanum," I declared, collecting the bottles from around the room (Dear Lord, there were so many of them!...), although I understood that my actions were futile. Deep down, I knew that Meriwether Lewis would find new ways to obtain both commodities and then drink them secretly like a thief in the night. "And for God's sake, Lewis, try to get yourself together somehow."
I left. How could I have known that those would be my last words to him?
***
Early in the morning of October 11, 1809, while I was between sleep and consciousness, I saw him in a dream.
He reached out to me and smiled—not the incomplete smile of a broken man, but a sincere, warm one. He was no longer "Lewis" or even "Meriwether," but simply "Meri." He was free.
"Mr. Jefferson," he said in a voice like spring. "You were right. I found my love. But not everyone is destined for happiness."
When I received the news, my lips asked, "Why?" but my heart knew.