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Title: A collection of short-stories

Contributor: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rudyard Kipling
Guy de Maupassant
Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Louis Stevenson
Frank R. Stockton

Editor: Lemuel Arthur Pittenger

Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #12732]

Most recently updated: May 20, 2022

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLLECTION

OF SHORT-STORIES ***
 A Collection of Short-
Stories

EDITED BY
L.A. PITTENGER, A.M.,
CRITIC IN ENGLISH, INDIANA UNIVERSITY

New York:
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,
1914

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1913. Reprinted January,

1914.

Norwood Press,
J.S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.,
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 Contents

A PREFATORY NOTE
INTRODUCTION:
History of the Short-story
Qualities of the Short-story
Composition of the Short-story
Books for Reference
Collections of Short-stories
THE FATHER. 1860. Björnstjerne Björnson.
THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANON. 1887. Frank R. Stockton.
THE PIECE OF STRING. 1884. Guy de Maupassant.
THE MAN WHO WAS. 1889. Rudyard Kipling.
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER. 1839. Edgar Allan Poe.
THE GOLD-BUG. 1843. Edgar Allan Poe.
THE BIRTHMARK. 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
ETHAN BRAND. 1848. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR. 1878. Robert Louis Stevenson.
MARKHEIM. 1884. Robert Louis Stevenson.
 A PREFATORY NOTE

This collection of short-stories does not illustrate the history of short-

story writing, nor does it pretend that these are the ten best stories ever
written, but it does attempt to present selections from a list of the greatest
short-stories that have proved, in actual use, most beneficial to high school
students.
The introduction presents a concise statement of the essentials of the
history, qualities, and composition of the short-story. A brief biography of
each author and a criticism covering the main characteristics of his writings
serve as starting points for the recitation. The references following both the
biography and criticism are given in order that the study of the short-story
may be amplified, and that high school teachers may build a systematic and
serviceable library about their class work in the teaching of the story. The
collateral readings, listed after each story, will aid in the creation of a
suitable atmosphere for the story studied, and explain many questions
developed in the recitation. Only such definitions as are not easily found in
school dictionaries are included in the notes.
 INTRODUCTION

HISTORY OF THE SHORT-STORY

Just when, where, and by whom story-telling was begun no one can say.
From the first use of speech, no doubt, our ancestors have told stories of
war, love, mysteries, and the miraculous performances of lower animals and
inanimate objects. The ultimate source of all stories lies in a thorough
democracy, unhampered by the restrictions of a higher civilization. Many
tales spring from a loathsome filth that is extremely obnoxious to our
present day tastes. The remarkable and gratifying truth is, however, that the
short-story, beginning in the crude and brutal stages of man's development,
has gradually unfolded to greater and more useful possibilities, until in our
own time it is a most flexible and moral literary form.
The first historical evidence in the development of the story shows no
conception of a short-story other than that it is not so long as other
narratives. This judgment of the short-story obtained until the beginning of
the nineteenth century, when a new version of its meaning was given, and
an enlarged vision of its possibilities was experienced by a number of
writers almost simultaneously. In the early centuries of story-telling there
was only one purpose in mind—that of narrating for the joy of the telling
and hearing. The story-tellers sacrificed unity and totality of effect as well
as originality for an entertaining method of reciting their incidents.
The story of Ruth and the Prodigal Son are excellent short tales, but they
do not fulfill the requirements of our modern short-story for the reason that
they are not constructed for one single impression, but are in reality parts of
possible longer stories. They are, as it were, parts of stories not unlike Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and A Lear of the Steppes, and lack those complete and
concise artistic effects found in the short-stories, Markheim and Mumu, by
the same authors. Both Ruth and the Prodigal Son are exceptionally well
told, possess a splendid moral tone, and are excellent prophecies of what
the nineteenth century has developed for us in the art of short-story writing.
The Greeks did very little writing in prose until the era of their
decadence, and showed little instinct to use the concise and unified form of
the short-story. The conquering Romans followed closely in the paths of
their predecessors and did little work in the shorter narratives. The myths of
Greece and Rome were not bound by facts, and opened a wonderland where
writers were free to roam. The epics were slow in movement, and presented
a list of loosely organized stories arranged about some character like
Ulysses or AEneas.
During the mediaeval period story-tellers and stories appeared
everywhere. The more ignorant of these story-tellers produced the fable,
and the educated monks produced the simple, crude and disjointed tales.
The Gesta Romanorum is a wonderful storehouse of these mediaeval
stories. In the Decameron Boccaccio deals with traditional and
contemporary materials. He is a born story-teller and presents many
interesting and well-told narratives, but as Professor Baldwin[1] has said,
more than half are merely anecdotes, and the remaining stories are bare
plots, ingeniously done in a kind of scenario form. Three approach our
modern idea of the short-story, and two, the second story of the second day
and the sixth story of the ninth day, actually attain to our standard.
Boccaccio was not conscious of a standard in short-story telling, for he had
none in the sense that Poe and Maupassant defined and practiced it.
Chaucer in England told his stories in verse and added the charm of humor
and well defined characters to the development of story-telling.
In the seventeenth century Cervantes gave the world its first great novel,
Don Quixote. Cervantes was careless in his work and did not write short-
stories, but tales that are fairly brief. Spain added to the story a high sense
of chivalry and a richness of character that the Greek romance and the
Italian novella did not possess. France followed this loose composition and
lack of beauty in form. Scarron and Le Sage, the two French fiction writers
of this period, contributed little or nothing to the advancement of story-
telling. Cervantes' The Liberal Lover is as near as this period came to
producing a real short-story.
The story-telling of the seventeenth century was largely shaped by the
popularity of the drama. In the eighteenth century the drama gave place to
the essay, and it is to the sketch and essay that we must go to trace the
evolution of the story during this period. Voltaire in France had a burning
message in every essay, and he paid far greater attention to the development
of the thought of his message than to the story he was telling. Addison and
Steele in the Spectator developed some real characters of the fiction type
and told some good stories, but even their best, like Theodosius and
Constantia, fall far short of developing all the dramatic possibilities, and
lack the focusing of interest found in the nineteenth century stories. Some
of Lamb's Essays of Elia, especially the Dream Children, introduce a
delicate fancy and an essayist's clearness of thought and statement into the
story. At the close of this century German romanticism began to seep into
English thought and prepare the way for things new in literary thought and
treatment.
The nineteenth century opened with a decided preference for fiction.
Washington Irving, reverting to the Spectator, produced his sketches, and,
following the trend of his time, looked forward to a new form and wrote
The Spectre Bridegroom and Rip Van Winkle. It is only by a precise
definition of short-story that Irving is robbed of the honor of being the
founder of the modern short-story. He loved to meander and to fit his
materials to his story scheme in a leisurely manner. He did not quite see
what Hawthorne instinctively followed and Poe consciously defined and
practiced, and he did not realize that terseness of statement and totality of
impression were the chief qualities he needed to make him the father of a
new literary form. Poe and Maupassant have reduced the form of the short-
story to an exact science; Hawthorne and Harte have done successfully in
the field of romanticism what the Germans, Tieck and Hoffman, did not do
so well; Bjornson and Henry James have analyzed character
psychologically in their short-stories; Kipling has used the short-story as a
vehicle for the conveyance of specific knowledge; Stevenson has gathered
most, if not all, of the literary possibilities adaptable to short-story use, and
has incorporated them in his Markheim.
France with her literary newspapers and artistic tendencies, and the
United States with magazines calling incessantly for good short-stories, and
with every section of its conglomerate life clamoring to express itself, lead
in the production and rank of short-stories. Maupassant and Stevenson and
Hawthorne and Poe are the great names in the ranks of short-story writers.
The list of present day writers is interminable, and high school students can
best acquire a reasonable appreciation of the great work these writers are
doing by reading regularly some of the better grade literary magazines.
For a comprehensive view of specimens representing the history and
development of the short-story, students should have access to Brander
Matthews' The Short Story, Jessup and Canby's The Book of the Short-
Story, and Waite and Taylor's Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction.
NOTE: [1] American Short-Stories, by Charles Sears Baldwin, New
York: Longmans, Green, & Company, 1904.
 QUALITIES OF THE SHORT-STORY
It was not until well along in the nineteenth century that any one
attempted to define the short-story. The three quotations given here are
among the best things that have been spoken on this subject.
"The right novella is never a novel cropped back from the size of a tree to
a bush, or the branch of a tree stuck into the ground and made to serve for a
bush. It is another species, destined by the agencies at work in the realm of
unconsciousness to be brought into being of its own kind, and not of
another,"—W.D. Howells, North American Review, 173:429.
"A true short-story is something other and something more than a mere
story which is short. A true short-story differs from the novel chiefly in its
essential unity of impression. In a far more exact and precise use of the
word, a short-story has unity as a novel cannot have it…. A short-story
deals with a single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series
of emotions called forth by a single situation.—Brander Matthews, The
Philosophy of the Short-Story.
"The aim of a short-story is to produce a single narrative effect with the
greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost emphasis."—
Clayton Hamilton, Materials and Methods of Fiction.
The short-story must always have a compact unity and a direct simplicity.
In such stories as Björnson's The Father and Maupassant's The Piece of
String this simplicity is equal to that of the anecdote, but in no case can an
anecdote possess the dramatic possibilities of these simple short-stories; for
a short-story must always have that tensity of emotion that comes only in
the crucial tests of life.
The short-story does not demand the consistency in treatment of the long
story, for there are not so many elements to marshal and direct properly, but
the short-story must be original and varied in its themes, cleverly
constructed, and lighted through and through with the glow of vivid
imaginings. A single incident in daily life is caught as in a snap-shot
exposure and held before the reader in such a manner that the impression of
the whole is derived largely from suggestion. The single incident may be
the turning-point in life history, as in The Man Who Was; it may be a mental
surrender of habits fixed seemingly in indelible colors in the soul and a
sudden, inflexible decision to be a man, as in the case of Markheim; or it
may be a gradual realization of the value of spiritual gifts, as Björnson has
concisely presented it in his little story The Father.
The aim of the short-story is always to present a cross-section of life in
such a vivid manner that the importance of the incident becomes universal.
Some short-stories are told with the definite end in view of telling a story
for the sake of exploiting a plot. The Cask of Amontillado is all action in
comparison with The Masque of the Red Death. The Gold-Bug sets for itself
the task of solving a puzzle and possesses action from first to last. Other
stories teach a moral. Ethan Brand deals with the unpardonable sin, and The
Great Stone Face is our classic story in the field of ideals and their
development. Hawthorne, above all writers, is most interested in ethical
laws and moral development. Still other stories aim to portray character.
Miss Jewett and Mrs. Freeman veraciously picture the faded-put
womanhood in New England; Henry James and Björnson turn the x-rays of
psychology and sociology on their characters; Stevenson follows with the
precision of the tick of a watch the steps in Markheim's mental evolution.
The types of the short-story are as varied as life itself. Addison, Lamb,
Irving, Warner, and many others have used the story in their sketches and
essays with wonderful effect. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is as impressive
as any of Scott's tales. The allegory in The Great Stone Face loses little or
nothing when compared with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. No better type
of detective story has been written than the two short-stories, The Murders
in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter. Every emotion is subject to
the call of the short-story. Humor with its expansive free air is not so well
adapted to the short-story as is pathos. There is a sadness in the stories of
Dickens, Garland, Page, Mrs. Freeman, Miss Jewett, Maupassant, Poe, and
many others that runs the whole gamut from pleasing tenderness in A
Child's Dream of a Star to unutterable horror in The Fall of the House of
Usher.
The short-story is stripped of all the incongruities that led Fielding, Scott,
and Dickens far afield. All its parts harmonize in the simplest manner to
give unity and "totality" of impression through strict unity of form. It is a
concentrated piece of life snatched from the ordinary and uneventful round
of living and steeped in fancy until it becomes the acme of literary art.
 COMPOSITION OF THE SHORT-STORY
Any student who wishes to express himself correctly and pleasingly, and
desires a keener sense for the appreciation of literary work must write. The
way others have done the thing never appears in a forceful light until one
sets himself at a task of like nature. Just so in the study of this text. To find
and appreciate the better points of the short-story, students must write
stories of their own, patterned in a small way on the technique of the
masterpieces.
The process of short-story writing follows in a general way the following
program. In the first place the class must have something interesting and
suggestive to write about. Sometimes the class can suggest a subject;
newspapers almost every day give incidents worthy of story treatment;
happenings in the community often give the very best material for stories;
and phases of the literature work may well be used in the development of
students' themes. Change the type of character and place, reconstruct the
plot, or require a different ending for the story, leaving the plot virtually as
it is, and then assign to the class. Boys and girls should invariably be taught
to see stories in the life about them, in the newspapers and magazines on
their library tables, and in the masterpieces they study in their class work.
After the idea that the class wishes to develop has been definitely
determined and the material for this development has been gathered and
grouped about the idea, the class should select a viewpoint and proceed to
write. Sometimes the author should tell the story, sometimes a third person
who may be of secondary importance in the story should be given the rôle
of the story-teller, sometimes the whole may be in dialogue. The class
should choose a fitting method.
Young writers should be very careful about the beginning of a story. An
action story should start with a striking incident that catches the reader's
attention at once and forecasts subsequent happenings. In every case this
first incident must have in it the essence of the end of the story and should
be perfectly logical to the reader after he has finished the reading. A story in
which the setting is emphasized can well begin, with a description and
contain a number of descriptions and expositions, distributed with a sense
of propriety throughout the theme. A good method to use in the opening of
a character story is that of conversation. An excellent example of a sharp
use of this device is Mrs. Freeman's Revolt of Mother, where the first
paragraph is a single spoken word.
Every incident included in the story should be tested for its value in the
development of the theme. An incident that does not amplify certain phases
of the story has no right to be included, and great care should be used in an
effort to incorporate just the material necessary for the proper evolution of
the thought. The problem is not so much what can be secured to be included
in the story, but rather, after making a thorough collection of the material,
what of all these points should be cast out.
The ending must be a natural outgrowth of the development found in the
body of the composition. Even in a story with a surprise ending, of which
we are tempted to say that we have had no preparation for such a turn in the
story, there must be hints—the subtler the better—that point unerringly and
always toward the end. The end is presupposed in the beginning and the
changing of one means the altering of the other.
Young writers have trouble in stopping at the right place. They should
learn, as soon as possible, that to drag on after the logical ending has been
reached spoils the best of stories. It is just as bad to stop before arriving at
the true end. In other words there is only one place for the ending of a story,
and in no case can it be shifted without ruining the idea that has obtained
throughout the theme.
There are certain steps in the development of story-writing that should be
followed if the best results are to be obtained. The first assignment should
require only the writing of straight narrative. The Arabian Nights Tales and
children's stories represent this type of writing and will give the teacher
valuable aid in the presentation of this work. After the students have
produced simple stories resembling the Sinbad Voyages, they should next
add descriptions of persons and places and explanations of situations to
develop clearness and interest in their original productions. Taking these
themes in turn students should be required to introduce plot incidents that
complicate the simple happenings and divert the straightforward trend of
the narrative. Now that the stories are well developed in their descriptions,
expositions, and plot interests they should be tested for their emotional
effects. Students should go through their themes, and by making the proper
changes give in some cases a humorous and in others a pathetic or tragic
effect. These few suggestions are given to emphasize the facts that no one
conceives a story in all its details in a moment of inspiration, and that there
is a way of proceeding that passes in logical gradations from the simplest to
the most complex phases of story writing.
Franklin and Stevenson knew no rules for writing other than to practice
incessantly on some form they wished to imitate. Hard work is the first
lesson that boys and girls must learn in the art of writing, and a systematic
gradation of assignments is what the teacher must provide for his students.
Walter Besant gave the following rules for novel writers. Some of them
may be suggestive to writers of the high school age, so the list is given in its
complete form. "(1) Practice writing something original every day. (2)
Cultivate the habit of observation. (3) Work regularly at certain hours. (4)
Read no rubbish. (5) Aim at the formation of style. (6) Endeavor to be
dramatic. (7) A great element of dramatic skill is selection. (8) Avoid the
sin of writing about a character. (9) Never attempt to describe any kind of
life except that with which you are familiar. (10) Learn as much as you can
about men and women. (11) For the sake of forming a good natural style,
and acquiring command of language, write poetry."
 SHORT-STORY LIBRARY

BOOKS FOR REFERENCE:

American Short-Stories, Charles Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.
A Study of Prose Fiction, Chapter XII, Bliss Perry, Houghton, Mifflin Co.
Composition Rhetoric, T.C. Blaisdell, American Book Co.
Forms of Prose Literature, J.H. Gardiner, Charles Scribner's Sons.
Materials and Methods of Fiction, Clayton Hamilton, The Baker and
Taylor Co.
Principles of Literary Criticism, C.T. Winchester, The Macmillan Co.
Short-Story Writing, C.R. Barrett. The Baker and Taylor Co.
Specimens of the Short-Story, G.H. Nettleton, H. Holt & Co.
Story-Writing and Journalism, Sherwin Cody, Funk & Wagnalls Co.
Talks on Writing English, Arlo Bates, Houghton Mifflin Co.
The Writing of the Short-Story, L.W. Smith, D.C. Heath & Co.
The Philosophy of the Short-Story, Brander Matthews, Longmans, Green,
& Co.
The World's Greatest Short-Stories, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.
The Short-Story, Henry Canby, Henry Holt & Co.
The Short-Story, Evelyn May Albright, The Macmillan Co.
The Book of the Short-Story, Jessup and Canby, D. Appleton & Co.
Modern Masterpieces of Short Prose Fiction, Waite and Taylor, D.
Appleton & Co.
The Short-Story, Brander Matthews, American Book Co.
Writing the Short-Story, Esenwein, Hinds, Noble & Eldredge.
A Study of the Short-Story in English, Henry Seidel Canby, Henry Holt &
Co.
 COLLECTIONS OF SHORT-STORIES:
American Short-Stories, Charles S. Baldwin, Longmans, Green, & Co.
Great Short-Stories, 3 vols., William Patten, P.F. Collier & Son.
Little French Masterpieces, 6 vols. Alexander Jessup, G.P. Putnam's
Sons.
Short-Story Classics (American), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F. Collier &
Son.
Short-Story Classics (Foreign), 5 vols., William Patten, P.F. Collier &
Son.
Stories by American Authors, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
Stories by English Authors, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
Stories by Foreign Authors, 10 vols., Charles Scribner's Sons.
Stories New and Old (American and English), Hamilton W. Mabie, The
Macmillan Co.
World's Greatest Short-Stories, Sherwin Cody, A.C. McClurg & Co.
The American Short-Story, Elias Lieberman.
 THE FATHER[1]

By Björnstjerne Björnson (1838-1910)

The man whose story is here to be told was the wealthiest and most
influential person in his parish; his name was Thord Överaas. He appeared
in the priest's study one day, tall and earnest.
"I have gotten a son," said he, "and I wish to present him for baptism."
"What shall his name be?"
"Finn,—after my father."
"And the sponsors?"
They were mentioned, and proved to be the best men and women of
Thord's relations in the parish.
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest, and looked up. The peasant
hesitated a little.
"I should like very much to have him baptized by himself," said he,
finally.
"That is to say on a week-day?"
"Next Saturday, at twelve o'clock noon."
"Is there anything else?" inquired the priest,
"There is nothing else;" and the peasant twirled his cap, as though he
were about to go.
Then the priest rose. "There is yet this, however." said he, and walking
toward Thord, he took him by the hand and looked gravely into his eyes:
"God grant that the child may become a blessing to you!"
One day sixteen years later, Thord stood once more in the priest's study.
"Really, you carry your age astonishingly well, Thord," said the priest;
for he saw no change whatever in the man.
 "That is because I have no troubles," replied Thord. To this the priest said
nothing, but after a while he asked: "What is your pleasure this evening?"
"I have come this evening about that son of mine who is to be confirmed
to-morrow."
"He is a bright boy."
"I did not wish to pay the priest until I heard what number the boy would
have when he takes his place in the church to-morrow."
"He will stand number one."
"So I have heard; and here are ten dollars for the priest."
"Is there anything else I can do for you?" inquired the priest, fixing his
eyes on Thord.
"There is nothing else."
Thord went out.
Eight years more rolled by, and then one day a noise was heard outside of
the priest's study, for many men were approaching, and at their head was
Thord, who entered first.
The priest looked up and recognized him.
"You come well attended this evening, Thord," said he.
"I am here to request that the banns may be published for my son: he is
about to marry Karen Storliden, daughter of Gudmund, who stands here
beside me."
"Why, that is the richest girl in the parish."
"So they say," replied the peasant, stroking back his hair with one hand.
The priest sat a while as if in deep thought, then entered the names in his
book, without making any comments, and the men wrote their signatures
underneath. Thord laid three dollars on the table.
"One is all I am to have," said the priest.
"I know that very well; but he is my only child; I want to do it
handsomely."
The priest took the money.
"This is now the third time, Thord, that you have come here on your son's
account."
 "But now I am through with him," said Thord, and folding up his pocket-
book he said farewell and walked away.
The men slowly followed him.
A fortnight later, the father and son were rowing across the lake, one
calm, still day, to Storliden to make arrangements for the wedding.
"This thwart[2] is not secure," said the son, and stood up to straighten the
seat on which he was sitting.
At the same moment the board he was standing on slipped from under
him; he threw out his arms, uttered a shriek, and fell overboard.
"Take hold of the oar!" shouted the father, springing to his feet, and
holding out the oar.
But when the son had made a couple of efforts he grew stiff.
"Wait a moment!" cried the father, and began to row toward his son.
Then the son rolled over on his back, gave his father one long look, and
sank.
Thord could scarcely believe it; he held the boat still, and stared at the
spot where his son had gone down, as though he must surely come to the
surface again. There rose some bubbles, then some more, and finally one
large one that burst; and the lake lay there as smooth and bright as a mirror
again.
For three days and three nights people saw the father rowing round and
round the spot, without taking either food or sleep; he was dragging the lake
for the body of his son. And toward morning of the third day he found it,
and carried it in his arms up over the hills to his gard[3].
It might have been about a year from that day, when the priest, late one
autumn evening, heard some one in the passage outside of the door,
carefully trying to find the latch. The priest opened the door, and in walked
a tall, thin man, with bowed form and white hair. The priest looked long at
him before he recognized him. It was Thord.
"Are you out walking so late?" said the priest, and stood still in front of
him.
"Ah, yes! it is late," said Thord, and took a seat.
The priest sat down also, as though waiting. A long, long silence
followed. At last Thord said,—
 "I have something with me that I should like to give to the poor; I want it
to be invested as a legacy in my son's name."
He rose, laid some money on the table, and sat down again. The priest
counted it.
"It is a great deal of money," said he.
"It is half the price of my gard. I sold it to-day."
The priest sat long in silence. At last he asked, but gently,—
"What do you propose to do now, Thord?"
"Something better."
They sat there for a while, Thord with downcast eyes, the priest with his
eyes fixed on Thord. Presently the priest said, slowly and softly,—
"I think your son has at last brought you a true blessing."
"Yes, I think so myself," said Thord, looking up, while two big tears
coursed slowly down his cheeks.

NOTES
[1] This story was written in 1860. Translated from the Norwegian by
Professor Rasmus B. Anderson. It is printed by permission of and special
arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Co., publishers.
[2] 3:28 thwart. A seat, across a boat, on which the oarsman, sits.
[3] 4:21 gard. A Norwegian farm.

BIOGRAPHY
Björnstjerne Björnson, Norse poet, novelist, dramatist, orator, and
political leader, was born December 8, 1832, and died in Paris, April 26,
1910. From his strenuous father, a Lutheran priest who preached with
tongue and fist, he inherited the physique of a Norse god. He possessed the
mind of a poet and the arm of a warrior. At the age of twelve he was sent to
the Molde grammar school, where he proved himself a very dull student. In
1852 he entered the university in Christiana. Here he neglected his studies
to write poetry and journalistic articles.
In politics Björnson was a tremendous force. Dr. Brandes has said; "To
speak the name of Björnson is like hoisting the colors of Norway." He was
honored as a king in his native land. He won this recognition by no party
affiliation, but by his natural gifts as a poet. His magnetic eloquence, great
message, and sterling character compelled his countrymen to follow and
honor him. He says of his success in this field: "The secret with me is that
in success as in failure, in the consciousness of my doing as in my habits, I
am myself. There are a great many who dare not, or lack the ability, to be
themselves." For his views on political issues the following references may
well be used: Independent. January 31, 1901, pp. 253-257; Current
Literature, November, 1906, p. 581; and Independent, July 13, 1905, pp.
92-94.
Björnson and Ibsen, the two foremost men of Norway, were very closely
associated throughout life. They were schoolmates, and both were
interested in writing and producing plays. Ibsen's son, Dr. Sigurd Ibsen,
married Björnson's daughter, Bergilot. These two great writers were direct
contrasts in nearly everything: Björnson lived among his people, Ibsen was
reserved; Björnson played the rôle of an optimistic prophet, Ibsen, that of a
pessimistic judge; the former was always a conciliatory spirit, the latter a
revolutionist; and Björnson proved himself a patriotic Norwegian, Ibsen, a
man of the entire world.
Lack of space forbids the inclusion of a list of Björnson's writing's. High
school teachers will find suitable selections in the list of collateral readings
that follows. Those who wish a complete bibliography of his works will
find it in Bookman, Volume II, p. 65. Translations of his works by Rasmus
B. Anderson, Houghton Mifflin Co., and Edmund Gosse, the Macmillan
Co., will furnish students extensive and standard readings of this master
story-teller.

CRITICISMS
Björnson, in his masterly character delineations, seldom produces
portraits. He gives the reader suggestive glimpses often enough and of the
right quality and arrangement to produce a full and vigorous conception of
his characters. His female parts are especially well done. His characters
present themselves to the reader by unique thinking and choice expressions.
Students should analyze The Father for this phase of character building.
Note also the simplicity of the words, sentences, paragraphs, and complete
story arrangement, the author's originality of story conception and
expression, his short, passionate, panting sentences, the poetic atmosphere
that sweetens and enriches his virile writing, and the correct, religious
pictures he paints of his beloved northland.
After having read a number of selections from Björnson, students will
see that he has a wonderful breadth of treatment for every imaginable
subject. He is so universal in his choice of subjects that Lemaître in his
Impressions of the Theatre half-humorously and half-ironically puts these
words in Björnson's mouth, "I am king in the spiritual kingdom," and "there
are two men in Europe who have genius, I and Ibsen, granting that Ibsen
has it."

GENERAL REFERENCES
Adventures in Criticism, A.T.Q. Couch.
Essays on Modern Novelists, William Lyon Phelps.
"Björnsoniana," Dial, January 16, 1903, pp. 37-38.
"Prophet-Poet of Norway," Cosmopolitan, April, 1903, pp. 621-631.
"Three Score and Ten," Dial, December, 1902, pp. 383-385.

COLLATERAL READINGS
Lectures, Volume I, John L. Stoddard.
The Making of an American, Chapters 1, 7, and Jacob Riis.
Myths of Northern Lands. Guerber.
Synnove Solbakken, Björnson.
A Happy Boy, Björnson.
The Fisher Maiden, Björnson.
The Bridal March, Björnson.
Magnhild, Björnson.
A Dangerous Wooing, Björnson.
The Eagle's Nest, Björnson.
The Bear Hunter, Björnson.
Master and Man, Leo Tolstoi.
The Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen.
The Minister's Black Veil, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Ambitious Guest, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Beeman of Orn, Frank R. Stockton.
A Branch Road, Hamlin Garland.
Mateo Falcone, Prosper Mérimée.
The Death of the Dauphin, Alphonse Dadoed.
The Birds' Christmas Carol, Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Tennessee's Partner, Bret Harte.
 THE GRIFFIN AND THE MINOR CANAAN[1]

By Frank R. Stockton (1834-1902)

Over the great door of an old, old church which stood in a quiet town of a
far-away land there was carved in stone the figure of a large griffin. The
old-time sculptor had done his work with great care, but the image he had
made was not a pleasant one to look at. It had a large head, with enormous
open mouth and savage teeth; from its back arose great wings, armed with
sharp hooks and prongs; it had stout legs in front, with projecting claws; but
there were no legs behind,—the body running out into a long and powerful
tail, finished off at the end with a barbed point. This tail was coiled up
under him, the end sticking up just back of his wings.
The sculptor, or the people who had ordered this stone figure, had
evidently been very much pleased with it, for little copies of it, also in
stone, had been placed here and there along the sides of the church, not very
far from the ground, so that people could easily look at them, and ponder on
their curious forms. There were a great many other sculptures on the outside
of this church,—saints, martyrs, grotesque heads of men, beasts, and birds,
as well as those of other creatures which cannot be named, because nobody
knows exactly what they were; but none were so curious and interesting as
the great griffin over the door, and the little griffins on the sides of the
church.
A long, long distance from the town, in the midst of dreadful wilds
scarcely known to man, there dwelt the Griffin whose image had been put
up over the churchgoer. In some way or other, the old-time sculptor had
seen him, and afterward, to the best of his memory, had copied his figure in
stone. The Griffin had never known this, until, hundreds of years afterward,
he heard from a bird, from a wild animal, or in some manner which it is not
now easy to find out, that there was a likeness of him on the old church in
the distant town. Now this Griffin had no idea how he looked. He had never
seen a mirror, and the streams where he lived were so turbulent and violent
that a quiet piece of water, which would reflect the image of anything
looking into it, could not be found. Being, as far as could be ascertained, the
very last of his race, he had never seen another griffin. Therefore it was,
that, when he heard of this stone image of himself, he became very anxious
to know what he looked like, and at last he determined to go to the old
church, and see for himself what manner of being he was. So he started off
from the dreadful wilds, and flew on and on until he came to the countries
inhabited by men, where his appearance in the air created great
consternation; but he alighted nowhere, keeping up a steady flight until he
reached the suburbs of the town which had his image on its church. Here,
late in the afternoon, he alighted in a green meadow by the side of a brook,
and stretched himself on the grass to rest. His great wings were tired, for he
had not made such a long flight in a century, or more.
The news of his coming spread quickly over the town, and the people,
frightened nearly out of their wits by the arrival of so extraordinary a
visitor, fled into their houses, and shut themselves up. The Griffin called
loudly for some one to come to him, but the more he called, the more afraid
the people were to show themselves. At length he saw two laborers
hurrying to their homes through the fields, and in a terrible voice he
commanded them to stop. Not daring to disobey, the men stood, trembling.
"What is the matter with you all?" cried the Griffin. "Is there not a man in
your town who is brave enough to speak to me?"
"I think," said one of the laborers, his voice shaking so that his words
could hardly be understood, "that—perhaps—the Minor Canon—would
come."
"Go, call him, then!" said the Griffin; "I want to see him."
The Minor Canon, who filled a subordinate position in the church, had
just finished the afternoon services, and was coming out of a side door, with
three aged women who had formed the week-day congregation. He was a
young man of a kind disposition, and very anxious to do good to the people
of the town. Apart from his duties in the church, where he conducted
services every week-day, he visited the sick and the poor, counseled and
assisted persons who were in trouble, and taught a school composed
entirely of the bad children in the town with whom nobody else would have
anything to do. Whenever the people wanted something difficult done for
them, they always went to the Minor Canon. Thus it was that the laborer
thought of the young priest when he found that some one must come and
speak to the Griffin.
The Minor Canon had not heard of the strange event, which was known
to the whole town except himself and the three old women, and when he
was informed of it, and was told that the Griffin had asked to see him, he
was greatly amazed, and frightened.
"Me!" he exclaimed. "He has never heard of me! What should he want
with me?"
"Oh! you must go instantly!" cried the two men.
"He is very angry now because he has been kept waiting so long; and
nobody knows what may happen if you don't hurry to him."
The poor Minor Canon would rather have had his hand cut off than go
out to meet an angry griffin; but he felt that it was his duty to go, or it
would be a woeful thing if injury should come to the people of the town
because he was not brave enough to obey the summons of the Griffin.
So, pale and frightened, he started off.
"Well," said the Griffin, as soon as the young man came near, "I am glad
to see that there is some one who has the courage to come to me."
The Minor Canon did not feel very courageous, but he bowed his head.
"Is this the town," said the Griffin, "where there is a church with a
likeness of myself over one of the doors?"
The Minor Canon looked at the frightful creature before him and saw that
it was, without doubt, exactly like the stone image on the church. "Yes," he
said, "you are right."
"Well, then," said the Griffin, "will you take me to it? I wish very much
to see it."
The Minor Canon instantly thought that if the Griffin entered the town
without the people knowing what he came for, some of them would
probably be frightened to death, and so he sought to gain time to prepare
their minds.
"It is growing dark, now," he said, very much afraid, as he spoke, that his
words might enrage the Griffin, "and objects on the front of the church
cannot be seen clearly. It will be better to wait until morning, if you wish to
get a good view of the stone image of yourself."
"That will suit me very well," said the Griffin. "I see you are a man of
good sense. I am tired, and I will take a nap here on this soft grass, while I
cool my tail in the little stream that runs near me. The end of my tail gets
red-hot when I am angry or excited, and it is quite warm now. So you may
go, but be sure and come early to-morrow morning, and show me the way
to the church."
The Minor Canon was glad enough to take his leave, and hurried into the
town. In front of the church he found a great many people assembled to
hear his report of his interview with the Griffin. When they found that he
had not come to spread ruin and devastation, but simply to see his stony
likeness on the church, they showed neither relief nor gratification, but
began to upbraid the Minor Canon for consenting to conduct the creature
into the town.
"What could I do?" cried the young man, "If I should not bring him he
would come himself and, perhaps, end by setting fire to the town with his
red-hot tail."
Still the people were not satisfied, and a great many plans were proposed
to prevent the Griffin from coming into the town. Some elderly persons
urged that the young men should go out and kill him; but the young men
scoffed at such a ridiculous idea. Then some one said that it would be a
good thing to destroy the stone image so that the Griffin would have no
excuse for entering the town; and this proposal was received with such
favor that many of the people ran for hammers, chisels, and crowbars, with
which to tear down and break up the stone griffin. But the Minor Canon
resisted this plan with all the strength of his mind and body. He assured the
people that this action would enrage the Griffin beyond measure, for it
would be impossible to conceal from him that his image had been destroyed
during the night. But the people were so determined to break up the stone
griffin that the Minor Canon saw that there was nothing for him to do but to
stay there and protect it. All night he walked up and down in front of the
church-door, keeping away the men who brought ladders, by which they
might mount to the great stone griffin, and knock it to pieces with their
hammers and crowbars. After many hours the people were obliged to give
up their attempts, and went home to sleep; but the Minor Canon remained at
his post till early morning, and then he hurried away to the field where he
had left the Griffin.
The monster had just awakened, and rising to his fore-legs and shaking
himself, he said that he was ready to go into the town. The Minor Canon,
therefore, walked back, the Griffin flying slowly through the air, at a short
distance above the head of his guide. Not a person was to be seen in the
streets, and they proceeded directly to the front of the church, where the
Minor Canon pointed out the stone griffin.
The real Griffin settled down in the little square before the church and
gazed earnestly at his sculptured likeness. For a long time he looked at it.
First he put his head on one side, and then he put it on the other; then he
shut his right eye and gazed with his left, after which he shut his left eye
and gazed with his right. Then he moved a little to one side and looked at
the image, then he moved the other way. After a while he said to the Minor
Canon, who had been standing by all this time:
"It is, it must be, an excellent likeness! That breadth between the eyes,
that expansive forehead, those massive jaws! I feel that it must resemble
me. If there is any fault to find with it, it is that the neck seems a little stiff.
But that is nothing. It is an admirable likeness,—admirable!"
The Griffin sat looking at his image all the morning and all the afternoon.
The Minor Canon had been afraid to go away and leave him, and had hoped
all through the day that he would soon be satisfied with his inspection and
fly away home. But by evening the poor young man was utterly exhausted,
and felt that he must eat and sleep. He frankly admitted this fact to the
Griffin, and asked him if he would not like something to eat. He said this
because he felt obliged in politeness to do so, but as soon as he had spoken
the words, he was seized with dread lest the monster should demand half a
dozen babies, or some tempting repast of that kind.
"Oh, no," said the Griffin, "I never eat between the equinoxes. At the
vernal and at the autumnal equinox I take a good meal, and that lasts me for
half a year. I am extremely regular in my habits, and do not think it
healthful to eat at odd times. But if you need food, go and get it, and I will
return to the soft grass where I slept last night and take another nap."
The next day the Griffin came again to the little square before the church,
and remained there until evening, steadfastly regarding the stone griffin
over the door. The Minor Canon came once or twice to look at him, and the
Griffin seemed very glad to see him; but the young clergyman could not
stay as he had done before, for he had many duties to perform. Nobody
went to the church, but the people came to the Minor Canon's house, and
anxiously asked him how long the Griffin was going to stay.
"I do not know," he answered, "but I think he will soon be satisfied with
regarding his stone likeness, and then he will go away."
But the Griffin did not go away. Morning after morning he came to the
church, but after a time he did not stay there all day. He seemed to have
taken a great fancy to the Minor Canon, and followed him about as he
pursued his various avocations. He would wait for him at the side door of
the church, for the Minor Canon held services every day, morning and
evening, though nobody came now. "If any one should come," he said to
himself, "I must be found at my post." When the young man came out, the
Griffin would accompany him in his visits to the sick and the poor, and
would often look into the windows of the schoolhouse where the Minor
Canon was teaching his unruly scholars. All the other schools were closed,
but the parents of the Minor Canon's scholars forced them to go to school,
because they were so bad they could not endure them all day at home,—
griffin or no griffin. But it must be said they generally behaved very well
when that great monster sat up on his tail and looked in at the schoolroom
window.
When it was perceived that the Griffin showed no signs of going away,
all the people who were able to do so left the town. The canons and the
higher officers of the church had fled away during the first day of the
Griffin's visit, leaving behind only the Minor Canon and some of the men
who opened the doors and swept the church. All the citizens who could
afford it shut up their houses and travelled to distant parts, and only the
working people and the poor were left behind. After some days these
ventured to go about and attend to their business, for if they did not work
they would starve. They were getting a little used to seeing the Griffin, and
having been told that he did not eat between equinoxes, they did not feel so
much afraid of him as before. Day by day the Griffin became more and
more attached to the Minor Canon. He kept near him a great part of the
time, and often spent the night in front of the little house where the young
clergyman lived alone. This strange companionship was often burdensome
to the Minor Canon; but, on the other hand, he could not deny that he
derived a great deal of benefit and instruction from it. The Griffin had lived
for hundreds of years, and had seen much; and he told the Minor Canon
many wonderful things.
"It is like reading an old book," said the young clergyman to himself;
"but how many books I would have had to read before I would have found
out what the Griffin has told me about the earth, the air, the water, about
minerals, and metals, and growing things, and all the wonders of the
world!"
Thus the summer went on, and drew toward its close. And now the
people of the town began to be very much troubled again.
"It will not be long," they said, "before the autumnal equinox is here, and
then that monster will want to eat. He will be dreadfully hungry, for he has
taken so much exercise since his last meal. He will devour our children.
Without doubt, he will eat them all. What is to be done?"
To this question no one could give an answer, but all agreed that the
Griffin must not be allowed to remain until the approaching equinox. After
talking over the matter a great deal, a crowd of the people went to the
Minor Canon, at a time when the Griffin was not with him.
"It is all your fault," they said, "that that monster is among us. You
brought him here, and you ought to see that he goes away. It is only on your
account that he stays here at all, for, although he visits his image every day,
he is with you the greater part of the time. If you were not here, he would
not stay. It is your duty to go away and then he will follow you, and we
shall be free from the dreadful danger which hangs over us."
"Go away!" cried the Minor Canon, greatly grieved at being spoken to in
such a way. "Where shall I go? If I go to some other town, shall I not take
this trouble there? Have I a right to do that?"
"No," said the people, "you must not go to any other town. There is no
town far enough away. You must go to the dreadful wilds where the Griffin
lives; and then he will follow you and stay there."
They did not say whether or not they expected the Minor Canon to stay
there also, and he did not ask them any thing about it. He bowed his head,
and went into his house, to think. The more he thought, the more clear it
became to his mind that it was his duty to go away, and thus free the town
from the presence of the Griffin.
 That evening he packed a leathern bag full of bread and meat, and early
the next morning he set out on his journey to the dreadful wilds. It was a
long, weary, and doleful journey, especially after he had gone beyond the
habitations of men, but the Minor Canon kept on bravely, and never
faltered. The way was longer than he had expected, and his provisions soon
grew so scanty that he was obliged to eat but a little every day, but he kept
up his courage, and pressed on, and, after many days of toilsome travel, he
reached the dreadful wilds.
When the Griffin found that the Minor Canon had left the town he
seemed sorry, but showed no disposition to go and look for him. After a few
days had passed, he became much annoyed, and asked some of the people
where the Minor Canon had gone. But, although the citizens had been
anxious that the young clergyman should go to the dreadful wilds, thinking
that the Griffin would immediately follow him, they were now afraid to
mention the Minor Canon's destination, for the monster seemed angry
already, and, if he should suspect their trick, he would doubtless become
very much enraged. So every one said he did not know, and the Griffin
wandered about disconsolate. One morning he looked into the Minor
Canon's schoolhouse, which was always empty now, and thought that it was
a shame that every thing should suffer on account of the young man's
absence.
"It does not matter so much about the church," he said, "for nobody went
there; but it is a pity about the school. I think I will teach it myself until he
returns."
It was the hour for opening the school, and the Griffin went inside and
pulled the rope which rang the schoolbell. Some of the children who heard
the bell ran in to see what was the matter, supposing it to be a joke of one of
their companions; but when they saw the Griffin they stood astonished, and
scared.
"Go tell the other scholars," said the monster, "that school is about to
open, and that if they are not all here in ten minutes, I shall come after
them." In seven minutes every scholar was in place.
Never was seen such an orderly school. Not a boy or girl moved, or
uttered a whisper. The Griffin climbed into the master's seat, his wide wings
spread on each side of him, because he could not lean back in his chair
while they stuck out behind, and his great tail coiled around, in front of the
desk, the barbed end sticking up, ready to tap any boy or girl who might
misbehave. The Griffin now addressed the scholars, telling them that he
intended to teach them while their master was away. In speaking he
endeavored to imitate, as far as possible, the mild and gentle tones of the
Minor Canon, but it must be admitted that in this he was not very
successful. He had paid a good deal of attention to the studies of the school,
and he determined not to attempt to teach them anything new, but to review
them in what they had been studying; so he called up the various classes,
and questioned them upon their previous lessons. The children racked their
brains to remember what they had learned. They were so afraid of the
Griffin's displeasure that they recited as they had never recited before. One
of the boys far down in his class answered so well that the Griffin was
astonished.
"I should think you would be at the head," said he. "I am sure you have
never been in the habit of reciting so well. Why is this?"
"Because I did not choose to take the trouble," said the boy, trembling in
his boots. He felt obliged to speak the truth, for all the children thought that
the great eyes of the Griffin could see right through them, and that he would
know when they told a falsehood.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said the Griffin. "Go down to the
very tail of the class, and if you are not at the head in two days, I shall know
the reason why."
The next afternoon the boy was number one.
It was astonishing how much these children now learned of what they
had been studying. It was as if they had been educated over again. The
Griffin used no severity toward them, but there was a look about him which
made them unwilling to go to bed until they were sure they knew their
lessons for the next day.
The Griffin now thought that he ought to visit the sick and the poor; and
he began to go about the town for this purpose. The effect upon the sick was
miraculous. All, except those who were very ill indeed, jumped from their
beds when they heard he was coming, and declared themselves quite well.
To those who could not get up, he gave herbs and roots, which none of them
had ever before thought of as medicines, but which the Griffin had seen
used in various parts of the world; and most of them recovered. But, for all
that, they afterward said that no matter what happened to them, they hoped
that they should never again have such a doctor coming to their bedsides,
feeling their pulses and looking at their tongues.
As for the poor, they seemed to have utterly disappeared. All those who
had depended upon charity for their daily bread were now at work in some
way or other; many of them offering to do odd jobs for their neighbors just
for the sake of their meals,—a thing which before had been seldom heard of
in the town. The Griffin could find no one who needed his assistance.
The summer had now passed, and the autumnal equinox was rapidly
approaching. The citizens were in a state of great alarm and anxiety. The
Griffin showed no signs of going away, but seemed to have settled himself
permanently among them. In a short time, the day for his semi-annual meal
would arrive, and then what would happen? The monster would certainly be
very hungry, and would devour all their children.
Now they greatly regretted and lamented that they had sent away the
Minor Canon; he was the only one on whom they could have depended in
this trouble, for he could talk freely with the Griffin, and so find out what
could be done. But it would not do to be inactive. Some step must be taken
immediately. A meeting of the citizens was called, and two old men were
appointed to go and talk to the Griffin. They were instructed to offer to
prepare a splendid dinner for him on equinox day,—one which would
entirely satisfy his hunger. They would offer him the fattest mutton, the
most tender beef, fish, and game of various sorts, and any thing of the kind
that he might fancy. If none of these suited, they were to mention that there
was an orphan asylum in the next town.
"Any thing would be better," said the citizens, "than to have our dear
children devoured."
The old men went to the Griffin, but their propositions were not received
with favor.
"From what I have seen of the people of this town," said the monster, "I
do not think I could relish any thing which was prepared by them. They
appear to be all cowards, and, therefore, mean and selfish. As for eating one
of them, old or young, I could not think of it for a moment. In fact, there
was only one creature in the whole place for whom I could have had any
appetite, and that is the Minor Canon, who has gone away. He was brave,
and good, and honest, and I think I should have relished him."
 "Ah!" said one of the old men very politely, "in that case I wish we had
not sent him to the dreadful wilds!"
"What!" cried the Griffin. "What do you mean? Explain instantly what
you are talking about!"
The old man, terribly frightened at what he had said, was obliged to tell
how the Minor Canon had been sent away by the people, in the hope that
the Griffin might be induced to follow him.
When the monster heard this, he became furiously angry. He dashed
away from the old men and, spreading his wings, flew backward and
forward over the town. He was so much excited that his tail became red-hot,
and glowed like a meteor against the evening sky. When at last he settled
down in the little field where he usually rested, and thrust his tail into the
brook, the steam arose like a cloud, and the water of the stream ran hot
through the town. The citizens were greatly frightened, and bitterly blamed
the old man for telling about the Minor Canon.
"It is plain," they said, "that the Griffin intended at last to go and look for
him, and we should have been saved. Now who can tell what misery you
have brought upon us."
The Griffin did not remain long in the little field. As soon as his tail was
cool he flew to the town-hall and rang the bell. The citizens knew that they
were expected to come there, and although they were afraid to go, they
were still more afraid to stay away; and they crowded into the hall. The
Griffin was on the platform at one end, flapping his wings and walking up
and down, and the end of his tail was still so warm that it slightly scorched
the boards as he dragged it after him.
When everybody who was able to come was there the Griffin stood still
and addressed the meeting.
"I have had a contemptible opinion of you," he said, "ever since I
discovered what cowards you are, but I had no idea that you were so
ungrateful, selfish, and cruel as I now find you to be. Here was your Minor
Canon, who labored day and night for your good, and thought of nothing
else but how he might benefit you and make you happy; and as soon as you
imagine yourselves threatened with a danger,—for well I know you are
dreadfully afraid of me,—you send him off, caring not whether he returns
or perishes, hoping thereby to save yourselves. Now, I had conceived a
great liking for that young man, and had intended, in a day or two, to go and
look him up. But I have changed my mind about him. I shall go and find
him, but I shall send him back here to live among you, and I intend that he
shall enjoy the reward of his labor and his sacrifices. Go, some of you, to
the officers of the church, who so cowardly ran away when I first came
here, and tell them never to return to this town under penalty of death. And
if, when your Minor Canon comes back to you, you do not bow yourselves
before him, put him in the highest place among you, and serve and honor
him all his life, beware of my terrible vengeance! There were only two
good things in this town: the Minor Canon and the stone image of myself
over your church-door. One of these you have sent away, and the other I
shall carry away myself."
With these words he dismissed the meeting, and it was time, for the end
of his tail had become so hot that there was danger of its setting fire to the
building.
The next morning, the Griffin came to the church, and tearing the stone
image of himself from its fastenings over the great door, he grasped it with
his powerful fore-legs and flew up into the air. Then, after hovering over the
town for a moment, he gave his tail an angry shake and took up his flight to
the dreadful wilds. When he reached this desolate region, he set the stone
Griffin upon a ledge of a rock which rose in front of the dismal cave he
called his home. There the image occupied a position somewhat similar to
that it had had over the church-door; and the Griffin, panting with the
exertion of carrying such an enormous load to so great a distance, lay down
upon the ground, and regarded it with much satisfaction. When he felt
somewhat rested he went to look for the Minor Canon. He found the young
man, weak and half-starved, lying under the shadow of a rock. After
picking him up and carrying him to his cave, the Griffin flew away to a
distant marsh, where he procured some roots and herbs which he well knew
were strengthening and beneficial to man, though he had never tasted them
himself. After eating these the Minor Canon was greatly revived, and sat up
and listened while the Griffin told him what had happened in the town.
"Do you know," said the monster, when he had finished, "that I have had,
and still have, a great liking for you?"
"I am very glad to hear it," said the Minor Canon, with his usual
politeness.
 "I am not at all sure that you would be," said the Griffin, "if you
thoroughly understood the state of the case, but we will not consider that
now. If some things were different, other things would be otherwise. I have
been so enraged by discovering the manner in which you have been treated
that I have determined that you shall at last enjoy the rewards and honors to
which you are entitled. Lie down and have a good sleep, and then I will take
you back to the town."
As he heard these words, a look of trouble came over the young man's
face.
"You need not give yourself any anxiety," said the Griffin, "about my
return to the town. I shall not remain there. Now that I have that admirable
likeness of myself in front of my cave, where I can sit at my leisure, and
gaze upon its noble features and magnificent proportions, I have no wish to
see that abode of cowardly and selfish people."
The Minor Canon, relieved from his fears, lay back, and dropped into a
doze; and when he was sound asleep the Griffin took him up, and carried
him back to the town. He arrived just before daybreak, and putting the
young man gently on the grass in the little field where he himself used to
rest, the monster, without having been seen by any of the people, flew back
to his home.
When the Minor Canon made his appearance in the morning among the
citizens, the enthusiasm and cordiality with which he was received were
truly wonderful. He was taken to a house which had been occupied by one
of the vanished high officers of the place, and every one was anxious to do
all that could be done for his health and comfort. The people crowded into
the church when he held services, so that the three old women who used to
be his week-day congregation could not get to the best seats, which they
had always been in the habit of taking; and the parents of the bad children
determined to reform them at home, in order that he might be spared the
trouble of keeping up his former school. The Minor Canon was appointed to
the highest office of the old church, and before he died, he became a bishop.
During the first years after his return from the dreadful wilds, the people
of the town looked up to him as a man to whom they were bound to do
honor and reverence; but they often, also, looked up to the sky to see if
there were any signs of the Griffin coming back. However, in the course of
time, they learned to honor and reverence their former Minor Canon
without the fear of being punished if they did not do so.
But they need never have been afraid of the Griffin. The autumnal
equinox day came round, and the monster ate nothing. If he could not have
the Minor Canon, he did not care for any thing. So, lying down, with his
eyes fixed upon the great stone griffin, he gradually declined, and died. It
was a good thing for some people of the town that they did not know this.
If you should ever visit the old town, you would still see the little griffins
on the sides of the church; but the great stone griffin that was over the door
is gone.
NOTE: [1] Written in 1887. This story is used by permission of and
special arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers.
BIOGRAPHY
Frank Richard Stockton, one of America's foremost story-tellers and
humorists, was born in Philadelphia in 1834. His father was a Presbyterian
minister who devoutly wished that his son might study medicine. This wish
was shattered early, for the son showed symptoms of being a writer while
yet in the Central High School of Philadelphia. In competition with many of
his schoolmates for a prize offered for the best story, young Stockton won
easily.
After finishing his high school course, he adopted the profession of
wood-engraver. Although he earned his living for several years by carving
wood, he never lost his desire to write, and practised, at every spare
moment, his favorite avocation. It was this careful and patient training
during his apprenticeship that finally made him the expert story-teller that
he is. It is very interesting to any one who cares for the acquirement of an
excellent style to note how all the authors contained in this text have had to
work with almost a superhuman force to reach the heights of successful
short-story writing.
His first important publication, Kate, appeared in the Southern Literary
Messenger in 1859. He then joined the staff of the Philadelphia Morning
Post, where he did regular newspaper work and contributed to the Riverside
Magazine and Hearth and Home. In 1872 his Stephen Skarridge's
Christmas appeared in Scribner's Monthly. Dr. J.G. Holland, editor of
Scribner's, was so impressed with the story that he made Mr. Stockton an
assistant editor and persuaded him to move to New York. In 1873 he joined
the staff of the St. Nicholas Magazine. His publication of the Rudder
Grange series in Scribner's Monthly in 1878 made him famous. In 1882 he
resigned all editorial work and spent his entire time in literary composition.
Mr. Stockton possessed a frail body and very little physical endurance. In
spite of this physical handicap he was very vivacious and gay. He was a
genial and companionable man, loved by all who knew him. He was very
modest, even to the point of shyness, exceptionally sincere, and quaintly
humorous. He established homes in New Jersey and West Virginia, where
he spent the greater part of his time from 1882 until his death in 1902.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Famous Authors (107-122), B.F. Harkness.
American Authors (59-73), F.W. Halsey.
"Character Sketch," Book-Buyer, 24:355-357.
"Home at Claymont," Current Literature, 30:221.
"Sketch," Outlook, 70: 1000-1001,
"Stockton and his Work," Atlantic Monthly, 87:136-138.

CRITICISMS
The writings of Frank R. Stockton are excellent representatives of the
man himself. How closely allied writer and writings are is very well stated
by Hamilton W. Mabie in the Book-Buyer for June, 1902, "His talk had
much of the quality of his writing; it was full of quaint conceits,
whimsicalities, impossible suggestions offered with perfect gravity. He was
always perfectly natural; he never attempted to live up to his part; in talk, at
least, he never forced the note. His attitude toward himself was slightly
tinged with humor, and he knew how to foil easily and pleasantly too great
a pressure of praise."
His tales are extravagantly impossible but extremely realistic in effect,
filled with humorous situations and singular plots, and peopled with
eccentric characters that afford amusement on every page. His most
successful writing is done when he explains contrivances upon which his
story depends. He is an original and inventive expert juggler who moves
with careless ease to the most effective ends. His characters are little more
than pieces of mechanism that act when he pulls the string. They have little
emotion and even in their love-making they show their emotion mostly for
the sake of the reader's amusement. His negro characters are exceptions to
his general treatment and are true to life. He inveigles the reader into
believing the most extravagant incidents by having a reliable witness
narrate them.
Stockton never stoops to the burlesque, cynic, or vulgar phases of life to
secure amusement. He is grotesque and droll in his manner, and above all
always restrained. His literary life is full of sprites and gnomes that frolic
before young children and once before mature people. The Griffin and the
Minor Canon is a beautiful fairy story lifted from childhood's thought and
diction into a mature realm. His humor is plain and simple, cool and keenly
calculating. A friendly critic has said of one of his stories, "With a gentle,
ceaseless murmur of amusement, and a flickering twinkle of smiles, the
story moves steadily on in the calm triumph of its assured and unassailable
absurdity, to its logical and indisputable impossibility." This observation is
very largely true of all his stories.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Frank R. Stockton, A.T.Q. Couch.
"Stockton's Method of Working," Current Literature, 32:495.
"Criticism," Atheneum, 1:532.
"Estimate," Harper's Weekly, 46:555.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Beeman of Orn, and Other Fanciful Tales, Frank R. Stockton.
The Lady or the Tiger, Frank R. Stockton.
Rudder Grange, Frank R. Stockton.
A Tale of Negative Gravity, Frank R. Stockton.
The Remarkable Wreck of the Thomas Hyde, Frank R. Stockton.
His Wife's Deceased Sister, Frank R. Stockton.
Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving.
Monsieur du Miroir, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
At the End of the Passage, Rudyard Kipling.
The Vacant Lot, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
The Princess Pourquoi, Margaret Sherwood.
What Was It? A Mystery, Fitz-James O'Brien.
Wandering Willie's Tale, Walter Scott.
 THE PIECE OF STRING[1]

By Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893)

On all the roads about Goderville the peasants and their wives were
coming toward the town, for it was market day. The men walked at an easy
gait, the whole body thrown forward with every movement of their long,
crooked legs, misshapen by hard work, by the bearing down on the plough
which at the same time causes the left shoulder to rise and the figure to
slant; by the mowing of the grain, which makes one hold his knees apart in
order to obtain a firm footing; by all the slow and laborious tasks of the
fields. Their starched blue blouses, glossy as if varnished, adorned at the
neck and wrists with a bit of white stitchwork, puffed out about their bony
chests like balloons on the point of taking flight, from which protrude a
head, two arms, and two feet.
Some of them led a cow or a calf at the end of a rope. And their wives,
walking behind the beast, lashed it with a branch still covered with leaves,
to hasten its pace. They carried on their arms great baskets, from which
heads of chickens or of ducks were thrust forth. And they walked with a
shorter and quicker step than their men, their stiff, lean figures wrapped in
scanty shawls pinned over their flat breasts, their heads enveloped in a
white linen cloth close to the hair, with a cap over all.
Then a char-à-bancs[2] passed, drawn by a jerky-paced nag, with two
men seated side by side shaking like jelly, and a woman behind, who clung
to the side of the vehicle to lessen the rough jolting.
On the square at Goderville there was a crowd, a medley of men and
beasts. The horns of the cattle, the high hats, with a long, hairy nap, of the
wealthy peasants, and the head dresses of the peasant women, appeared on
the surface of the throng. And the sharp, shrill, high-pitched voices formed
an incessant, uncivilized uproar, over which soared at times a roar of
laughter from the powerful chest of a sturdy yokel, or the prolonged bellow
of a cow fastened to the wall of a house.
There was an all-pervading smell of the stable, of milk, of the dunghill,
of hay, and of perspiration—that acrid, disgusting odor of man and beast
peculiar to country people.
Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté, had just arrived at Goderville, and was
walking toward the square, when he saw a bit of string on the ground.
Master Hauchecorne, economical like every true Norman, thought that it
was well to pick up everything that might be of use; and he stooped
painfully, for he suffered with rheumatism. He took the piece of slender
cord from the ground, and was about to roll it up carefully, when he saw
Master Malandain, the harness-maker, standing in his doorway and looking
at him. They had formerly had trouble on the subject of a halter, and had
remained at odds, being both inclined to bear malice. Master Hauchecorne
felt a sort of shame at being seen thus by his enemy, fumbling in the mud
for a bit of string. He hurriedly concealed his treasure in his blouse, then in
his breeches pocket; then he pretended to look on the ground for something
else, which he did not find; and finally he went on toward the market, his
head thrust forward, bent double by his pains.
He lost himself at once in the slow-moving, shouting crowd, kept in a
state of excitement by the interminable bargaining. The peasants felt of the
cows, went away, returned, sorely perplexed, always afraid of being
cheated, never daring to make up their minds, watching the vendor's eye,
striving incessantly to detect the tricks of the man and the defect in the
beast.
The women, having placed their great baskets at their feet, took out their
fowls, which lay on the ground, their legs tied together, with frightened eyes
and scarlet combs.
They listened to offers, adhered to their prices, short of speech and
impassive of face; or else, suddenly deciding to accept the lower price
offered, they would call out to the customer as he walked slowly away:—
"All right, Mast' Anthime. You can have it."
Then, little by little, the square became empty, and when the Angelus[3]
struck midday those who lived too far away to go home betook themselves
to the various inns.
 At Jourdain's the common room was full of customers, as the great yard
was full of vehicles of every sort—carts, cabriolets,[4] char-à-bancs,
tilburys,[5] unnamable carriages, shapeless, patched, with, their shafts
reaching heavenward like arms, or with their noses in the ground and their
tails in the air.
The vast fireplace, full of clear flame, cast an intense heat against the
backs of the row on the right of the table. Three spits were revolving, laden
with chickens, pigeons, and legs of mutton; and a delectable odor of roast
meat, and of gravy dripping from the browned skin, came forth from the
hearth, stirred the guests to merriment, and made their mouths water.
All the aristocracy of the plough ate there, at Mast' Jourdain's, the
innkeeper and horse trader—a shrewd rascal who had money.
The dishes passed and were soon emptied, like the jugs of yellow cider.
Every one told of his affairs, his sales and his purchases. They inquired
about the crops. The weather was good for green stuffs, but a little wet for
wheat.
Suddenly a drum rolled in the yard, in front of the house. In an instant
everybody was on his feet, save a few indifferent ones; and they all ran to
the door and windows with their mouths still full and napkins in hand.
Having finished his long tattoo, the public crier shouted in a jerky voice,
making his pauses in the wrong places:—
"The people of Goderville, and all those present at the market are
informed that between—nine and ten o'clock this morning on the
Beuzeville—road, a black leather wallet was lost, containing five hundred
—francs, and business papers. The finder is requested to carry it to—the
mayor's at once, or to Master Fortuné Huelbrèque of Manneville. A reward
of twenty francs will be paid."
Then he went away. They heard once more in the distance the muffled
roll of the drum and the indistinct voice of the crier.
Then they began to talk about the incident, reckoning Master
Houlbrèque's chance of finding or not finding his wallet.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of gendarmes
appeared in the doorway.
He inquired:—
 "Is Master Hauchecorne of Bréauté here?"
Master Hauchecorne, who was seated at the farther end of the table,
answered:—
"Here I am."
And the corporal added:—
"Master Hauchecorne, will you be kind enough to go to the mayor's
office with me? Monsieur the mayor would like to speak to you."
The peasant, surprised and disturbed, drank his petit verre[6] at one
swallow, rose, and even more bent than in the morning, for the first steps
after each rest were particularly painful, he started off, repeating:—
"Here I am, here I am."
And he followed the brigadier.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in his arm-chair. He was the local
notary, a stout, solemn-faced man, given to pompous speeches.
"Master Hauchecorne," he said, "you were seen this morning, on the
Beuzeville road, to pick up the wallet lost by Master Huelbrèque of
Manneville."
The rustic, dumfounded, stared at the mayor, already alarmed by this
suspicion which had fallen upon him, although he failed to understand it.
"I, I—I picked up that wallet?"
"Yes, you."
"On my word of honor, I didn't even so much as see it."
"You were seen."
"They saw me, me? Who was it saw me?"
"Monsieur Malandain, the harness-maker."
Thereupon the old man remembered and understood; and flushing with
anger, he cried:—
"Ah! he saw me, did he, that sneak? He saw me pick up this string, look,
m'sieu' mayor."
And fumbling in the depths of his pocket, he produced the little piece of
cord.
But the mayor was incredulous and shook his head.
 "You won't make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Monsieur
Malandain, who is a man deserving of credit, mistook this string for a
wallet."
The peasant, in a rage, raised his hand, spit to one side to pledge his
honor, and said:—
"It's God's own truth, the sacred truth, all the same, m'sieu' mayor. I say it
again, by my soul and my salvation."
"After picking it up," rejoined the mayor, "you hunted a long while in the
mud, to see if some piece of money hadn't fallen out."
The good man was suffocated with wrath and fear.
"If any one can tell—if any one can tell lies like that to ruin an honest
man! If any one can say—"
To no purpose did he protest; he was not believed.
He was confronted with Monsieur Malandain, who repeated and
maintained his declaration. They insulted each other for a whole hour. At
his own request, Master Hauchecorne was searched. They found nothing on
him. At last the mayor, being sorely perplexed, discharged him, but warned
him that he proposed to inform the prosecuting attorney's office and to ask
for orders.
The news had spread. On leaving the mayor's office, the old man was
surrounded and questioned with serious or bantering curiosity, in which,
however, there was no trace of indignation. And he began to tell the story of
the string. They did not believe him. They laughed.
He went his way, stopping his acquaintances, repeating again and again
his story and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out, to
prove that he had nothing.
They said to him:—
"You old rogue, va!"
And he lost his temper, lashing himself into a rage, feverish with
excitement, desperate because he was not believed, at a loss what to do, and
still telling his story. Night came. He must needs go home. He started with
three neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up
the bit of string: and all the way he talked of his misadventure.
 During the evening he made a circuit of the village of Bréauté, in order to
tell everybody about it. He found none but incredulous listeners.
He was ill over it all night.
The next afternoon, about one o'clock, Marius Paumelle, a farmhand
employed by Master Breton, a farmer of Ymauville, restored the wallet and
its contents to Master Huelbrèque of Manneville.
The man claimed that he had found it on the road; but, being unable to
read, had carried it home and given it to his employer.
The news soon became known in the neighborhood; Master Hauchecorne
was informed of it. He started out again at once, and began to tell his story,
now made complete by the dénouement. He was triumphant.
"What made me feel bad," he said, "wasn't so much the thing itself, you
understand, but the lying. There's nothing hurts you so much as being
blamed for lying."
All day long he talked of his adventure; he told it on the roads to people
who passed; at the wine-shop to people who were drinking; and after
church on the following Sunday. He even stopped strangers to tell them
about it. His mind was at rest now, and yet something embarrassed him,
although he could not say just what it was. People seemed to laugh while
they listened to him. They did not seem convinced. He felt as if remarks
were made behind his back.
On Tuesday of the next week, he went to market at Goderville, impelled
solely by the longing to tell his story.
Malandain, standing in his doorway, began to laugh when he saw him
coming. Why?
He accosted a farmer from Criquetot, who did not let him finish, but
poked him in the pit of his stomach, and shouted in his face: "Go on, you
old fox!" Then he turned on his heel.
Master Hauchecorne was speechless, and more and more disturbed. Why
did he call him "old fox"?
When he was seated at the table, in Jourdain's Inn, he set about
explaining the affair once more.
A horse-trader from Montvilliers called out to him:—
"Nonsense, nonsense, you old dodger! I know all about your string!"
 "But they've found the wallet!" faltered Hauchecorne.
"None of that, old boy; there's one who finds it, and there's one who
carries it back. I don't know just how you did it, but I understand you."
The peasant was fairly stunned. He understood at last. He was accused of
having sent the wallet back by a confederate, an accomplice.
He tried to protest. The whole table began to laugh.
He could not finish his dinner, but left the inn amid a chorus of jeers.
He returned home, shamefaced and indignant, suffocated by wrath, by
confusion, and all the more cast down because, with his Norman cunning,
he was quite capable of doing the thing with which he was charged, and
even of boasting of it as a shrewd trick. He had a confused idea that his
innocence was impossible to establish, his craftiness being so well known.
And he was cut to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
Thereupon he began once more to tell of the adventure, making the story
longer each day, adding each time new arguments, more forcible
protestations, more solemn oaths, which he devised and prepared in his
hours of solitude, his mind being wholly engrossed by the story of the
string. The more complicated his defence and the more subtle his reasoning,
the less he was believed.
"Those are a liar's reasons," people said behind his back.
He realized it: he gnawed his nails, and exhausted himself in vain efforts.
He grew perceptibly thinner.
Now the jokers asked him to tell the story of "The Piece of String" for
their amusement, as a soldier who has seen service is asked to tell about his
battles. His mind, attacked at its source, grew feebler.
Late in December he took to his bed.
In the first days of January he died, and in his delirium, of the death
agony, he protested his innocence, repeating:
"A little piece of string—a little piece of string—see, here it is, m'sieu'
mayor."
NOTES
[1] The Piece of String was written in 1884. Reprinted from Little French
Masterpieces, by permission of the publishers, G.P. Putnam's Sons.
 [2] 34:5 char-à-bancs. A pleasure car.
[3] 35:26 Angelus. A bell tolled at morning, noon, and night, according
to the Roman Catholic Church custom, to indicate the time of the service of
song and recitation in memory of the Virgin Mary. The name is taken from
the first word of the recitation.
[4] 35:30 cabriolet. A cab. Originally a light, one-horse pleasure carriage
with two seats.
[5] 35:30 tilbury. An old form of gig, seating two persons.
[6] 37:20 petit verre. Little glass.
BIOGRAPHY
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant, French novelist, dramatist, and
short-story writer, was born in 1850. Until he was thirteen years old he had
no teacher except his mother, who personally superintended the training of
her two sons. Life for the two boys, during these early years, was free and
happy, Guy was a strong and robust Norman, overflowing with animal
spirits and exuberant with the joy of youthful life.
When thirteen years of age Maupassant attended the seminary at Yvetot,
where he found school life irksome and a most distasteful contrast to his
former free life. Later he became a student in the Lycée in Rouen. His
experience as a student here was very pleasant, and he easily acquired his
degree. In 1870 he was appointed to a clerkship in the Navy, and a little
later to a more lucrative position in the Department of Public Instruction.
His work in these two positions suffered very materially because of his
negligence and daily practice in writing verses and essays for Flaubert, the
most careful literary technicist in the history of literature, to criticize. For
seven years Maupassant served this severe task-master, always writing,
receiving criticisms, and publishing nothing.
Immediately after the publication of his first story Maupassant was hailed
as a finished master artist. From 1880 to 1890 he published six novels,
sixteen volumes of short-stories, three volumes of travels, and many
newspaper articles. This gigantic task was performed only because of his
regular habits and splendid physique. He wrote regularly every morning
from seven o'clock until noon, and at night always wrote out notes on the
impressions from his experiences of the day.
 Maupassant was a natural artist deeply in love with the technique of his
work. He did not write for money, although he believed that a writer should
have plenty of this world's possessions, nor did he write for art's sake. In
fact he avoided talking on the subject of writing and to all appearances
seemed to despise his profession. He wrote because the restless,
immitigable force within him compelled him to work like a slave. He
thought little of morals, or religion, but was enamored with physical life
and its insolvable problems. He was, above everything else, a truthful man.
Sometimes his subjects are unclean and he treats them as such, but, if his
subject is clean, his treatment is undefiled.
In 1887 the shadows of insanity began to creep athwart his life. Even in
1884 he seemed to feel a premonition of his coming catastrophe when he
wrote: "I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects
which seem to me to assume a kind of animal life. Above all, I fear the
horrible confusion of my thought, of my reason escaping, entangled and
scattered by an invisible and mysterious anguish." The dreaded disease
developed until, in 1890, he had to suspend his writing. In 1892 he became
wholly insane and had to be committed to an insane asylum where he died
in a padded cell one year later.

BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
The New International Encyclopaedia.
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Bookman, 25:290-294_.
CRITICISMS
Maupassant's short-stories are generally conceded to be the best in
French literature. He handles his materials with great care, and his
descriptions of scenes and characters are unequalled. In his first writings he
seems impassive to the point of frigidity. He is a recorder who sets down
exactly the life before him. This is one of the lessons he learned from
Flaubert. He was not interested in what a character thought or felt, but he
noted and fondled every action of his characters.
He loved life, despite the lack of solutions. At times his fondness for
mere physical life leads him to the brutal stage. In his story, On the Water,
he gives a confession of a purely sensual man: "How gladly, at times, I
would think no more, feel no more, live the life of a brute, in a warm, bright
country, in a yellow country, without crude and brutal verdure, in one of
those Eastern countries in which one falls asleep without concern, is active
and has no cares, loves and has no distress, and is scarcely aware that one is
going on living!"
Maupassant was a keen observer, possessed an excellent but not lofty
imagination, and never asserted a philosophy of life. His writings are all
interesting, terse, precise, and truthful, but lack the glow that comes with a
sympathetic and spiritual outlook on life. Zola says of him: "…. a Latin of
good, clear, solid head, a maker of beautiful sentences shining like gold…."
He chooses a single incident, a few characteristics and then moulds them
into a compact story. Nine-tenths of his stories deal with selfishness and
hypocrisy.
Tolstoi wrote: "Maupassant possessed genius, that gift of attention
revealing in the objects and facts of life properties not perceived by others;
he possessed a beautiful form of expression, uttering clearly, simply, and
with charm what he wished to say; and he possessed also the merit of
sincerity, without which a work of art produces no effect; that is he did not
merely pretend to love or hate, but did indeed love or hate what he
described."
GENERAL REFERENCES
Inquiries and Opinions, Brander Matthews.
"A Criticism," Outlook, 88:973-976.
"Greatest Short Story Writer that Ever Lived," Current Literature,
42:636-638.

COLLATERAL READINGS
Happiness (Odd Number), Guy de Maupassant.
The Wolf, Guy de Maupassant.
La Mère Sauvage, Guy de Maupassant.
The Confession, Guy de Maupassant.
On the Journey, Guy de Maupassant.
The Beggar, Guy de Maupassant.
A Ghost, Guy de Maupassant.
Little Soldier, Guy de Maupassant.
The Wreck, Guy de Maupassant.
The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant.
A Note of Scarlet, Ruth Stuart.
Expiation, Octave Thanet.
Fagan, Rowland Thomas.
La Grande Bretêche ("Jessup and Canby"), Honoré de Balzac.
 THE MAN WHO WAS[1]

By Rudyard Kipling (1865- )

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he

tucks his shirt in. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists
upon being treated as the most easterly of Western peoples, instead of the
most westerly of Easterns, that he becomes a racial anomaly[2] extremely
difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going
to turn up next.
Dirkovitch was a Russian—a Russian of the Russians, as he said—who
appeared to get his bread by serving the czar as an officer in a Cossack
regiment, and corresponding for a Russian newspaper with a name that was
never twice the same. He was a handsome young Oriental, with a taste for
wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he arrived in India
from nowhere in particular. At least no living man could ascertain whether
it was by way of Balkh, Budukhshan, Chitral, Beloochistan, Nepaul, or
anywhere else. The Indian government, being in an unusually affable mood,
gave orders that he was to be civilly treated, and shown everything that was
to be seen; so he drifted, talking bad English and worse French, from one
city to another till he forgathered with her Majesty's White Hussars[3] in
the city of Peshawur,[4] which stands at the mouth of that narrow sword-cut
in the hills that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly an officer,
and he was decorated, after the manner of the Russians, with little enameled
crosses, and he could talk, and (though this has nothing to do with his
merits) he had been given up as a hopeless task or case by the Black
Tyrones[5], who, individually and collectively, with hot whisky and honey,
mulled brandy and mixed spirits of all kinds, had striven in all hospitality to
make him drunk. And when the Black Tyrones, who are exclusively Irish,
fail to disturb the peace of head of a foreigner, that foreigner is certain to be
a superior man. This was the argument of the Black Tyrones, but they were
ever an unruly and self-opinionated regiment, and they allowed junior
subalterns of four years' service to choose their wines. The spirits were
always purchased by the colonel and a committee of majors. And a
regiment that would so behave may be respected but cannot be loved.
The White Hussars were as conscientious in choosing their wine as in
charging the enemy. There was a brandy that had been purchased by a
cultured colonel a few years after the battle of Waterloo. It has been
maturing ever since, and it was a marvelous brandy at the purchasing. The
memory of that liquor would cause men to weep as they lay dying in the
teak forests of upper Burmah[6] or the slime of the Irrawaddy[7]. And there
was a port which was notable; and there was a champagne of an obscure
brand, which always came to mess without any labels, because the White
Hussars wished none to know where the source of supply might be found.
The officer on whose head the champagne choosing lay was forbidden the
use of tobacco for six weeks previous to sampling.
This particularity of detail is necessary to emphasize the fact that that
champagne, that port, and above all, that brandy—the green and yellow and
white liqueurs did not count—was placed at the absolute disposition of
Dirkovitch, and he enjoyed himself hugely—even more than among the
Black Tyrones.
But he remained distressingly European through it all. The White
Hussars were—"My dear true friends," "Fellow-soldiers glorious," and
"Brothers inseparable." He would unburden himself by the hour on the
glorious future that awaited the combined arms of England and Russia
when their hearts and their territories should run side by side, and the great
mission of civilizing Asia should begin. That was unsatisfactory, because
Asia is not going to be civilized after the methods of the West. There is too
much Asia, and she is too old. You cannot reform a lady of many lovers,
and Asia has been insatiable in her flirtations aforetime. She will never
attend Sunday school, or learn to vote save with swords for tickets.
Dirkovitch knew this as well as any one else, but it suited him to talk
special-correspondently and to make himself as genial as he could. Now
and then he volunteered a little, a very little, information about his own
Sotnia[8] of Cossacks, left apparently to look after themselves somewhere
at the back of beyond. He had done rough work in Central Asia, and had
seen rather more help-yourself fighting than most men of his years. But he
was careful never to betray his superiority, and more than careful to praise
on all occasions the appearance, drill, uniform, and organization of her
Majesty's White Hussars. And, indeed, they were a regiment to be admired.
When Mrs. Durgan, widow of the late Sir John Durgan, arrived in their
station, and after a short time had been proposed to by every single man at
mess, she put the public sentiment very neatly when she explained that they
were all so nice that unless she could marry them all, including the colonel
and some majors who were already married, she was not going to content
herself with one of them. Wherefore she wedded a little man in a rifle
regiment—being by nature contradictious—and the White Hussars were
going to wear crape on their arms, but compromised by attending the
wedding in full force, and lining the aisle with unutterable reproach. She
had jilted them all—from Basset-Holmer, the senior captain, to Little
Mildred, the last subaltern, and he could have given her four thousand a
year and a title. He was a viscount, and on his arrival the mess had said he
had better go into the Guards, because they were all sons of large grocers
and small clothiers in the Hussars, but Mildred begged very hard to be
allowed to stay, and behaved so prettily that he was forgiven, and became a
man, which is much more important than being any sort of viscount.
The only persons who did not share the general regard for the White
Hussars were a few thousand gentlemen of Jewish extraction who lived
across the border, and answered to the name of Pathan. They had only met
the regiment officially, and for something less than twenty minutes, but the
interview, which was complicated with many casualties, had filled them
with prejudice. They even called the White Hussars "children of the devil,"
and sons of persons whom it would be perfectly impossible to meet in
decent society. Yet they were not above making their aversion fill their
money belts. The regiment possessed carbines, beautiful Martini-Henri
carbines, that would cob a bullet into an enemy's camp at one thousand
yards, and were even handier than the long rifle. Therefore they were
coveted all along the border, and since demand inevitably breeds supply,
they were supplied at the risk of life and limb for exactly their weight in
coined silver—seven and one half pounds of rupees[9], or sixteen pounds
and a few shillings each, reckoning the rupee at par. They were stolen at
night by snaky-haired thieves that crawled on their stomachs under the nose
of the sentries; they disappeared mysteriously from armracks; and in the hot
weather, when all the doors and windows were open, they vanished like
puffs of their own smoke. The border people desired them first for their
own family vendettas[10] and then for contingencies. But in the long cold
nights of the Northern Indian winter they were stolen most extensively. The
traffic of murder was liveliest among the hills at that season, and prices
ruled high. The regimental guards were first doubled and then trebled. A
trooper does not much care if he loses a weapon—government must make it
good—but he deeply resents the loss of his sleep. The regiment grew very
angry, and one night-thief who managed to limp away bears the visible
marks of their anger upon him to this hour. That incident stopped the
burglaries for a time, and the guards were reduced accordingly, and the
regiment devoted itself to polo with unexpected results, for it beat by two
goals to one that very terrible polo corps the Lushkar Light Horse, though
the latter had four ponies apiece for a short hour's fight, as well as a native
officer who played like a lambent flame across the ground.
Then they gave a dinner to celebrate the event. The Lushkar team came,
and Dirkovitch came, in the fullest full uniform of Cossack officer, which is
as full as a dressing-gown, and was introduced to the Lushkars, and opened
his eyes as he regarded them. They were lighter men than the Hussars, and
they carried themselves with the swing that is the peculiar right of the
Punjab[11] frontier force and all irregular horse. Like everything else in the
service, it has to be learned; but unlike many things, it is never forgotten,
and remains on the body till death.
The great beam-roofed mess room of the White Hussars was a sight to be
remembered. All the mess plate was on the long table—the same table that
had served up the bodies of five dead officers in a forgotten fight long and
long ago—the dingy, battered standards faced the door of entrance, clumps
of winter roses lay between the silver candlesticks, the portraits of eminent
officers deceased looked down on their successors from between the heads
of sambhur[12], nilghai[13], maikhor, and, pride of all the mess, two
grinning snow-leopards that had cost Basset-Holmer four months' leave that
he might have spent in England instead of on the road to Thibet, and the
daily risk of his life on ledge, snowslide, and glassy grass slope.
The servants, in spotless white muslin and the crest of their regiments on
the brow of their turbans, waited behind their masters, who were clad in the
scarlet and gold of the White Hussars and the cream and silver of the
Lushkar Light Horse. Dirkovitch's dull green uniform was the only dark
spot at the board, but his big onyx eyes made up for it. He was fraternizing
effusively with the captain of the Lushkar team, who was wondering how
many of Dirkovitch's Cossacks his own long, lathy down-countrymen could
account for in a fair charge. But one does not speak of these things openly.
The talk rose higher and higher, and the regimental band played between
the courses, as is the immemorial custom, till all tongues ceased for a
moment with the removal of the dinner slips and the First Toast of
Obligation, when the colonel, rising, said, "Mr. Vice, the Queen," and Little
Mildred from the bottom of the table answered, "The Queen, God bless
her!" and the big spurs clanked as the big men heaved themselves up and
drank the Queen, upon whose pay they were falsely supposed to pay their
mess bills. That sacrament of the mess never grows old, and never ceases to
bring a lump into the throat of the listener wherever he be, by land or by
sea. Dirkovitch rose with his "brothers glorious," but he could not
understand. No one but an officer can understand what the toast means; and
the bulk have more sentiment than comprehension. It all comes to the same
in the end, as the enemy said when he was wriggling on a lance point.
Immediately after the little silence that follows on the ceremony there
entered the native officer who had played for the Lushkar team. He could
not of course eat with the alien, but he came in at dessert, all six feet of him,
with the blue-and-silver turban atop, and the big black top-boots below. The
mess rose joyously as he thrust forward the hilt of his saber, in token of
fealty, for the colonel of the White Hussars to touch, and dropped into a
vacant chair amid shouts of "Rung ho! Hira Singh!" (which being translated
means "Go in and win!"). "Did I whack you over the knee, old man?"
"Ressaidar Sahib, what the devil made you play that kicking pig of a pony
in the last ten minutes?" "Shabash, Ressaidar Sahib!" Then the voice of the
colonel, "The health of Ressaidar Hira Singh!"
After the shouting had died away, Hira Singh rose to reply, for he was the
cadet of a royal house, the son of a king's son, and knew what was due on
these occasions. Thus he spoke in the vernacular:—
"Colonel Sahib and officers of this regiment, much honor have you done
me. This will I remember. We came down from afar to play you; but we
were beaten." ("No fault of yours, Ressaidar Sahib. Played on our own
ground, y' know. Your ponies were cramped from the railway. Don't
apologize.") "Therefore perhaps we will come again if it be so ordained."
("Hear! Hear, hear, indeed! Bravo! Hsh!") "Then we will play you afresh"
("Happy to meet you"), "till there are left no feet upon our ponies. Thus far
for sport." He dropped one hand on his sword hilt and his eye wandered to
Dirkovitch lolling back in his chair. "But if by the will of God there arises
any other game which is not the polo game, then be assured, Colonel Sahib
and officers, that we shall play it out side by side, though they"—again his
eye sought Dirkovitch—"though they, I say, have fifty ponies to our one
horse." And with a deep-mouthed Rung ho! that rang like a musket butt on
flagstones, he sat down amid shoutings.
Dirkovitch, who had devoted himself steadily to the brandy—the terrible
brandy aforementioned—did not understand, nor did the expurgated[14]
translations offered to him at all convey the point. Decidedly the native
officer's was the speech of the evening, and the clamor might have
continued to the dawn had it not been broken by the noise of a shot without
that sent every man feeling at his defenseless left side. It is notable that
Dirkovitch "reached back," after the American fashion—a gesture that set
the captain of the Lushkar team wondering how Cossack officers were
armed at mess. Then there was a scuffle, and a yell of pain.
"Carbine stealing again!" said the adjutant, calmly sinking back in his
chair. "This comes of reducing the guards. I hope the sentries have killed
him."
The feet of armed men pounded on the veranda flags, and it sounded as
though something was being dragged.
"Why don't they put him in the cells till the morning?" said the colonel,
testily. "See if they've damaged him, sergeant."
The mess-sergeant fled out into the darkness, and returned with two
troopers and a corporal, all very much perplexed.
"Caught a man stealin' carbines, sir," said the corporal.
"Leastways 'e was crawling toward the barricks, sir, past the main-road
sentries; an' the sentry 'e says, sir—"
The limp heap of rags upheld by the three men groaned. Never was seen
so destitute and demoralized an Afghan. He was turbanless, shoeless, caked
with dirt, and all but dead with rough handling. Hira Singh started slightly
at the sound of the man's pain. Dirkovitch took another liqueur glass of
brandy.
 "What does the sentry say?" said the colonel.
"Sez he speaks English, sir," said the corporal.
"So you brought him into mess instead of handing him over to the
sergeant! If he spoke all the tongues of the Pentecost you've no business—"
Again the bundle groaned and muttered. Little Mildred had risen from his
place to inspect. He jumped back as though he had been shot.
"Perhaps it would be better, sir, to send the men away," said he to the
colonel, for he was a much-privileged subaltern. He put his arms round the
rag-bound horror as he spoke, and dropped him into a chair. It may not have
been explained that the littleness of Mildred lay in his being six feet four,
and big in proportion. The corporal, seeing that an officer was disposed to
look after the capture, and that the colonel's eye was beginning to blaze,
promptly removed himself and his men. The mess was left alone with the
carbine thief, who laid his head on the table and wept bitterly, hopelessly,
and inconsolably, as little children weep.
Hira Singh leaped to his feet with a long-drawn vernacular oath "Colonel
Sahib," said he, "that man is no Afghan, for they weep 'Ai! Ai!' Nor is he of
Hindustan, for they weep,'Oh! Ho!' He weeps after the fashion of the white
men, who say 'Ow! Ow!'"
"Now where the dickens did you get that knowledge, Hira Singh?" said
the captain of the Lushkar team.
"Hear him!" said Hira Singh, simply, pointing at the crumpled figure that
wept as though it would never cease.
"He said, 'My God!'" said Little Mildred, "I heard him say it."
The colonel and the mess room looked at the man in silence. It is a
horrible thing to hear a man cry. A woman can sob from the top of her
palate, or her lips, or anywhere else, but a man cries from his diaphragm,
and it rends him to pieces. Also, the exhibition causes the throat of the on-
looker to close at the top.
"Poor devil!" said the colonel, coughing tremendously, "We ought to send
him to hospital. He's been manhandled."
Now the adjutant loved his rifles. They were to him as his grandchildren
—the men standing in the first place. He grunted rebelliously: "I can
understand an Afghan stealing, because he's made that way. But I can't
understand his crying. That makes it worse."
 The brandy must have affected Dirkovitch, for he lay back in his chair
and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing special in the ceiling beyond a
shadow as of a huge black coffin. Owing to some peculiarity in the
construction of the mess room this shadow was always thrown when the
candles were lighted. It never disturbed the digestion of the White Hussars.
They were, in rather proud of it.
"Is he going to cry all night?" said the colonel, "or are we supposed to sit
up with Little Mildred's guest until he feels better?"
The man in the chair threw up his head and stared at the mess. Outside,
the wheels of the first of those bidden to the festivities crunched the
roadway.
"Oh, my God!" said the man in the chair, and every soul in the mess rose
to his feet. Then the Lushkar captain did a deed for which he ought to have
been given the Victoria Cross—distinguished gallantry in a fight against
overwhelming curiosity. He picked up his team with his eyes as the hostess
picks up the ladies at the opportune moment, and pausing only by the
colonel's chair to say, "This isn't our affair, you know, sir," led the team into
the veranda and the gardens. Hira Singh was the last, and he looked at
Dirkovitch as he moved. But Dirkovitch had departed into a brandy
paradise of his own. His lips moved without sound, and he was studying the
coffin on the ceiling.
"White—white all over," said Basset-Holmer, the adjutant. "What a
pernicious renegade[15] he must be! I wonder where he came from?"
The colonel shook the man gently by the arm, and "Who are you?" said
he.
There was no answer. The man stared round the mess room and smiled in
the colonel's face. Little Mildred, who was always more of a woman than a
man till "Boot and saddle" was sounded, repeated the question in a voice
that would have drawn confidences from a geyser. The man only smiled.
Dirkovitch, at the far end of the table, slid gently from his chair to the floor,
No son of Adam, in this present imperfect world, can mix the Hussars'
champagne with the Hussars' brandy by five and eight glasses of each
without remembering the pit whence he has been digged and descending
thither. The band began to play the tune with which the White Hussars,
from the date of their formation, preface all their functions. They would
sooner be disbanded than abandon that tune. It is a part of their system. The
man straightened himself in his chair and drummed on the table with his
fingers.
"I don't see why we should entertain lunatics," said the colonel; "call a
guard and send him off to the cells. We'll look into the business in the
morning. Give him a glass of wine first, though."
Little Mildred filled a sherry glass with the brandy and thrust it over to
the man. He drank, and the tune rose louder, and he straightened himself yet
more. Then he put out his long-taloned hands to a piece of plate opposite
and fingered it lovingly. There was a mystery connected with that piece of
plate in the shape of a spring, which converted what was a seven-branched
candlestick, three springs each side and one on the middle, into a sort of
wheel-spoke candelabrum[16]. He found the spring, pressed it, and laughed
weakly. He rose from his chair and inspected a picture on the wall, then
moved on to another picture, the mess watching him without a word.
When he came to the mantelpiece he shook his head and seemed
distressed. A piece of plate representing a mounted hussar in full uniform
caught his eye. He pointed to it, and then to the mantelpiece, with inquiry in
his eyes.
"What is it—oh, what is it?" said Little Mildred. Then, as a mother might
speak to a child, "That is a horse—yes, a horse."
Very slowly came the answer, in a thick, passionless guttural: "Yes, I—
have seen. But—where is the horse?"
You could have heard the hearts of the mess beating as the men drew
back to give the stranger full room in his wanderings. There was no
question of calling the guard.
Again he spoke, very slowly, "Where is our horse?"
There is no saying what happened after that. There is but one horse in the
White Hussars, and his portrait hangs outside the door of the mess room. He
is the piebald drum-horse the king of the regimental band, that served the
regiment for seven-and-thirty years, and in the end was shot for old age.
Half the mess tore the thing down from its place and thrust it into the man's
hands. He placed it above the mantelpiece; it clattered on the ledge, as his
poor hands dropped it, and he staggered toward the bottom of the table,
falling into Mildred's chair. The band began to play the "River of Years"
waltz, and the laughter from the gardens came into the tobacco-scented
mess room. But nobody, even the youngest, was thinking of waltzes. They
all spoke to one another something after this fashion: "The drum-horse
hasn't hung over the mantelpiece since '67." "How does he know?"
"Mildred, go and speak to him again." "Colonel, what are you going to do?"
"Oh, dry up, and give the poor devil a chance to pull himself together!" "It
isn't possible, anyhow. The man's a lunatic."
Little Mildred stood at the colonel's side talking into his ear. "Will you be
good enough to take your seats, please, gentlemen?" he said, and the mess
dropped into the chairs.
Only Dirkovitch's seat, next to Little Mildred's, was blank, and Little
Mildred himself had found Hira Singh's place. The wide-eyed mess
sergeant filled the glasses in dead silence. Once more the colonel rose, but
his hand shook, and the port spilled on the table as he looked straight at the
man in Little Mildred's chair and said, hoarsely, "Mr. Vice, the Queen."
There was a little pause, but the man sprang to his feet and answered,
without hesitation, "The Queen, God bless her!" and as he emptied the thin
glass he snapped the shank between his fingers.
Long and long ago, when the Empress of India was a young woman, and
there were no unclean ideals in the land, it was the custom in a few messes
to drink the Queen's toast in broken glass, to the huge delight of the mess
contractors. The custom is now dead, because there is nothing to break
anything for, except now and again the word of a government, and that has
been broken already.
"That settles it," said the colonel, with a gasp. "He's not a sergeant. What
in the world is he?"
The entire mess echoed the word, and the volley of questions would have
scared any man. Small wonder that the ragged, filthy invader could only
smile and shake his head.
From under the table, calm and smiling urbanely[17], rose Dirkovitch,
who had been roused from healthful slumber by feet upon his body. By the
side of the man he rose, and the man shrieked and groveled at his feet. It
was a horrible sight, coming so swiftly upon the pride and glory of the toast
that had brought the strayed wits together.
Dirkovitch made no offer to raise him, but Little Mildred heaved him up
in an instant. It is not good that a gentleman who can answer to the Queen's
toast should lie at the feet of a subaltern of Cossacks.
 The hasty action tore the wretch's upper clothing nearly to the waist, and
his body was seamed with dry black scars. There is only one weapon in the
world that cuts in parallel lines, and it is neither the cane nor the cat.
Dirkovitch saw the marks, and the pupils of his eyes dilated—also, his face
changed. He said something that sounded like "Shto ve takete"; and the
man, fawning, answered, "Chetyre."
"What's that?" said everybody together.
"His number. That is number four, you know." Dirkovitch spoke very
thickly.
"What has a Queen's officer to do with a qualified number?" said the
colonel, and there rose an unpleasant growl round the table.
"How can I tell?" said the affable Oriental, with a sweet smile. "He is a—
how you have it?—escape—runaway, from over there."
He nodded toward the darkness of the night.
"Speak to him, if he'll answer you, and speak to him gently," said Little
Mildred, settling the man in a chair. It seemed most improper to all present
that Dirkovitch. should sip brandy as he talked in purring, spitting Russian
to the creature who answered so feebly and with such evident dread. But
since Dirkovitch appeared to understand, no man said a word. They
breathed heavily, leaning forward, in the long gaps of the conversation. The
next time that they have no engagements on hand the White Hussars intend
to go to St. Petersburg and learn Russian.
"He does not know how many years ago," said Dirkovitch, facing the
mess, "but he says it was very long ago, in a war, I think that there was an
accident. He says he was of this glorious and distinguished regiment in the
war."
"The rolls! The rolls! Holmer, get the rolls!" said Little Mildred, and the
adjutant dashed off bareheaded to the orderly room where the rolls of the
regiment were kept. He returned just in time to hear Dirkovitch conclude,
"Therefore I am most sorry to say there was an accident, which would have
been, reparable if he had apologized to our colonel, whom he had insulted."
Another growl, which the colonel tried to beat down. The mess was in no
mood to weigh insults to Russian colonels just then.
"He does not remember, but I think that there was an accident, and so he
was not exchanged among the prisoners, but he was sent to another place—
how do you say?—the country. So, he says, he came here. He does not
know how he came. Eh? He was at Chepany[18]"—the man caught the
word, nodded, and shivered—"at Zhigansk[19] and Irkutsk[20]. I cannot
understand how he escaped. He says, too, that he was in the forests for
many years, but how many years he has forgotten—that with many things.
It was an accident; done because he did not apologise to our colonel. Ah!"
Instead of echoing Dirkovitch's sigh of regret, it is sad to record that the
White Hussars livelily exhibited unchristian delight and other emotions,
hardly restrained by their sense of hospitality. Holmer flung the frayed and
yellow regimental rolls on the table, and the men flung themselves atop of
these.
"Steady! Fifty-six—fifty-five—fifty-four," said Holmer. "Here we are.
'Lieutenant Austin Limmason—missing.' That was before Sebastopol[21].
What an infernal shame! Insulted one of their colonels, and was quietly
shipped off. Thirty years of his life wiped out."
"But he never apologized. Said he'd see him——first," chorussed the
mess.
"Poor devil! I suppose he never had the chance afterward. How did he
come here?" said the colonel.
The dingy heap in the chair could give no answer.
"Do you know who you are?"
It laughed weakly.
"Do you know that you are Limmason—Lieutenant Limmason, of the
White Hussars?"
Swift as a shot came the answer, in a slightly surprised tone, "Yes, I'm
Limmason, of course." The light died out in his eyes, and he collapsed
afresh, watching every motion of Dirkovitch with terror. A flight from
Siberia may fix a few elementary facts in the mind, but it does not lead to
continuity of thought. The man could not explain how, like a homing
pigeon, he had found his way to his own old mess again. Of what he had
suffered or seen he knew nothing. He cringed before Dirkovitch as
instinctively as he had pressed the spring of the candlestick, sought the
picture of the drum-horse, and answered to the Queen's toast. The rest was a
blank that the dreaded Russian tongue could only in part remove. His head
bowed on his breast, and he giggled and cowered alternately.
 The devil that lived in the brandy prompted Dirkovitch at this extremely
inopportune moment to make a speech. He rose, swaying slightly, gripped
the table edge, while his eyes glowed like opals, and began:—"Fellow-
soldiers glorious—true friends and hospitables. It was an accident, and
deplorable—most deplorable." Here he smiled sweetly all round the mess.
"But you will think of this little, little thing. So little, is it not? The czar!
Posh! I slap my fingers—I snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him?
No! But the Slav who has done nothing, him I believe. Seventy—how
much?—millions that have done nothing—not one thing. Napoleon was an
episode." He banged a hand on the table. "Hear you, old peoples, we have
done nothing in the world—out here. All our work is to do: and it shall be
done, old peoples. Get away!" He waved his hand imperiously, and pointed
to the man. "You see him. He is not good to see. He was just one little—oh,
so little—accident, that no one remembered. Now he is That. So will you
be, brother-soldiers so brave—so will you be. But you will never come
back. You will all go where he has gone, or"—he pointed to the great coffin
shadow on the ceiling, and muttering, "Seventy millions—get away, you old
people," fell asleep.
"Sweet, and to the point," said Little Mildred. "What's the use of getting
wroth? Let's make the poor devil comfortable."
But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands
of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again
three days later, when the wail of the "Dead March" and the tramp of the
squadrons told the wondering station, that saw no gap in the table, an
officer of the regiment had resigned his new-found commission.
And Dirkovitch—bland, supple, and always genial—went away too by a
night train. Little Mildred and another saw him off, for he was the guest of
the mess, and even had he smitten the colonel with the open hand the law of
the mess allowed no relaxation of hospitality.
"Good-by, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey," said Little Mildred.
"Au revoir[22] my true friends," said the Russian.
"Indeed! But we thought you were going home?"
"Yes; but I will come again. My friends, is that road shut?" He pointed to
where the north star burned over the Khyber Pass.
 "By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old man, any time you
like. Got everything you want,—cheroots, ice, bedding? That's all right.
Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch."
"Um," said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train grew small. "Of—
all—the—unmitigated[23]—"
Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the north star, and hummed
a selection from a recent burlesque that had much delighted the White
Hussars. It ran:—
"I'm sorry for Mister Bluebeard,
I'm sorry to cause him pain;
But a terrible spree there's sure to be
When he comes back again."
NOTES
[1] The Man Who Was was written in 1889.
[2] 46:6 anomaly. Deviation from type.
[3] 47:1 Hussars. Light-horse troopers armed with sabre and carbine.
[4] 47:1 Peshawur. City in British India.
[5] 47:7 Tyrones. From a county in Ireland by this name.
[6] 47:26 Burmah. In southeastern Asia. Part of the British Empire.
[7] 47:27 Irrawaddy. Chief river of Burma.
[8] 48:27 Sotnia. Company of the Cossacks.
[9] 50:14 rupee. Indian coin worth about forty-eight cents.
[10] 50:21 vendettas. Private blood-feuds.
[11] 51:14 Punjab. Country of five rivers, tributaries of the Indus.
[12] 81:26 Sambhur. A rusine deer found in India.
[13] 51:26 nilghai. Antelope with hind legs shorter than its fore-legs.
[14] 54:9 expurgated. Purified.
[15] 57:23 renegade. One who deserts his faith.
[16] 58:26 candelabrum. Stand supporting several lamps.
[17] 61:3 urbanely. Politely.
[18] 63:2 Chepany. Town in Siberia.
 [19] 63:4 Zhigansk. Town in Siberia.
[20] 63:4 Irkutsk. Province and city in Siberia.
[21] 63:17 Sebastopol. Seaport in Russia.
[22] 65:26 Au revoir. Till we meet again.
[23] 66:6 unmitigated. As bad as can be.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Essays on Modern Novelists, William Lyon Phelps.
A Kipling Primer, Knowles.
Rudyard Kipling, Richard Le Galliene.
"Kipling to French Eyes," Bookman, 26: 584.
"Life of Kipling," _Encyclopaedia Britannica.
"Life of Kipling," The Universal Encyclopedia.

BIOGRAPHY
Rudyard Kipling, the most vigorous, versatile, and highly endowed of the
present-day writers of fiction, was born in Bombay, India, December 30,
1865. His place of birth and extensive travelling make him more Anglo-
Saxon than British. His father was for many years connected with the
schools of art at Bombay and Lahore in India. His mother, Alice
MacDonald, was the daughter of a Methodist clergyman.
Kipling was brought to England when he was five years old to be
educated. While in college at Westward Ho he edited the College Chronicle.
For this paper he contributed regularly, poetry and stories. After his school
days and on his return to India, he served on the editorial staff of the Lahore
Civil and Military Gazette from 1882 to 1887, and was assistant editor of
the Pioneer at Allahabad from 1887 to 1889.
Kipling has travelled extensively. He is at home in India, China, Japan,
Africa, Australia, England, and America. The odd part about his realistic
observations, however, is that his notes, whether written about California or
India, are often repudiated by the people whom he has visited. After visiting
England and the United States in a vain effort to find a publisher for his
writings, he returned to India and published in the Pioneer his American
Notes, which were immediately reproduced in book form in New York in
1891.
He married Miss Balestier of New York in 1892. They settled at
Brattleboro, Vermont, immediately after their marriage and lived there until
1896. Kipling revisited the United States in 1899. While on this trip he
suffered a severe attack of pneumonia which brought out a demonstration of
interest from the American people that clearly showed their appreciation of
him as a man and a writer.
CRITICISMS
Kipling is journalistic in all his writings. Oftentimes his material is very
thin, flippant, and sensational, but he always is interesting, for he possesses
the expert reporter's unerring judgment for choosing the essentials of his
situation, character, or description, that catch and hold the reader's attention.
In his earlier writings, like Plain Tales from the Hills or The Jungle Books,
the radical racial differences between his characters and readers, and the
background of primitive, mysterious India caught the reading world and
instantly established Kipling's fame.
His technique is brilliant, his wit keen, and his energy of the bold and
dashing military type. This audacious energy leads him very often into
sprawling situations, a worship of imperialism, and reckless statements
concerning moral and spiritual laws. Unlike Bret Harte, who was in many
respects one of Kipling's ideals, he leaves his bad and coarse characters
disreputable to the end. This is due in a large measure to the lack of warmth
and light in his writings. In contradiction to this type of his works his
William the Conqueror and An Habitation Enforced are filled with a gentle-
human sympathy that causes us to forget and forgive any vulgarity he may
have used in his more primitive and coarse characters. Even Kipling
partisans must sometimes wish that Kipling's vision were not so dimmed by
the British flag and that he might forget for a time the British soldier he
loves so ardently.
His writings since 1899 are much more mechanical than his earlier
works. He seems, at times, to resort to the orator's superficial tricks in his
attempts to attract readers. The Athenaeum, a friendly organ, says of his
later work: "In his new part—the missionary of Empire—Mr. Kipling is
living the strenuous life. He has frankly abandoned story telling, and is
using his complete and powerful armory in the interests of patriotic zeal."
Whatever may be the final judgment of the world concerning Kipling's
claim to literary genius, the young student may rest assured that there is no
one in England who can compare with this strenuous and versatile writer.
He is original and powerful, interesting and realistic. He is a lover of the
men who earn their bread by the sweat of their faces and a despiser of
"flannelled fools." He lacks the day-dreams of Stevenson and preaches from
every housetop the gospel of virile, acting morality. Many of his readers
have criticised adversely his spiritual teachings, because of the furious
energy with which he denounces an apathetic religion and eulogizes the
person who works with all his might, day after day, for the highest he
knows and never fears the day of death and judgment.
GENERAL REFERENCES
The Book of the Short Story, Alexander Jessup.
The Short Story in English, Henry Seidel Canby.
Bibliography of Kipling's Works, Eugene P, Saxton.
"Contradictory Elements in Rudyard Kipling," Current Literature, 44:
274.
"Where Kipling Stands," Bookman, 29: 120-122.
"Are there two Kiplings?" Cosmopolitan, 31: 653-660.
"Literary Style of Kipling," Lippincott, 73: 99-103.

COLLATERAL READINGS
The Man Who Would be King, Rudyard Kipling.
William the Conqueror, Rudyard Kipling.
Phantom Rickshaw, Rudyard Kipling.
The Finest Story in the World, Rudyard Kipling.
Under the Deodars, Rudyard Kipling.
An Habitation Enforced, Rudyard Kipling.
Plain Tales from the Hills, Rudyard Kipling.
The Light that Failed, Rudyard Kipling.
Wee Willie Winkie, Rudyard Kipling.
Baa Baa Black Sheep, Rudyard Kipling.
Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling.
The Jungle Books, Rudyard Kipling.
They, Rudyard Kipling.
The Brushwood Boy, Rudyard Kipling.
Christ in Flanders, Honoré de Balzac.
The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock, Thomas Nelson Page.
A New England Nun, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
Outcasts of Poker Flat, Bret Harte.
The Siege of Berlin, Alphonse Dadoed.
The Prisoner of Assiout, Grant Allen.
A Terribly Strange Bed, Wilkie Collins.
The Prisoners, Guy de Maupassant.
Mr. Isaacs, F. Marion Crawford.
Where Love Is, There God Is Also, Leo Tolstoi.
 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER [1]

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Son coeur est un luth suspendu;

Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.
—De Béranger.[2]
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the
year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been
passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country;
and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within
view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was; but, with
the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my
spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-
pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually
receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked
upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like
windows—a few rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed
trees—with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly
sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium
—the bitter lapse into every-day life—the hideous dropping off of the veil.
There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture
into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to think—what was it that
so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a
mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that
crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the
unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations
of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us,
still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth.
It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the
particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and,
acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black
and lurid tarn[3] that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed
down—but with a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the
remodelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree
stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a
sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my
boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last
meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the
country—a letter from him—which, in its wildly importunate nature, had
admitted of no other than a personal reply. The Ms. gave evidence of
nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness, of a mental
disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his
best, and indeed his only, personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the
cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the
manner in which all this, and much more, was said—it was the apparent
heart that went with his request—which allowed me no room for hesitation;
and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular
summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really
knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and
habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted,
time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying
itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of
late, in repeated deeds of munificent, yet unobtrusive, charity, as well as in
a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the
orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had
learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all
time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in
other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had
always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this
deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping
of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people,
and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the
long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other—it was this
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating
transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had,
at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in
the quaint and equivocal appellation of the House of Usher—an appellation
which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both
the family and the family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment of
looking down within the tarn had been to deepen the first singular
impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid
increase of my superstition—for why should I not so term it?—served
mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the
paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have
been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house
itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy—a
fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of
the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination
as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity—an
atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had
reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn—a
pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-
hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more
narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be
that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great.
Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine, tangled web-
work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary
dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be
a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the
crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that
reminded me of the specious totality of old woodwork which has rotted for
years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the
external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric
gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer
might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from
the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A
servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the
hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through
many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master.
Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to
heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the
objects around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries
of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric
armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to
such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated
not to acknowledge how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how
unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one
of the staircases I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I
thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He
accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a
door and ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows
were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black
oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of
encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to
render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye,
however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or
the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the
walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered.
Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give
any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An
air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying
at full length, and greeted me with, a vivacious warmth which had much in
it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality—of the constrained effort of
the ennuyé[4] man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance
convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments,
while he spoke not. I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of
awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as
had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to
admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my
early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times
remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and
luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a
breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin,
speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a
more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate
expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a
countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration
of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were
wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The
now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye,
above all things startled, and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been
suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it
floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect
its arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence—an
inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and
futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive nervous
agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less
by his letter than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by
conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and
temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice
varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed
utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision—that abrupt,
weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation—that leaden, self-
balanced, and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be
observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during
the periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to
see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some
length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he
said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to
find a remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which
would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural
sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered
me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration
had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses.
The most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of
certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were
tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these
from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden[5] slave. "I
shall perish," said he, "I must perish, in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and
not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in
themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the
most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of
soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect—
in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I feel that the period
will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in
some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints,
another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by
certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he
tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth—in
regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms
too shadowy here to be restated—an influence which some peculiarities in
the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long
sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the physique
of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked
down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar
gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far
more palpable origin—to the severe and long-continued illness—indeed to
the evidently approaching dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister, his sole
companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease,"
he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him (him
the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers." While
he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a
remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence,
disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with
dread[6]; and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A
sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps.
When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in his
hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had
overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate
tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her
physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and
frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character,
were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the
pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but on
the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as
her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating
power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her
person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at
least while living, would be seen by me no more.
For several days ensuing her name was unmentioned by either Usher or
myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate
the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as
if in a dream, to the wild improvisations[7] of his speaking guitar. And thus,
as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the
recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all
attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive
quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in
one unceasing radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus
spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any
attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the
occupations in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and
highly distempered ideality threw a sulphurous luster over all. His long,
improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold
painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild
air of the last waltz of von Weber[8]. From the paintings over which his
elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses
at which I shuddered the more thrillingly because I shuddered knowing not
why,—from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before, me) I
would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie
within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the
nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal
painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me, at least, in the
circumstances then surrounding me, there arose out of the pure abstractions
which the hypochondriac contrived to throw, upon his canvas, an intensity
of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation
of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.[9]
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so
rigidly of the spirit of abstraction may be shadowed forth, although feebly,
in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and
rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without
interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to
convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the
surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast
extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a
flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly
and inappropriate splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which
rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain
effects of stringed, instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which
he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great
measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But the fervid
facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have
been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias
(for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rimed verbal
improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and
concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in
particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of
these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more
forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic
current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a
full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason
upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled "The Haunted Palace,"
[10] ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:—
 I
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace—
Radiant palace—reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion—
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.

II
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This—all this—was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A wingèd odor went away.

III
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)[11]
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
 A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!);
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI
And travelers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh—but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a
train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher's which
I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other men[12] have
thought thus) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it.
This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable
things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of
inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent or the earnest
abandon of his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have
previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The
conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the
method of collocation of these stones—in the order of their arrangement, as
well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed
trees which stood around—above all, in the long-undisturbed endurance of
this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its
evidence—the evidence of the sentience—was to be seen, he said (and I
here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain condensation of an
atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was
discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence
which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family, and which made
him what I now saw him—what he was. Such opinions need no comment,
and I will make none.
Our books—the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of
the mental existence of the invalid—were, as might be supposed, in strict
keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such
works as the Ververt et Chartreuse[13] of Gresset; the Belphegor[14] of
Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell[15] of Swedenborg; the Subterranean
Voyage of Nicholas Klimm[16] by Holberg; the Chiromancy[17] of Robert
Flud, of Jean D'lndaginé, and of De la Chambre[18]; the Journey into the
Blue Distance of Tieck[19]; and the City of the Sun[20] of Campanella. One
favorite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium
Inquisitorium[21] by the Dominican Eymeric de Cironne; and there were
passages in Pomponius Mela,[22] about the old African Satyrs and
Oegipans,[23] over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief
delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten church—the
Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.[24]
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its
probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having
informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his
intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its final
interment) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the
building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular
proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother
had been led to his resolution, so he told me, by consideration of the
unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and
eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and
exposed situation of the burial ground of the family, I will not deny that
when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met
upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to
oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an
unnatural precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for
the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two
alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had
been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive
atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp,
and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth,
immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own
sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for
the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and in later days, as a place of deposit
for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its
floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it,
were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been
also similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp
grating sound as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of
horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and
looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the
brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining,
perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned
that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a
scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances,
however, rested not long upon the dead—for we could not regard her
unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of
youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character,
the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We
replaced and screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron,
made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the
upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change
came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary
manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or
forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and
objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a
more ghastly line—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out.
The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a
tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his
utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly
agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which
he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to
resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness; for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest
attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his
condition terrified—that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet
certain degrees, the wild influence of his own fantastic yet impressive
superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or
eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I
experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch,
while the hours waned and waned away, I struggled to reason off the
nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that
much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the
gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattered draperies, which,
tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and
fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed.
But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded
my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly
causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted
myself upon the pillows, and peering earnestly within the intense darkness
of the chamber, hearkened—I know not why, except that an instinctive
spirit prompted me—to certain low and indefinite sounds which came,
through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence.
Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet
unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep
no more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the
pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro
through the apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of
Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door,
and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously
wan—but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—and
evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—
but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured,
and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.
"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having stared about
him for some moments in silence—"you have not then seen it?—but stay!
you shall." Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried
to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It
was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly
singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its
force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the
direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung
so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our
perceiving the lifelike velocity with which they flew careering from all
points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that
even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this—yet we
had no glimpse of the moon or stars—nor was there any flashing forth of
the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor,
as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the
unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous
exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not—you shall not behold this!" said I, shudderingly, to
Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat.
"These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena
not uncommon—or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank
miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement—the air is chilling and
dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read
and you shall listen; and so we will pass away this terrible night together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the Mad Trist of Sir
Launcelot Canning[25]; but I had called it a favorite of Usher's more in sad
jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and
unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and
spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately
at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now
agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly
which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild, overstrained
air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently hearkened, to the
words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success
of my design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the
hero of the "Trist," having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the
dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here,
it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:—
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now
mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had
drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth,
was of an obstinate and maliceful turn; but, feeling the rain upon his
shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright,
and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his
gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding
wood alarummed[26] and reverberated throughout the forest."
At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused;
for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy
had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion
of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears what might have been,
in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one
certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had
so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone
which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the
casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing
storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested
or disturbed, me. I continued the story:—
"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore
enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in
the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, and of a
fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of
silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this
legend enwritten:—
 Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath been;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win.
"And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon,
which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid
and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain[27] to close his
ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was
never before heard."
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement
—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually
hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to
say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual
screaming or grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had
already conjured up for the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the
romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and
most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in
which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained
sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the
sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he
had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration
had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a
position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to
sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially
perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were
murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast—yet I knew
that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I
caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance
with this idea—for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant
and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the
narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:—
"And now the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the
dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of
the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the
way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the
castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for
his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a
mighty, great and terrible ringing sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as if a shield of
brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver—I
became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic and clangorous, yet apparently
muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the
measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the
chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and
throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I
placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his
whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he
spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my
presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import
of his words.
"Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—
many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—
oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak!
We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I
now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I
heard them—many, many days ago—yet I dared not—I dared not speak!
And now—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—-the breaking of the hermit's
door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield!—say,
rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her
prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh,
whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to
upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I
not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!"—
here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in
the effort he were giving up his soul—"Madman! I tell you that she now
stands without the door!"
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the
potency of a spell—the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed
threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was
the work of the rushing gust—but then without those doors there did stand
the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was
blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon
every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained
trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold—then, with a low,
moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her
violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a
victim to the terrors he had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was
still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway.
Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence
a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows
were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-
red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible
fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the
building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure
rapidly widened—there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire
orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw
the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous shouting
sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep and dank tarn at
my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of
Usher."
NOTES
[1] The Fall of the House of Usher was written in 1839 and published at
the end of the same year in his Tales of the Grotesque and of the Arabesque.
[2] 70: Motto de Béranger. Popular French lyric poet (1780-1857). "His
heart is a suspended lute; as soon as it is touched it resounds."
[3] 71:23 tarn. A small mountain lake.
[4] 76:7 ennuyé. Mentally wearied or bored.
[5] 78:11 bounden. An archaic word.
[6] 79:19 Dread. Reading of the first edition, "Her figure, her air, her
features,—all, in their very minutest development, were those—were
identically (I can use no other sufficient term), were identically those of the
Roderick Usher who sat beside me. A feeling of stupor," etc.
[7] 80:16 Improvisations. Extemporaneous composition of poetry or
music.
[8] 81:4 von Weber. The celebrated German composer (1786-1826).
 [9] 81:20 Fuseli. An artist and professor of painting at the Royal
Academy in London (1741-1825).
[10] 82:24 "The Haunted Palace." First published in the Baltimore
Museum for April, 1839.
[11] 83:18 Porphyrogene. Of royal birth.
[12] 84:16 for other men. Watson, Dr. Percival, and especially the Bishop
of Llandaff. See "Chemical Essays," Vol. V.
[13] 85:16 Ververt et Chartreuse. Two poems by Jean Baptiste Cresset
(1709-1777).
[Footenote 14] 85:17 Belphegor. Satire on Marriage by Machiavelli
(1469-1527).
[15] 85:17 Heaven and Hell. Extracts from "Arcana Coelestia" by
Swedenborg (1688-1772).
[16] 85:18 Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm. A celebrated poem
by Ludwig Holberg (1684-1754).
[17] 85:19 Chiromancy. Palmistry applied to the future. Poe refers rather
to physiognomy. The book was written by the English mystic, Robert Fludd
(1574-1637).
[18] 85:19 Jean d'Indaginé and De la Chambre. Two continental writers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively.
[19] 85:21 Tieck. A great German romanticist (1773-1853).
[20] 85:21 City of the Sun. A sketch of an ideal state by Campanella
(1568-1639).
[21] 85:23 Directorium Inquisitorium. A detailed account of the methods
of the Inquisition by Cironne, inquisitor-general for Castile, in 1356.
[22] 85:24 Pomponius Mela. Spanish geographer in the first century A.D.
Author of "De Chorographia," the earliest extant account of the geography
of the ancient world.
[23] 85:25 Oegipans. An epithet applied to Pan.
[24] 85:30 Vigiliae Mortuorum. No such book is known.
[25] 90:30 Mad Trist. No such book is known.
[26] 91:29 alarummed. Alarmed.
[27] 92:25 had fain. In the sense of was glad.
 BIOGRAPHY
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. His parents, who
were actors, died before their son was three years old. Mr. Allan, a wealthy
Richmond merchant, adopted the child and gave him a splendid home. How
scantily Poe appreciated and improved the advantages of this kindness he
himself confesses in a letter to Lowell in 1844. "I have been too deeply
conscious of the mutability and evanescence of temporal things to give any
continuous effort to anything—to be consistent in anything. My life has
been whim—impulse—passion—a longing for solitude—a scorn of all
things present in an earnest desire for the future." He was a dreamer who
had a fair chance to be happy, but he flung the opportunity away. He was a
spoiled child who remained ignorant of life even unto his death.
He entered the University of Virginia in 1826, where his conduct was so
bad that he was, after a year, removed from the college. This action broke
the strong friendship Mr. Allan had long held for his adopted son. Poe,
urged by a hot temper or possibly by a remorse for his actions, ran away
and enlisted in the regular army. In 1829 Mr. Allan became partially
reconciled with Poe, and again came to his assistance. In 1830 Poe entered
West Point, but was there only a short time when he was dismissed for
wilful neglect of duty.
Following this dismissal Poe went to Baltimore, where he did hack work
for newspapers. This was the beginning of a process of writing that has
brought him high rank and an imperishable honor. His narrative is clear,
compressed, and powerful, and throughout his writings choice symbols
abound. He was fond of themes of death, insanity, and terror. The wonder of
it all is that this struggling, poverty-stricken craftsman, irregular in his
habits of living, using only negative life and shadowy abstractions, should,
from out his disordered fancies, weave stories and poems of such undying
beauty and force.
Poe married his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. Her health was
always delicate and her death confirmed Poe's tendency toward dissipation.
His life was filled with dire poverty and a hard struggle for a livelihood. His
home relations were happy. The last years of his life were spent at Fordham,
a suburb of New York. He died in a Baltimore hospital, October 7, 1849.

BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
 Introduction to American Literature, Brander Matthews.
Studies in American Literature, Charles Noble.
Introduction to American Literature, F.V.N. Painter.
Life of Poe, Richard Henry Stoddard.
Edgar Allan Poe, G.E. Woodberry.
Makers of English Fiction, W.J. Dawson.
"Art of Poe, Independent, 66: 157-8. January 21, 1909.
"Dual Personality," Current Literature, 43: 287-8.

CRITICISMS
Some critics have maintained that Poe is our only original genius in
American Literature. Lowell wrote in his Fable for Critics:—
"There comes Poe with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of
him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge."
Whatever judgments the various critics may give of Poe and his writings,
they must all agree that he is original. He is a clever writer in a limited
field. His writings have a glow and burnish that have their origin in his
fondness for sensations, color, and vividness of details. He loves mystery
and terror,—not the fancies and fears of a child, but overwrought nerves.
His material is unreal, and remote from ordinary life. His characters are
abnormal, and the world they live in is exceptional. He is inventive, original
in arranging his material, and shallow but keen in his thinking.
He believed that art and life have little in common, and in his writings
seemed to be unmoved by friendship, loyalty, patriotism, courage, self-
sacrifice or any of the great positive attributes of life that make living worth
while. His writings lack the human touch, tenderness, and the buoyancy of
sympathy. He is an artist who does his work with a clear-cut, hard finish.
His choice of words, vivid pictures, and clearly evolved plots make his
writings excellent studies for any one who wishes to develop literary
appreciation and to learn to write.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Studies and Appreciations, L.E. Gates.
American Prose Masters, William Crary Brownwell.
The Short Story in English, Henry Seidel Canby.
Edgar Poe, R.H. Button.
Inquiries and Opinions, Brander Matthews.
"Life of Edgar Allan Poe," Nation, 89: 100-110.
"Weird Genius," Cosmopolitan, 46:243-252.

COLLATERAL READINGS
Ligeia, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Assignation, Edgar Allan Poe.
Ms. Pound in Bottle, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe.
Berenice, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe.
The White Old Maid, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Moonlight ("Odd Number"), Guy de Maupassant.
A Journey, Edith Wharton.
The Brushwood Boy, Rudyard Kipling.
At the Pit's Mouth, Rudyard Kipling.
 THE GOLD-BUG[1]

By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!

He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
—All in the Wrong.[2]
Many years ago I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William Legrand. He
was of an ancient Huguenot[3] family, and had once been wealthy; but a
series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To avoid the mortification
consequent upon his disasters, he left New Orleans, the city of his
forefathers, and took up his residence at Sullivan's Island, near Charleston,
South Carolina.
This island is a very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea
sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter
of a mile. It is separated from the mainland by a scarcely perceptible creek,
oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of
the marsh-hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least
dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the western
extremity, where Fort Moultrie[4] stands, and where are some miserable
frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston
dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole
island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard, white
beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet
myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The shrub here
often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost
impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its fragrance.
In the utmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern or more
remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small hut, which he
occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his acquaintance. This soon
ripened into friendship, for there was much in the recluse to excite interest
and esteem. I found him well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but
infected with misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate
enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely
employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or
sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or
entomological specimens—his collection of the latter might have been
envied by a Swammerdam.[5] In these excursions he was usually
accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted[6]
before the reverses of the family, but who could be induced, neither by
threats nor by promises, to abandon what he considered his right of
attendance upon the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not
improbable that the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat
unsettled in intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with
a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.
The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very severe,
and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a fire is considered
necessary. About the middle of October, 18—, there occurred, however, a
day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset I scrambled my way
through the evergreens to the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for
several weeks—my residence being at that time in Charleston, a distance of
nine miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and re-passage
were very far behind those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I
rapped, as was my custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I
knew it was secreted, unlocked the door, and went in. A fine fire was
blazing upon the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful
one. I threw off an over-coat, took an armchair by the crackling logs, and
awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts.
Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome.
Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some marsh-hens
for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else shall I term them?—of
enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve, forming a new genus, and,
more than this, he had hunted down and secured, with Jupiter's assistance, a
scarabaeus[7] which he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which
he wished to have my opinion on the morrow.
"And why not to-night?" I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze, and
wishing the whole tribe of scarabaei at the devil.
 "Ah, if I had only known you were here!" said Legrand, "but it's so long
since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay me a visit this
very night of all others? As I was coming home I met Lieutenant G——,
from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the bug; so it will be impossible
for you to see it until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup
down for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!"
"What!—sunrise?"
"Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the size of
a large hickory-nut—with two jet-black spots near one extremity of the
back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other. The antennae[8] are—"
"Dey ain't no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin' on you," here
interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goolebug, solid, ebery bit of him, inside and
all, 'sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby a bug in my life."
"Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more earnestly, it
seemed to me, than the case demanded; "is that any reason for your letting
the birds burn? The color"—here he turned to me—"is really almost enough
to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than
the scales emit—but of this you cannot judge till to-morrow. In the
meantime I can give you some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated
himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He
looked for some in a drawer, but found none.
"Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer;" and he drew from his
waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty foolscap, and made
upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he did this I retained my seat
by the fire, for I was still chilly. When the design was complete, he handed
it to me without rising. As I received, it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded
by a scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland,
belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me
with caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits.
When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth,
found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.
"Well!" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, "this is a strange
scarabaeus, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything like it before—
unless it was a skull, or a death's-head—which, it more nearly resembles
than, anything else that has come under my observation."
 "A death's-head!" echoed Legrand. "Oh—yes—well, it has something of
that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black spots look like
eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a mouth—and then the shape
of the whole is oval."
"Perhaps so," said I; "but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I must wait
until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of its personal
appearance."
"Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw tolerably—should
do it at least—have had good masters, and flatter myself that I am not quite
a blockhead."
"But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I; "this is a very passable
skull—indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent skull, according to the
vulgar notions about such specimens of physiology—and your scarabaeus
must be the queerest scarabaeus in the world if it resembles it. Why, we
may get up a very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume, you
will call the bug scarabaeus caput hominis,[9] or something of that kind—
there are many similar titles in the natural histories. But where are the
antennae you spoke of?"
"The antennae!" said Legrand, who seemed to be getting unaccountably
warm upon the subject; "I am sure you must see the antennae. I made them
as distinct as they are in the original insect, and I presume that is sufficient."
"Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have—still I don't see them;" and I
handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing to ruffle his
temper; but I was much surprised at the turn affairs had taken; his ill-humor
puzzled me—and, as for the drawing of the beetle, there were positively no
antennae visible, and the whole did bear a very close resemblance to the
ordinary cuts of a death's-head.
He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple it,
apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the design seemed
suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face grew violently red—in
another as excessively pale. For some minutes he continued to scrutinize
the drawing minutely where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from
the table, and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest
corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of the
paper, turning it in all directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct
greatly astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the
growing moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from,
his coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both
in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his
demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite disappeared. Yet he
seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the evening wore away he
became more and more absorbed in reverie, from which no sallies of mine
could arouse him. It had been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I
had frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it
proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he
shook my hand with even more than his usual cordiality.
It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had seen nothing
of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from his man Jupiter. I
had never seen the good old negro look so dispirited, and I feared that some
serious disaster had befallen my friend.
"Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now?—how is your master?"
"Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought be."
"Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain of?"
"Dar! dat's it!—him nebber 'plain of notin'—but him berry sick for all
dat."
"Very sick, Jupiter!—why didn't you say so at once? Is he confined to
bed?"
"No, dat he ain't!—he ain't 'find nowhar—dat's just whar de shoe pinch—
my mind is got to be berry hebby 'bout poor Massa Will."
"Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking about. You
say your master is sick. Hasn't he told you what ails him?"
"Why, massa, 'tain't worf while for to git mad 'bout de matter—Massa
Will say noffin' at all ain't de matter wid him—but den what make him go
about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he soldiers up, and as
white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de time—"
"Keeps a what, Jupiter?"
"Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate—de queerest figgurs I ebber
did see. Ise gittin' to be skeered I tell you. Hab for to keep mighty tight eye
pon him noovers.[10] Todder day he gib me slip fore de sun up, and was
gone de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick ready cut for to gib him d
——d good beating when he did come—but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de
heart after all—he look so berry poorly."
"Eh?—what? Ah, yes!—upon the whole, I think you had better not be too
severe with the poor fellow—don't flog him, Jupiter, he can't very well
stand it—but can you form an idea of what has occasioned this illness, or
rather this change of conduct? Has anything unpleasant happened since I
saw you?"
"No, massa, dey ain't bin noffin' onpleasant since den—'twas 'fore den,
I'm feared—'twas de berry day you was dare."'
"How? what do you mean?"
"Why, massa, I mean de bug—dare now."
"The what?"
"De bug—I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere 'bout de
head by dat goole-bug."
"And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?"
"Claws enuff, massa, and mouff, too. I nebber did see sich a d——d bug
—he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa Will cotch him
fuss, but had for to let him go 'gin mighty quick, I tell you—den was de
time he must ha' got de bite. I didn't like de look ob de bug mouff, myself,
nohow, so I wouldn't take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a
piece ob paper dat I found. I wrap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it in
he mouff—dat was de way."
"And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by the beetle,
and that the bite made him sick?" "I don't t'ink noffin' 'bout it—I nose it.
What make him dream 'bout de goole so much, if 'tain't cause he bit by de
goole-bug? Ise heerd 'bout dem goole-bugs 'fore dis."
"But how do you know he dreams about gold?"
"How I know? why, 'cause he talk about it in he sleep—dat's how I nose."
"Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate circumstances am
I to attribute the honor of a visit from you to-day?"
"What de matter, massa?"
"Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?"
"No, massa, I bring dis here 'pissel;" and here Jupiter handed me a note,
which ran thus:
 My dear ———:
Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you have not been so
foolish as to take offence at any little brusquerie[11] of mine; but no, that is
improbable.
Since I saw you I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to
tell you, yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at all.
I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup annoys
me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions. Would you
believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other day, with which to
chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the day, solus, among the
hills on the mainland. I verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a
flogging.
I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.
If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with Jupiter. Do
come. I wish to see you to-night, upon business of importance. I assure you
that it is of the highest importance.
Ever yours,
William Legrand.
There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great
uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand. What
could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his excitable brain?
What "business of the highest importance" could he possibly have to
transact? Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the
continued pressure of misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason
of my friend. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, I prepared to
accompany the negro.
Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all
apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were to
embark.
"What is the meaning of all this, Jup?" I inquired.
"Him syfe, massa, and spade."
"Very true; but what are they doing here?"
"Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will 'sis' 'pon my buying for him
in de town, and de debbil's own lot of money I had to gib for 'em."
 "But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your 'Massa Will'
going to do with scythes and spades?"
"Dat's more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don't b'lieve 'tis more dan
he know, too. But it's all come ob de bug."
Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose whole
intellect seemed to be absorbed by "de bug," I now stepped into the boat
and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran into the little cove
to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of some two miles brought us
to the hut. It was about three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had
been awaiting us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous
empressement[12] which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions
already entertained. His countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his
deep-set eyes glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries respecting
his health, I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had yet
obtained the scarabaeus from Lieutenant G——.
"Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, "I got it from him the next
morning. Nothing could tempt me to part with that scarabaeus. Do you
know that Jupiter is quite right about it!"
"In what way?" I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.
"In supposing it to be a bug of real gold." He said this with an air of
profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.
"This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with a triumphant smile,
and reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any wonder, then, that I
prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to bestow it upon me, I have only to
use it properly and I shall arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter,
bring me that scarabaeus!"
"What! de bug, massa? I'd rudder not go fer trubble dat bug—you mus'
git him for your own self." Hereupon Legrand arose, with a grave and
stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which it was
enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabaeus, and, at that time, unknown to
naturalists—of course a great prize in a scientific point of view. There were
two round black spots near one extremity of the back, and a long one near
the other. The scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the
appearance of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very
remarkable, and, taking all things into consideration, I could hardly blame
Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand's
agreement with that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell.
"I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone when I had completed
my examination of the beetle, "I sent for you, that I might have your
counsel and assistance in furthering the views of Fate and of the bug"—
"My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, "you are certainly unwell,
and had better use some little precautions. You shall go to bed, and I will
remain with you a few days, until you get over this. You are feverish and"—
"Feel my pulse," said he.
I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest indication of fever.
"But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to
prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next"—
"You are mistaken," he interposed; "I am as well as I can expect to be
under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me well, you will
relieve this excitement."
"And how is this to be done?"
"Very easily, Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition into the
hills, upon the mainland, and, in this expedition, we shall need the aid of
some person in whom we can confide. You are the only one we can trust.
Whether we succeed or fail, the excitement which you now perceive in me
will be equally allayed."
"I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I replied; "but do you mean to
say that this infernal beetle has any connection with your expedition into
the hills?"
"It has."
"Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd proceeding."
"I am sorry—very sorry—for we shall have to try it by ourselves."
"Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad!—but stay!—how long do
you propose to be absent?"
"Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be back, at all events,
by sunrise."
"And will you promise me upon your honor, that when this freak of yours
is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled to your satisfaction, you
will then return home and follow my advice implicitly, as that of your
physician?"
"Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no time to lose."
With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started about four
o'clock—Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with him the
scythe and spades, the whole of which he insisted upon carrying, more
through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the implements within
reach of his master, than from any excess of industry or complaisance. His
demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and "dat d——d bug" were the sole
words which escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had
charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with
the scarabaeus, which he carried attached to the end of a bit of whipcord,
twirling it to and fro, with the air of a conjurer, as he went. When I observed
this last plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could scarcely
refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his fancy, at least for
the present, or until I could adopt some more energetic measures with a
chance of success. In the meantime I endeavored, but all in vain, to sound
him in regard to the object of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing
me to accompany him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any
topic of minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other
reply than "We shall see!"
We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a skiff, and,
ascending the high grounds on the shore of the mainland, proceeded in a
northwesterly direction, through a tract of country excessively wild and
desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was to be seen. Legrand led
the way with decision, pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult
what appeared is to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a
former occasion.
In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the sun was just
setting when we entered a region infinitely more dreary than any yet seen. It
was a species of table-land, near the summit of an almost inaccessible hill,
densely wooded from base to pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags
that appeared to lie loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented
from precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by the support
of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines, in various directions,
gave an air of still sterner solemnity to the scene.
 The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly overgrown
with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it would have been
impossible to force our way but for the scythe; and Jupiter, by direction of
his master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously tall
tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far
surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had ever seen, in the beauty
of its foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the general
majesty of its appearance. When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to
Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he could climb it. The old man seemed
a little staggered by the question, and for some moments made no reply. At
length he approached the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and
examined it with minute attention. When he had completed his scrutiny, he
merely said:
"Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life."
"Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be too dark to see
what we are about."
"How far mus' go up, massa?" inquired Jupiter.
"Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which way to go—
and here—stop! take this beetle with you."
"De bug, Massa Will! de goole-bug!" cried the negro, drawing back in
dismay, "what for mus' tote de bug way up de tree?—d——n if I do!"
"If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take hold of a
harmless little dead beetle, why, you can carry it up by this string; but if you
do not take it up with you in some way, I shall be under the necessity of
breaking your head with this shovel."
"'What de matter, now, massa?" said Jup, evidently shamed into
compliance; "always want fur to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was only funnin'
anyhow. Me feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?" Here he took
cautiously hold of the extreme end of the string, and, maintaining the insect
as far from his person as circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend
the tree.
In youth the tulip-tree, or Liriodendron tulipifera, the most magnificent
of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth, and often rises to a
great height without lateral branches; but, in its riper age, the bark becomes
gnarled and uneven, while many short limbs make their appearance on the
stem. Thus the difficulty of ascension, in the present case, lay more in
semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge cylinder as closely as
possible with his arms and knees, seizing with his hands some projections,
and resting his naked toes upon others, Jupiter, after one or two narrow
escapes from falling, at length wriggled himself into the first great fork, and
seemed to consider the whole business as virtually accomplished. The risk
of the achievement was, in fact, now over, although the climber was some
sixty or seventy feet from the ground.
"Which way mus' go now, Massa Will?" he asked.
"Keep up the largest branch, the one on this side," said Legrand. The
negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with but little trouble;
ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse of his squat figure could be
obtained through the dense foliage which enveloped it. Presently his voice
was heard in a sort of halloo.
"How much fudder I's got for go?"
"How high up are you?" asked Legrand.
"Ebber so fur," replied the negro; "can see de sky fru de top ob de tree."
"Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look down the trunk and
count the limbs below you on this side. How many limbs have you passed?"
"One, two, three, four, fibe—I done pass fibe big limb, massa, 'pon dis
side."
"Then go one limb higher."
In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that the seventh
limb was attained.
"Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited, "I want you to work
your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If you see anything strange,
let me know."
By this time what little doubt I might have entertained of my poor
friend's insanity was put finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude
him stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him
home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's
voice was again heard.
"Mos' feerd for to ventur' 'pon dis limb berry far—'tis dead limb putty
much all de way."
 "Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?" cried Legrand, in a quavering
voice.
"Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail—done up for sartain—done
departed dis here life."
"What in the name of heaven shall I do?" asked Legrand, seemingly in
the greatest distress.
"Do!" said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, "why, come
home and go to bed. Come now!—that's a fine fellow. It's getting late, and,
besides, you remember your promise."
"Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the least, "do you hear me?"
"Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain,"
"Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you think it very
rotten."
"Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," replied the negro in a few moments, "but
not so berry rotten as mought be, Mought ventur' out leetle way 'pon de
limb by myself, dat's true."
"By yourself! What do you mean?"
"Why, I mean de bug. 'Tis berry hebby bug. S'pose I drop him down fust,
and den de limb won't break wid just de weight of one nigger."
"You infernal scoundrel!" cried Legrand, apparently much relieved,
"what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that? As sure as you
drop that beetle, I'll break your neck. Look here, Jupiter, do you hear me?"
"Yes, massa, needn' hollo at poor nigger dat style."
"Well!—now listen! if you will venture out on the limb as far as you
think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make you a present of a silver dollar
as soon as you get down."
"I'm gwine, Massa Will—deed I is," replied the negro very promptly
—"mos' out to de eend now."
"Out to the end!" here fairly screamed Legrand; "do you say you are out
to the end of that limb?"
"Soon be to de eend, massa—o-o-o-o-oh! Lor-gol-a-marcy! what is dis
here 'pon de tree?"
"Well," cried Legrand, highly delighted, "what is it?"
 "Why, 'taint noffin' but a skull—somebody bin lef' him head up de tree,
and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off."
"A skull, you say! Very well; how is it fastened to the limb? What holds
it on?"
"Shure 'nuff, massa; mus' look. Why, dis berry curous sarcumstance, 'pon
my word—dare's a great big nail in do skull, what fastens ob it on to de
tree."
"Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you—do you hear?"
"Yes, massa."
"Pay attention, then!—find the left eye of the skull."
"Hum! hoo! dat's good! why, dare ain't no eye lef' at all."
"Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from your left?"
"Yes, I nose dat—nose all 'bout dat—'tis my lef' hand what I chops de
wood wid."
"To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left eye is on the same side as
your left hand. Now, I suppose you can find the left eye of the skull, or the
place where the left eye has been. Have you found it?"
Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked:
"Is de lef' eye ob de skull 'pon de same side as de lef' hand ob de skull,
too?—'cause the skull ain't got not a bit ob a hand at all—nebber mind! I
got de lef' eye now—here de lef' eye! what mus' do wid it?"
"Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will reach, but be
careful and not let go your hold of the string."
"All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de bug fru de hole;
look out for him dar below!"
During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's person could be seen; but the
beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was now visible at the end of the
string, and glistened, like a globe of burnished gold, in the last rays of the
setting sun, some of which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which
we stood. The scarabaeus hung quite clear of any branches, and if allowed
to fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took the scythe,
and cleared with it a circular space, three or four yards in diameter, just
beneath the insect, and, having accomplished this, ordered Jupiter to let go
the string and come down from the tree.
 Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise spot
where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his pocket a tape-
measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of the trunk of the tree
which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it till it reached the peg, and thence
farther unrolled it, in the direction already established by the two points of
the tree and the peg, for the distance of fifty feet—Jupiter clearing away the
brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was driven,
and about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about four feet in diameter,
described. Taking now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and one to
me, Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly as possible.
To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amusement at any
time, and, at that particular moment, would most willingly have declined it;
for the night was coming on, and I felt much fatigued with the exercise
already taken; but I saw no mode of escape, and was fearful of disturbing
my poor friend's equanimity by a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed,
upon Jupiter's aid, I would have had no hesitation in attempting to get the
lunatic home by force; but I was too well assured of the old negro's
disposition, to hope that he would assist me, under any circumstances, in a
personal contest with his master. I made no doubt that the latter had been
infected with some of the innumerable Southern superstitions about money
buried, and that his fantasy had received confirmation by the finding of the
scarabaeus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in maintaining it to be "a bug
of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy would readily be led away by such
suggestions—especially if chiming in with favorite preconceived ideas—
and then I called to mind the poor fellow's speech about the beetle's being
"the index of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled,
but, at length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a good
will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular
demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained.
The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal worthy a
more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons and implements,
I could not help thinking how picturesque a group we composed, and how
strange and suspicious our labors must have appeared to any interloper
who, by chance, might have stumbled upon our whereabouts.
We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our chief
embarrassment lay in the yelping of the dog, who took exceeding interest in
our proceedings. He at length became so obstreperous, that we grew fearful
of his giving the alarm to some stragglers in the vicinity—-or, rather, this
was the apprehension of Legrand; for myself, I should have rejoiced at any
interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The
noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by Jupiter, who, getting out of
the hole with a dogged air of deliberation, tied the brute's mouth up with
one of his suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to his task.
When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of five
feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A general pause
ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was at an end. Legrand, however,
although evidently much disconcerted, wiped his brow thoughtfully and
recommenced. We had excavated the entire circle of four feet diameter, and
now we slightly enlarged the limit, and went to the farther depth of two feet.
Still nothing appeared. The gold seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at length
clambered from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment imprinted upon
every feature, and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put on his coat,
which he had thrown off at the beginning of his labor. In the meantime I
made no remark. Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to gather up his
tools. This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in
profound silence towards home.
We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when, with a loud
oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter and seized him by the collar. The
astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest extent, let fall the
spades, and fell upon his knees.
"You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from between
his clenched teeth, "you infernal black villain! speak, I tell you! answer me
this instant, without prevarication! which—which is your left eye?"
"Oh, my golly, Massa Will! ain't dis here my lef' eye for sartain?" roared
the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right organ of vision, and
holding it there with a desperate pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his
master's attempt at a gouge.
"I thought so! I knew it! hurrah!" vociferated Legrand, letting the negro
go, and executing a series of curvets and caracoles[13], much to the
astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his knees, looked mutely from
his master to myself, and then from myself to his master.
 "Come! we must go back," said the latter; "the game's not up yet;" and he
again led the way to the tulip-tree.
"Jupiter," said he, when he reached its foot, "come here! was the skull
nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with the face to the limb?"
"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes good,
widout any trouble."
"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped the
beetle?"—here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes.
"'Twas dis eye, massa—de lef' eye—jis as you tell me," and here it was
his right eye that the negro indicated.
"That will do—we must try it again."
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw or fancied that I saw,
certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked the spot
where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the westward of its
former position, Taking now the tape-measure from the nearest point of the
trunk to the peg, as before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to
the distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed by several yards
from the point at which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the former
instance, was now described, and we again set to work with the spades, I
was dreadfully weary, but scarcely understanding what had occasioned the
change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great aversion from the labor
imposed, I had become most unaccountably interested—nay, even excited.
Perhaps there was something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of
Legrand—some air of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me.
I dug eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with
something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure,
the vision of which had demented my unfortunate companion. At a period
when such vagaries of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had
been at work perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the
violent howlings of the dog. His uneasiness in the first instance had been,
evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a
bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to muzzle him, he
made furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole, tore up the mould
frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had uncovered a mass of
human bones, forming two complete skeletons, intermingled with several
buttons of metal, and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woolen. One
or two strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife, and,
as we dug farther, three or four pieces of gold and silver coin came to light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be restrained, but the
countenance of his master wore an air of extreme disappointment. He urged
us, however, to continue our exertions, and the words were hardly uttered
when I stumbled and fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a
large ring of iron that lay half buried in the loose earth.
We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of more
intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly unearthed an oblong
chest of wood which, from its perfect preservation and wonderful hardness,
had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing process—perhaps that of
the bichloride of mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet
broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by bands of
wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of trellis-work over the whole. On
each side of the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron—six in all—by
means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost
united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its bed.
We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a weight. Luckily,
the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two sliding bolts. These we drew
back—trembling and panting with anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of
incalculable value lay gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell
within the pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused
heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed.
Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted with
excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for
some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in the nature of things, for
any negro's visage to assume. He seemed stupefied—-thunder-stricken.
Presently he fell upon his knees in the pit, and, burying his naked arms up
to the elbows in gold, let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a
bath. At length, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy:
"And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole-bug! de poor little
goole-bug, what I 'boosed in dat sabage kind ob style! Ain't you 'shamed ofa
yourself, nigger?—answer me dat!"
 It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master and valet to
the expediency of removing the treasure. It was growing late, and it
behooved us to make exertion, that we might get everything housed before
daylight. It was difficult to say what should be done, and much time was
spent in deliberation—so confused were the ideas of all. We, finally,
lightened the box by removing two-thirds of its contents, when we were
enabled, with some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out
were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with
strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence, to stir from the spot,
nor to open his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home
with the chest, reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive toil, at one
o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to
do more just now. We rested until two, and had supper, starting for the hills
immediately afterwards, armed with three stout sacks, which, by good luck,
were upon the premises. A little before four we arrived at the pit, divided
the remainder of the booty as equally as might be among us, and, leaving
the holes unfilled, again set out for the hut, at which, for the second time,
we deposited our golden burdens, just as the first streaks of dawn gleamed
from over the treetops in the east.
We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense excitement of the
time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three or four
hours' duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make examination of our
treasure.
The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole day, and the
greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its contents. There had been
nothing like order or arrangement. Everything had been heaped in
promiscuously.
Having assorted all with care, we found ourselves possessed of even
vaster wealth than we had at first supposed. In coin there was rather more
than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars—estimating the value of the
pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of the period. There was not
a particle of silver. All was gold of antique date and of great variety—
French, Spanish, and German money, with a few English guineas, and some
counters[14] of which we had never seen specimens before. There were
several very large and heavy coins, so worn that we could make nothing of
their inscriptions. There was no American money. The value of the jewels
we found more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds—some of
them exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten in all, and not one of
them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy; three hundred and ten
emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These
stones had all been broken from their settings and thrown loose in the chest.
The settings themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold,
appeared to have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent
indentification. Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold
ornaments—nearly two hundred massive finger and ear rings; rich chains—
thirty of these, if I remember; eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes;
five gold censers of great value; a prodigious golden punch-bowl,
ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian[15] figures;
with two sword handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller
articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables exceeded
three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not
included one hundred and ninety-seven superb gold watches, three of the
number being worth each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were
very old, and as time-keepers valueless, the works having suffered, more or
less, from corrosion; but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great
worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night, at a million
and a half of dollars; and, upon the subsequent disposal of the trinkets and
jewels (a few being retained for our own use), it was found we had greatly
undervalued the treasure.
When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the intense
excitement of the time had in some measure subsided, Legrand, who saw
that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most extraordinary
riddle, entered into a full detail of all the circumstances connected with it.
"You remember," said he, "the night when I handed you the rough sketch
I had made of the scarabaeus. You recollect, also, that I became quite vexed
at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a death's-head. When you
first made this assertion I thought you were jesting; but afterwards I called
to mind the peculiar spots on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself
that your remark had some, little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my
graphic powers irritated me—for I am considered a good artist—and,
therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to
crumple it up and throw it angrily into the fire."
 "The scrap of paper, you mean," said I.
"No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I supposed it to
be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered it at once to be a
piece of very thin parchment. It was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I
was in the very act of crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at
which you had been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when I
perceived, in fact, the figure of a death's-head just where, it seemed to me, I
had made the drawing of the beetle. For a moment I was too much amazed
to think with accuracy. I knew that my design was very different in detail
from this, although there was a certain similarity in general outline.
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room,
proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning it over, I
saw my own sketch upon, the reverse, just as I had made it. My first idea,
now, was mere surprise at the really remarkable similarity of outline—at the
singular coincidence involved in the fact that, unknown to me, there should
have been a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately
beneath my figure of the scarabaeus, and that this skull, not only in outline,
but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say the singularity of
this coincidence absolutely stupefied me for a time. This is the usual effect
of such coincidences. The mind struggles to establish a connection—a
sequence of cause and effect—and being unable to do so, suffers a species
of temporary paralysis. But when I recovered from this stupor, there
dawned upon me gradually a conviction which startled me even far more
than the coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there
had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of the
scarabaeus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected turning up
first one side and then the other, in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull
been then there, of course, I could not have failed to notice it. Here was
indeed a mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that early
moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and
secret chambers of my intellect, a glowworm-like conception of that truth
which last night's adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I
arose at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all
further reflection until I should be alone.
"When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook myself
to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the first place I
considered the manner in which the parchment had come into my
possession. The spot where we discovered the scarabaeus was on the coast
of the mainland, about a mile eastward of the island, and but a short
distance above high water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a
sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed
caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked
about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to take hold of it.
It was at this moment that his eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of
parchment, which I then supposed to be paper. It was lying half buried in
the sand, a corner sticking up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed
the remnants of the hull of what appeared to have been a ship's long-boat.
The wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the
resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.
"Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it, and
gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the way met
Lieutenant G——. I showed him the insect, and he begged me to let him
take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it forthwith into his
waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which it had been wrapped, and
which I had continued to hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he
dreaded my changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure of the prize
at once—you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with
Natural History. At the same time, without being conscious of it, I must
have deposited the parchment in my own pocket.
"You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making
a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept, I looked
in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my pockets, hoping to find
an old letter, when my hand fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the
precise mode in which it came into my possession; for the circumstances
impressed me with peculiar force.
"No doubt you will think me fanciful, but I had already established a kind
of connection. I had put together two links of a great chain. There was a
boat lying upon a seacoast, and not far from the boat was a parchment—not
a paper—with a skull depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask, 'Where is
the connection?' I reply that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known
emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death's-head is hoisted in all
engagements.
 "I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. Parchment is
durable—almost imperishable. Matters of little moment are rarely
consigned to parchment, since, for the mere ordinary purposes of drawing
or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This reflection
suggested some meaning—some relevancy—in the death's-head. I did not
fail to observe, also, the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners
had been, by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original
form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen
for a memorandum—for a record of something to be long remembered and
carefully preserved."
"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the parchment
when you made the drawing of the beetle. How, then, do you trace any
connection between the boat and the skull—since this latter, according to
your own admission, must have been designed (God only knows how or by
whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching the scarabaeus?"
"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this point,
I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were sure, and
could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew
the scarabaeus, there was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I
had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly
until you returned it, You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one
else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And
nevertheless it was done.
"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and did
remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about the
period in question. The weather was chilly (oh, rare and happy accident!),
and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with exercise, and sat
near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just
as I placed the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of
inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your
shoulders. With, your left hand you caressed him and kept him off, while
your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between
your knees, and in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the
blaze had caught it, and was about to caution you, but before I could speak
you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I
considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that heat had
been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment, the skull which I
saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical preparations exist,
and have existed time out of mind, by means of which it is possible to write
upon either paper or vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only
when subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre[16], digested in aqua regia[17],
and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a
green tint results. The regulus[18] of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre,
gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the
material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the re-
application of heat.
"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges—the edges
of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum—were far more distinct than
the others. It was clear that the action of the caloric had been imperfect or
unequal. I immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the
parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the strengthening
of the faint lines in the skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, there
became visible, at the corner of the slip diagonally opposite to the spot in
which the death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed
to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was intended
for a kid."
"Ha! ha!" said I; "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you—a million
and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth—but you are not about
to establish a third link in your chain: you will not find any especial
connection between your pirates and a goat; pirates, you know, have
nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming interests."
"But I have said that the figure was not that of a goat."
"Well, a kid, then—pretty much the same thing."
"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand.
"You may have heard of one Captain Kidd[19]. I at once looked on the
figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say
signature because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea. The
death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the same manner, the
air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the absence of all else—
of the body to my imagined instrument—of the text for my context."
"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the
signature."
 "Something of the kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed with a
presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can scarcely say why.
Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an actual belief; but do you
know that Jupiter's silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a
remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the series of accidents and
coincidences—these were so very extraordinary. Do you observe how mere
an accident it was that these events should have occurred upon the sole day
of all the year in which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and
that without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the precise
moment in which he appeared, I should, never have become aware of the
death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"
"But proceed—I am all impatience."
"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current—the thousand
vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere, upon the Atlantic
coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had some
foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and so
continuously could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the
circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had Kidd
concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors
would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying form. You will
observe that the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about money-
finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the affair would have
dropped. It seemed to me that some accident—say the loss of a
memorandum indicating its locality—had deprived him of the means of
recovering it, and that this accident had become known to his followers who
otherwise might never have heard that treasure had been concealed at all,
and who, busying themselves in vain, because unguided attempts to regain
it had given first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are
now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being
unearthed along the coast?"
"Never."
"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense is well known. I took it for
granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will scarcely be
surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly amounting to certainty,
that the parchment so strangely found involved a lost record of the place of
deposit."
 "But how did you proceed?"
"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat; but nothing
appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt might have
something to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the parchment by
pouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan,
with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted
charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I
removed the slip, and to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several
places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it
in the pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the
whole was just as you see it now."
Here Legrand, having reheated the parchment, submitted it to my
inspection, The following characters were rudely traced, in a red tint
between the death's-head and the goat:
"53 ‡ ‡ † 305))6*;4826)4 ‡ .);806*;48 † 8
¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96 ?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*
—4)8 ¶8*;4069285);)6 † 8)4 ‡ ‡ ;1( ‡ 9;48081;8:8 ‡
1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4 (‡?34;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;"
"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as ever.
Were all the jewels of Golconda[20] awaiting me on my solution of this
enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."
"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so difficult as you
might be led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the characters.
These characters, as any one might readily guess, form a cipher, that is to
say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could
not suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse
cryptographs[21]. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a simple
species—such, however, as would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor,
absolutely insoluble without the key."
"And you really solved it?"
"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times
greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to take
interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether human
ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human ingenuity may
not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having once established
connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere
difficulty of developing their import.
"In the present case—indeed, in all cases of secret writing—the first
question regards the language of the cipher; for the principles of solution,
so far especially as the more simple ciphers are concerned, depend upon,
and are varied by, the genius of the particular idiom. In general, there is no
alternative but experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue
known to him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But,
with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the signature.
The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the
English. But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with
the Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind would
most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish main[22]. As it
was, I assume the cryptograph to be English.
"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been
divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case I
would have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter words;
and had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely (a or I, for
example), I should have considered the solution as assured. But there being
no divisions, my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well
as the least frequent,
"Counting all, I constructed a table thus;—
Of the character 8 there are 33.
; " 26.
4 " 19.
‡) " 16.
* " 13.
5 " 12.
6 " 11.
†1 " 8.
0 " 6.
92 " 5.
:3 " 4.
? " 3.
¶ " 2.
—. " 1.
 "Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.
Afterwards, the succession runs thus: a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w b k p q x
z. E predominates, however, so remarkably that an individual sentence of
any length is rarely seen in which it is not the prevailing character.
"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for
something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of
the table is obvious—but in this particular cipher we shall only very
partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will
commence by assuming it as the e of the natural alphabet. To verify the
supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples—for e is
doubled with great frequency in English—in such words, for example, as
'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' etc. In the present instance we
see it doubled no less than five times, although the cryptograph is brief.
"Let us assume 8, then, as e. Now of all words in the language, 'the' is
most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not repetitions of any
three characters, in the same order of collocation, the last of them being 8.
If we discover repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most
probably represent the word 'the.' Upon inspection, we find no less than
seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may, therefore,
assume that the semicolon represents t, that 4 represents h, and that 8
represents e—the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been
taken.
"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a
vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and
terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last instance
but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs—not far from the end of the
cipher. We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing is the
commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding this 'the,'
we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these characters down, thus,
by the letters we know them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown
—
t eeth.
"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the 'th,' as forming no portion of
the word commencing with the first t; since by experiment of the entire
alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we perceive that no word can
be formed of which this th can be a part. We are thus narrowed into
 t ee,
and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at the
word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another letter, r,
represented by (, with the words 'the tree" in juxtaposition.
"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the
combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what immediately
precedes. We have thus this arrangement:
the tree ;4 (‡?34 the,
or, substituting the natural letters, whereknown, it reads thus:
the tree thr‡?3h the.
"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces, or
substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr…h the,
when the word 'through' makes itself evident at once. But the discovery
gives us three new letters, o, u, and g, represented by ‡ ? and 3.
"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known,
characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this arrangement.
83(88, or, egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree' and gives us another
letter, d, represented by †.
"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination.
;46(;88*.
"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by
dots, as before, we read thus:
th.rtee,
an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and again
furnishing us with two new characters, i, and n, represented by 6 and *.
"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53 ‡‡†.
"Translating, as before, we obtain
.good,
 which assures us that the first letter is A, and that the first two words are
'A good.'
"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as
discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus:
5 represents a † " d 8 " e 3 " g 4 " h 6 " i * " n ‡ " o ( " r ; " t
"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters
represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of the
solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this nature are
readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the rationale[23] of their
development. But be assured that the specimen before us appertains to the
very simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the
full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it
is:
"'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty-one degrees
and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch seventh limb east
side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a bee-line from the tree
through the shot fifty feet out.'"
"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever. How
is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about 'devil's seats,'
death's-heads,' and 'bishop's hotels'?"
"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious aspect,
when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to divide the
sentence into the natural divisions intended by the cryptographist."
"You mean to punctuate it?"
"Something of that kind."
"But how was it possible to effect this?"
"I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his words
together without divisions, so as to increase the difficulty of solution. Now,
a not over acute man, in pursuing such, an object, would be nearly certain to
overdo the matter. When, in the course of his composition, he arrived at a
break in his subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he
would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place, more than
usually close together. If you will observe the Ms. in the present instance,
you will easily detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this
hint, I made the division thus:
 "'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat—twenty-one
degrees and thirteen minutes—northeast and by north—main branch
seventh limb east side—shoot from the left eye of the death's-head—a bee-
line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out.'"
"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."
"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days, during
which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of Sullivan's Island, for
any building, which went by the name of the 'Bishop's Hotel'—for of course
I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject,
I was on the point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a
more systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head, quite
suddenly, that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old
family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held
possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of
the island. I accordingly went over to the plantation, and reinstituted my
inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At length one of the most
aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop's
Castle and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a castle,
nor tavern, but a high rock.
"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she
consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much
difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place. The
'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and rocks—one of the
latter being quite remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and
artificial appearance, I clambered to its apex, and then felt much at a loss as
to what should be next done.
"While I was buried in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in the
eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon which I
stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches, and was not more than a
foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance
to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt
that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to in the Ms., and now I seemed to
grasp the full secret of the riddle.
"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a
telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense by
seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a definite
point of view, admitting no variation, from which to use it. Nor did I
hesitate to believe that the phrase 'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes'
and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as directions for the levelling of
the glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home, procured a
telescope, and returned to the rock.
"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible to retain
a seat upon it except in one particular position. This fact confirmed my
preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of course the 'twenty-one
degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to nothing but elevation above
the visible horizon, since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by
the words 'northeast and by north.' This latter direction I at once established
by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle
of twenty-one degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it
cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a circular rift or
opening in the foliage of a large tree that over-topped its fellows in the
distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a white spot, but could not, at
first, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again
looked, and now made it out to be a human skull.
"On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved;
for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side' could refer only to the
position of the skull on the tree, while 'shoot from the left eye of the death's-
head' admitted also of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried
treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of
the skull, and that a bee-line, or in other words, a straight line, drawn from
the nearest point of the trunk through 'the shot' (or the spot where the bullet
fell) and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a
definite point—and beneath this point I thought it at least possible that a
deposit of value lay concealed."
"All this." I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious, still
simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what then?"
"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
homewards. The instant that I left the 'devil's seat,' however, the circular rift
vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards, turn, as I would. What
seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole business is the fact (for
repeated experiment has convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening
in question is visible from no other attainable point of view than that
afforded by the narrow ledge on the face of the rock.
"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended by Jupiter,
who had no doubt observed for some weeks past the abstraction of my
demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me alone. But, on the next
day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip, and went into the
hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at
night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the
adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself."
"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at digging,
through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the right instead of
through the left eye of the skull."
"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a half
in the 'shot'—that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest the tree—and
had the treasure been beneath the 'shot,' the error would have been of little
moment; but the 'shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were
merely two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the
error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded with the
line, and by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But
for my deep-seated convictions that treasure was here somewhere actually
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."
"I presume the fancy of the skull—of letting fall a bullet through the
skull's eye—was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a
kind of poetical consistency in recovering his money through this ominous
insignium[24]."
"Perhaps so; still, I cannot help thinking that common-sense had quite as
much to do with the matter as poetical consistency. To be visible from the
Devil's seat, it was necessary that the object, if small, should be white: and
there is nothing like your human skull for retaining and even increasing its
whiteness under exposure to all vicissitudes of weather."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle—
how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist on
letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions
touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way,
by a little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and
for this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation of yours about its
great weight suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What
are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There
seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them—and yet it
is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is
clear that Kidd—if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not—it
is clear that he must have had assistance in the labor. But this labor
concluded, he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in
his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while
his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen—who shall
tell?"

NOTES
[1] The Gold-Bug was first published in The Dollar Magazine in 1843.
The story won a prize of one hundred dollars.
[2] 100:3 All in the Wrong. The title of an amusing comedy by Arthur
Murphy (1730-1805).
[3] 100:4 Huguenot. French Protestants, many of whom settled in South
Carolina.
[4] 100: 18 Fort Moultrie. Erected in. 1776. Defended against the British
by Colonel William Moultrie.
[5] 101:23 Swammerdam. A famous Dutch naturalist (1637-1680).
[6] 101:25 manumitted. Freed from slavery.
[7] 102:27 scarabaeus. The Latin for beetle.
[8] 103:15 antennae. The feelers.
[9] 105:8 scarabaeus caput hominis. Man's-head beetle.
[10] 107:20 noovers. Manoeuvres.
[11] 109:10 brusquerie. Lack of cordiality.
[12] 110:26 empressement. Demonstrativeness.
[13] 123:20 curvets and caracoles. Leaping and prancing of a horse.
[14] 128:9 counters. Various coins.
 [15] 128:28 Bacchanalian. Revelling like the worshippers of Bacchus, the
god of wine.
[16] 134:28 Zaffre. An oxide of cobalt. See dictionary.
[17] 134:28 aqua regia. Royal water—a mixture of nitric and
hydrochloric acids.
[18] 134:30 regulus. An old chemical term.
[19] 135: 28 Captain Kidd. A Scottish sea captain who lived in New York
in the seventeenth century.
[20] 138:19 Golconda. A town in India noted for its diamond market.
[21] 138:28 cryptographs. Secret forms of writing.
[22] 139:27 Spanish main. The northeastern portion of South America,
the Caribbean Sea, and the coast of North America to the Carolinas were
harassed by the Spaniards.
[23] 144:6 rationale. Reasonable basis.
[24] 149:19 insignium. Sign.

COLLATERAL READINGS
The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Purloined Letter, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Sign of the Four, A. Conan Doyle.
A Scandal in Bohemia, A. Conan Doyle.
The Chronicles of Addington, B. Fletcher Robinson.
The Mystery of the Steel Disk, Broughton Brandenburg.
The Rajah's Diamond, R.L. Stevenson.
The Doctor, his Wife, and the Clock, Anna Katharine Green.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A. Conan Doyle.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, A. Conan Doyle.
A Double-Barrelled Detective Story, Mark Twain.
Gallegher, Richard Harding Davis.
 THE BIRTHMARK[1]

By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1862).

In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an
eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long
before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more
attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an
assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace-smoke, washed the
stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become
his wife. In those days, when the comparatively recent discovery of
electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into
the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the
love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the
imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial
aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would
ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the
philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps
make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this
degree of faith in man's ultimate control over nature. He had devoted
himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weakened
from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove
the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his
love of science and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.
Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly
remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very
soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his
countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.
"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon
your cheek might be removed?"
 "No, indeed," said she, smiling; but, perceiving the seriousness of his
manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth, it has been so often
called a charm, that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so."
"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but never
on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand
of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to
term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly
imperfection."
"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first
reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then why
did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!"
To explain this conversation, it must be mentioned that in the centre of
Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it
were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her
complexion—a healthy though delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint of
deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding
rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally
vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek
with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting emotion caused her to turn pale,
there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer
sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little
similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size.
Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth-hour had
laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in
token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all
hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of
pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however,
that the impression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly
according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Some
fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own sex—affirmed
that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of
Georgiana's beauty and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it
would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which
sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of
Powers[2] to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not
heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that
the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the
semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of
the matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.
Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy's self could have found aught else
to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of
this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again
and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within
her heart; but, seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect
grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It
was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another,
stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are
temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and
pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality
clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into
kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their
visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of
his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre
imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object,
causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether
of soul or sense, had given him delight.
At all the seasons which should have been their happiest he invariably,
and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted
to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected
itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it
became the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened
his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection,
and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered
stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood-
fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have
worshipped, Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a
glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the
roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand
was brought strongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.
Late one night, when the lights were growing dim so as hardly to betray
the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily
took up the subject.
 "Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a
smile, "have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious
hand?"
"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting: but then he added, in a
dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his
emotion, "I might well dream of it; for, before I fell asleep, it had taken a
pretty firm hold of my fancy."
"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded
lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "A terrible dream! I
wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression?
—'It is in her heart now; we must have it out!' Reflect, my husband; for by
all means I would have you recall that dream."
The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine
her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break
forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a
deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself
with his servant Aminadab attempting an operation for the removal of the
birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at
length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart;
whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it
away.
When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in
his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the
mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising
directness of matters in regard to which we practice an unconscious self-
deception during our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of
the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the
lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself
peace.
"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the
cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may
cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself.
Again; do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping
the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into
the world?"
 "Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily
interrupted Aylmer. "I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its
removal."
"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let the
attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to rue; for life, while
this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,—life is a
burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful
hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears
witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this
little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this
beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor
wife from madness?"
"Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried Aylmer, rapturously, "doubt not
my power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought,—thought
which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than
yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of
science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless
as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall
have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even
Pygmalion[3], when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater
ecstasy than mine will be."
"It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly smiling. "And, Aylmer,
spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart
at last."
Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek,—her right cheek,—not that
which bore the impress of the crimson hand.
The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed
whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant
watchfulness which the proposed operation would require, while Georgiana,
likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. They were
to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a
laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries
in the elemental powers of nature that had roused the admiration of all the
learned societies in Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale
philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud-region and of
the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled
and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of
fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and
others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth.
Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human
frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature
assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the
spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit,
however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth—
against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative
Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest
sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her
pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to
mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to
make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations;
not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but
because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his
proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.
As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory Georgiana was cold
and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to
reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon
the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive
shudder. His wife fainted.
"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the
floor.
Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but
bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed
with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer's under-
worker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that
office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while
incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of
his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky
aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to
represent man's physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale,
intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.
"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and burn
a pastil."
 "Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form
of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "If she were my wife, I'd
never part with that birthmark."
When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an
atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had
recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked like
enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms,
where he had spent his brightest years in recondite[4] pursuits, into a series
of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely
woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the
combination of grandeur and grace that no other species of adornment can
achieve; and, as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and
ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in
the scene from infinite space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a
pavilion among the clouds. And Alymer, excluding the sunshine, which
would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place
with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a
soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his wife's side, watching her
earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt
that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might
intrude.
"Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed
her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eyes.
"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me,
Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a
rapture to remove it."
"O, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again. I
never can forget that convulsive shudder."
In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from
the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the light
and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder
lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial
beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps
on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct idea of the method of
these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to
warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world.
Then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion,
immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external
existence flitted across a screen. The scenery and the figures of actual life
were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching yet indescribable
difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much
more attractive than the original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her
cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so with
little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant
shooting upward from the soil: Then came the slender stalk; the leaves
gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely
flower.
"It is magical!" cried Georgiana. "I dare not touch it."
"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,—"pluck it, and inhale its brief
perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave
nothing save its brown seed-vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race
as ephemeral as itself."
But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant
suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal black as if by the agency of fire.
"There was too powerful a stimulus," said Aylmer, thoughtfully.
To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait
by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be effected by rays of
light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented; but, on
looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait
blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where
the cheek should have been. Alymer snatched the metallic plate and threw it
into a jar of corrosive[5] acid.
Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of
study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but
seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the
resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists,
who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the
golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base, Aylmer
appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether
within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium. "But,"
he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power
would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less
singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitae[6]. He more than
intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong
life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in
nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum,
would find cause to curse.
"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him with
amazement and fear. "It is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream
of possessing it."
"O, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "I would not wrong
either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives;
but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill
requisite to remove this little hand."
At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a red-
hot iron had touched her cheek.
Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in
the distant furnace-room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh,
uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or
growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer
reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of
chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former he
showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet
most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow
across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the contents of that little
vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled
the room with piercing and invigorating delight.
"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe
containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that I could
imagine it the elixir of life."
"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or rather, the elixir of immortality. It
is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. By its aid
I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your
finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger
out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded
throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, should deem that the
welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it."
"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana, in horror.
 "Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous
potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a powerful
cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be
washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion[7]
would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale
ghost."
"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked
Georgiana, anxiously.
"O no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. Your case
demands a remedy that shall go deeper."
In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute
inquiries as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the rooms
and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions had
such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was
already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the
fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might be
altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system,—a strange,
indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully,
half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the
mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson
birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much
as she.
To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary
to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned
over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes she met
with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of the
philosophers of the Middle Ages, such as Albertus Magnus[8], Cornelius
Agrippa[9], Paracelsus[10], and the famous friar who created the prophetic
Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their
centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were
believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the
investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a sway over
the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early
volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society[11], in which the
members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually
recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be
wrought.
But, to Georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her
husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his
scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development,
and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event
was attributable. The book, in truth; was both the history and emblem of his
ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled
physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them
all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager
aspiration towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed
a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more
profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment
than heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe
that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if
compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were
the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the
inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich with
achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a
record as over mortal hand had penned. It was the sad confession and
continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the
spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that
assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the
earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius, in whatever sphere, might
recognize the image of his own experience in Aylmer's journal.
So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face
upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was found
by her husband.
"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile,
though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there are
pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses.
Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you."
"It has made me worship you more than ever." said she.
"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you will.
I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come. I have sought you for
the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest."
 So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his
spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring
her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result
was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt
irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a
symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her
attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which
induced a restlessness throughout her system. Hastening after her husband,
she intruded for the first time into the laboratory.
The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish
worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot
clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a
distilling-apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes,
cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical
machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively
close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth
by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the
apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange,
accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her
boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the
aspect of Aylmer himself.
He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace
as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it
was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How
different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for
Georgiana's encouragement!
"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully,
thou man of clay," muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant.
"Now, If there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over."
"Ho! ho!" mumbled Aminadab. "Look, master! look!"
Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than
ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm
with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it.
"Why do you come thither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried
he, impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over
my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman! go!"
 "Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed
no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. You
mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch
the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my
husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink: for my
share in it is far less than your own."
"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be."
"I submit," replied she, calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever
draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce
me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand."
"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height and
depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then,
that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into
your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have
already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change
your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail
us we are ruined."
"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she.
"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger."
"Danger? There is but one danger,—that this horrible stigma shall be left
upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it, remove it, whatever be the
cost, or we shall both go mad!"
"Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now,
dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested."
He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness
which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his
departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character
of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her
heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love,—so pure and lofty
that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor miserably make itself
contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how
much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which
would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty
of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the
actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she
might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment
she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever
ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope
of the instant before.
The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal
goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the
draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the
consequence of a highly wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of
fear or doubt.
"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to
Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail."
"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might
wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself
in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who
have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand.
Were I weaker and blinder, it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might
be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all
mortals the most fit to die."
"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband. "But
why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon
this plant."
On the window-seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow
blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small
quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when
the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches
began to be extinguished in a living verdure.
"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet. I
joyfully stake all upon your word."
"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid
admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible
frame, too, shall soon be all perfect."
She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand.
"It is grateful," said she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like water
from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive
fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me
for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing
over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset."
She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost
more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering
syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in
slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions
proper to a man, the whole value of whose existence was involved in the
process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the
philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the
minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight
irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor
through the frame,—such were the details which, as the moments passed,
he wrote down, in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon
every previous page of that volume; but the thoughts of years were all
concentrated upon the last.
While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and
not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse, he
pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act; and
Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily, and
murmured, as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed, his watch. Nor
was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been strongly
visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew more
faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark,
with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former
distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still.
Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky, and you will know
how that mysterious symbol passed away.
"By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost
irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And
now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her
cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!"
He drew aside the window-curtain and suffered the light of natural day to
fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a
gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant Aminadab's
expression of delight.
 "Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy,
"you have served me well! Matter and spirit—earth and heaven—have both
done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right
to laugh."
These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her
eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that
purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely
perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with
such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. But then her
eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no
means account for.
"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.
"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My peerless
bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"
"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness,
"you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that, with so
high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer.
Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"
Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of
life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a
mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of
human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now
perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a
moment, near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse,
chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth
exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim
sphere of half-development, demands the completeness of a higher state.
Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung
away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame
texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for
him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once
for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.
NOTES
[1] Published in the March, 1843, number of The Pioneer, edited by J. R.
Lowell. Republished in Mosses from an Old Manse in 1846.
 [2] 154:29 "Eve," of Powers. A noted American sculptor (1805-1873).
"Eve," "The Fisher Boy," and "America" are some of his chief works.
[3] 168:28 Pygmalion. A sculptor and king of Cyprus.
[4] 181:16 recondite. Abstruse or secret.
[5] 168:27 corrosive. Destructive of tissue.
[6] 184:12 vitae. Of life.
[7] 166:3 infusion. The act of pouring in.
[8] 167:1 Albertus Magnus. A famous scholastic philosopher and
member of the Dominican order (1193-1280).
[9] 167:1 Cornelius Agrippa. A German philosopher and student of
alchemy and magic (1486-1535).
[10] 167:1 Paracelsus. A German-Swiss physician, and alchemist (1492-
1541).
[11] 167:10 Royal Society. An association for the advancement of
science, founded in London a little before 1660.
BIOGRAPHY
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804.
His ancestors were prominent in the affairs of the colony: John Hawthorne
was one of the judges who tried the witches in 1620; and another John
Hawthorne was a member of the dignified school committee of Salem in
1796. Hawthorne's father, a ship captain, died in a foreign land when his
son was only four years old; his mother lived for forty years after the death
of her husband the life of a recluse in her own house. The family's star was
in the decline and the people of Salem looked on Nathaniel as a lazy and
very queer boy. He grew up in a unique solitude. During these years of
seclusion Hawthorne acquired the habit of keeping silent on all occasions,
and reading a few books frequently and thoroughly. The Newgate Calendar
must have supplied him with many subtle suggestions for his later writings
on sin and crime, for in almost all of his productions his imagination is
tinged with, this old Puritanic philosophy and theology.
He entered Bowdoin College in 1821 and graduated from this institution
in 1825. He had as classmates Longfellow, and Franklin Pierce, who
afterward became president of the United States. After his graduation
Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he lived with his mother and sisters in
almost absolute seclusion for fourteen years. During this period he wrote
daily, and spent his nights in burning what he had written in the daytime.
He was clerk of the Boston Custom House from 1839 to 1841, when the
Whig party removed him for being ultra-partisan in behalf of the
Democrats. At this time Hawthorne wrote: "As to the Salem people, I really
thought I had been exceedingly good-natured in my treatment of them.
They certainly do not deserve good usage at my hands, after permitting me
to be deliberately lied down, not merely once, but at two separate attacks,
and on two false indictments, without hardly a voice being raised in my
behalf." He married Sophia Peabody, July 9, 1842. From 1842 until 1846
they lived in Concord in the house formerly occupied by Emerson. These
were the happiest years of his life. In 1846 he returned to Salem as surveyor
in the Salem Custom House. He retired from this office in 1850 and lived in
Lenox, Massachusetts, for two years. In 1852 he settled in Concord.
President Pierce appointed him consul at Liverpool in 1853, and he served
in this position until 1857.
After leaving Liverpool he travelled three years in England and on the
continent. He returned to Concord in 1860. He died in the White
Mountains, May 18, 1864. Although a silent man and a seeker of solitude
during his life, few writers have ever experienced such wide publicity of
their inmost lives as has Hawthorne since his death. The publication of his
Notes has opened his desk and work-shop to every one, and has revealed to
us a magnanimous, sympathetic, and pure man, who realized his
responsibilities as a writer and improved all his literary opportunities.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
History of American Literature, Moses Coit Tyler.
Introduction to American Literature, Henry S. Pancoast.
Studies in American Literature, Charles Noble.
Introduction to American Literature, Brander Matthews.
"Gloom and Cheer in Hawthorne," Critic, 45: 28-36.
"Hawthorne and his Circle," Nation, 77: 410-411.
"Hawthorne as seen by his Publisher," Critic, 45: 51-55.
"Hawthorne from an English Point of View." Critic, 45: 60-66.
 "Hawthorne's Last Years," Critic, 45: 67-71.
"Life of Hawthorne," Atlantic Monthly, 90: 563-567,
CRITICISMS
Many influences in Hawthorne's environment served to condition and
mold him as a writer. Salem had reached its highest prosperity in all lines
and was just beginning its retrogression in Hawthorne's time; the primeval
forests of Maine produced a subtle and lasting influence on him during his
sojourn in Maine for his health; transcendentalism was the ruling thought at
the time when Hawthorne was in his most plastic and solitary age; his
interest in Brook Farm brought him in contact with all the good and bad
points of that social movement; his life in the Old Manse in Concord and in
the Berkshire Hills contributed largely to the deepening of his convictions
and sympathies; and over all, like a sombre cloud, hung his ancestral
Puritanic training which penetrated and suffused all his writings. He is the
most native and the least imitative of all our fiction writers.
Hawthorne did not write on the common subjects and facts of his day, but
chose to have his readers go with him, away from prosaic life, out into a
world of mysteries where we may revel in all kinds of imaginary sports. By
this process he succeeded in producing poetic effects from the most
unpromising materials. His writings are fanciful. He enjoyed subjects that
deal with the occult, such as mesmerism, hypnotism, and subtle
suggestions. He harked back to the rigid beliefs and laws of the Puritans,
but he and his subjects are spiritually advanced far above the crude,
ponderous, and highly theological tenets of his forefathers.
Hawthorne is very provincial. He travelled little until he was fifty years
old. He naturally loved the antique and poetic countries, but he always
qualified his admiration of these foreign lands by praising something in his
own New England. He conceded that there was little or nothing in this
prosperous and crude country to inspire a writer to produce poetry, but his
patriotism was so strong that he could never free himself wholly from its
provincial effects. All his works were produced in the stress created by this
pull of opposing forces—his high poetic ideals and his love of country.
In form he tends toward the polish of a classicist; in quality and freedom
of thought he is very responsive to the mysteries of romanticism. He is
introspective in his thinking and symbolical in his writing. Naturally he
thinks abstractly, but is compelled to construct concrete methods of
presenting his ideas. He never describes a strong emotion in detail, but
delights in using suggestions and sidelights. His pure and refined manhood,
his delicate fancy and deep interest in moral and religious questions, his
conscience in its most artistic form, all are presented to the reader in the
choicest garb of well chosen words and attuned to a subtle rhythm that adds
beauty and attractiveness to his style.
GENERAL REFERENCES
Hours in a Library, Leslie Stephen.
A Literary History of America, Barrett Wendell.
American Literature, William P. Trent.
Makers of English Fiction, W.J. Dawson.
Leading American Novelists, J. Erskine.
Studies and Appreciations, L.E. Gates.
"An Estimate," Scribner's Magazine, 43: 69-84.
"Unknown Quantity in Hawthorne's Personality," Current Literature, 42:
517-518.
COLLATERAL READINGS
Biographical Stories for Children, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Mosses from an Old Manse, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Wonder Boot, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Blithedale Romance, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Tanglewood Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Lady Eleanore's Mantle, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Great Stone Face, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Prophetic Pictures, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant.
A Solitary, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
The Lady or the Tiger, Frank R. Stockton.
The Strange Ride, Rudyard Kipling.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Rudyard Kipling.
They, Rudyard Kipling.
The Twelfth Guest, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
The Shadows on the Wall, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
 ETHAN BRAND[1]

A Chapter From An Abortive Romance

By Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Bartram the lime-burner, a rough, heavy-looking man, begrimed with

charcoal, sat watching his kiln, at nightfall, while his little son played at
building houses with the scattered fragments of marble, when, on the
hillside below them, they heard a roar of laughter, not mirthful, but slow,
and even solemn, like a wind shaking the boughs of the forest.
"Father, what is that?" asked the little boy, leaving his play, and pressing
betwixt his father's knees.
"O, some drunken man, I suppose," answered the lime-burner; "some
merry fellow from the bar-room in the village, who dared not laugh loud
enough within doors lest he should blow the roof of the house off. So here
he is, shaking his jolly sides at the foot of Graylock."
"But, father," said the child, more sensitive than the obtuse, middle-aged
clown, "he does not laugh like a man that is glad. So the noise frightens
me!"
"Don't be a fool, child!" cried his father, gruffly. "You will never make a
man, I do believe; there is too much of your mother in you. I have known
the rustling of a leaf startle you. Hark! Here comes the merry fellow now.
You shall see that there is no harm in him."
Bartram and his little son, while they were talking thus, sat watching the
same lime-kiln that had been the scene of Ethan Brand's solitary and
meditative life, before he began his search for the Unpardonable Sin. Many
years, as we have seen, had now elapsed, since that portentous night when
the IDEA was first developed. The kiln, however, on the mountain-side
stood unimpaired, and was in nothing changed since he had thrown his dark
thoughts into the intense glow of its furnace, and melted them, as it were,
into the one thought that took possession of his life. It was a rude, round,
towerlike structure, about twenty feet high, heavily built of rough stones,
and with a hillock of earth heaped about the larger part of its circumference;
so that the blocks and fragments of marble might be drawn by cart-loads,
and thrown in at the top. There was an opening at the bottom of the tower,
like an oven-mouth, but large enough to admit a man in a stooping posture,
and provided with a massive iron door. With the smoke and jets of flame
issuing from the chinks and crevices of this door, which seemed to give
admittance into the hillside, it resembled nothing so much as the private
entrance to the infernal regions, which the shepherds of the Delectable
Mountains[2] were accustomed to show to pilgrims.
There are many such lime-kilns in that tract of country, for the purpose of
burning the white marble which composes a large part of the substance of
the hills. Some of them, built years ago, and long deserted, with weeds
growing in the vacant round of the interior, which is open to the sky, and
grass and wild flowers rooting themselves into the chinks of the stones,
look already like relics of antiquity, and may yet be overspread with the
lichens of centuries to come. Others, where the lime-burner still feeds his
daily and night-long fire, afford points of interest to the wanderer among
the hills, who seats himself on a log of wood or a fragment of marble, to
hold a chat with the solitary man. It is a lonesome, and, when the character
is inclined to thought, may be an intensely thoughtful, occupation; as it
proved in the case of Ethan Brand, who had mused to such strange purpose,
in days gone by, while the fire in this very kiln was burning.
The man who now watched the fire was of a different order, and troubled
himself with no thoughts save the very few that were requisite to his
business. At frequent intervals he flung back the clashing weight of the iron
door, and, turning his face from the insufferable glare, thrust in huge logs of
oak, or stirred the immense brands with a long pole. Within the furnace
were seen the curling and riotous flames, and the burning marble, almost
molten with the intensity of heat; while without, the reflection of the fire
quivered on the dark intricacy of the surrounding forest, and showed in the
foreground a bright and ruddy little picture of the hut, the spring beside its
door, the athletic and coal-begrimed figure of the lime-burner, and the half-
frightened child, shrinking into the protection of his father's shadow. And
when again the iron door was closed, then reappeared the tender light of the
half-full moon, which vainly strove to trace out the indistinct shapes of the
neighboring mountains; and, in the upper sky, there was a flitting
congregation of clouds, still faintly tinged with the rosy sunset, though thus
far down into the valley the sunshine had vanished long and long ago.
The little boy now crept still closer to his father, as footsteps were heard
ascending the hillside, and a human form thrust aside the bushes that
clustered beneath the trees.
"Halloo! who is it?" cried the lime-burner, vexed at his son's timidity, yet
half infected by it, "Come forward, and show yourself, like a man, or I'll
fling this chunk of marble at your head !"
"You offer me a rough welcome," said a gloomy voice, as the unknown
man drew nigh. "Yet I neither claim nor desire a kinder one, even at my
own fireside."
To obtain a distincter view, Bartram threw open the iron door of the kiln,
whence immediately issued a gush of fierce light, that smote full upon the
stranger's face and figure. To a careless eye there appeared nothing very
remarkable in his aspect, which was that of a man in a coarse, brown,
country-made suit of clothes, tall and thin, with the staff and heavy shoes of
a wayfarer. As he advanced, he fixed his eyes—which were very bright—
intently upon the brightness of the furnace, as if he beheld, or expected to
behold, some object worthy of note within it.
"Good evening, stranger," said the lime-burner; "whence come you, so
late in the day?"
"I come from my search," answered the wayfarer; "for, at last, it is
finished."
"Drunk!—or crazy!" muttered Bartram to himself. "I shall have trouble
with the fellow. The sooner I drive him away, the better."
The little boy, all in a tremble, whispered to his father, and begged him to
shut the door of the kiln, so that there might not be so much light; for that
there was something in the man's face which he was afraid to look at, yet
could not look away from. And, indeed, even the lime-burner's dull and
torpid sense began to be impressed by an indescribable something in that
thin, rugged, thoughtful visage, with the grizzled hair hanging wildly about
it, and those deeply sunken eyes, which gleamed like fires within the
entrance of a mysterious cavern. But, as he closed the door, the stranger
turned towards him, and spoke in a quiet, familiar way, that made Bartram
feel as if he were a sane and sensible man, after all.
"Your task draws to an end, I see," said he. "This marble has already been
burning three days. A few hours more will convert the stone to lime."
"Why, who are you?" exclaimed the lime-burner. "You seem as well
acquainted with my business as I am myself."
"And well I may be," said the stranger; "for I followed the same craft
many a long year, and here, too, on this very spot. But you are a newcomer
in these parts. Did you never hear of Ethan Brand?"
"The man that went in search of the Unpardonable Sin?" asked Bartram,
with a laugh.
"The same," answered the stranger. "He has found what he sought, and
therefore he comes back again,"
"What! then you are Ethan Brand himself?" cried the lime-burner, in
amazement. "I am a newcomer here, as you say, and they call it eighteen
years since you left the foot of Graylock, But, I can tell you, the good folks
still talk about Ethan Brand, in the village yonder, and what a strange errand
took him away from his lime-kiln. Well and so you have found the
Unpardonable Sin?"
"Even so!" said the stranger, calmly.
"If the 'question is a fair one." proceeded Bartrarn, "where might it be?"
Ethan Brand laid his finger on his own heart.'
"Here!" replied he.
And then, without mirth in his countenance, but as if moved by an
involuntary recognition of the infinite absurdity of seeking throughout the
world for what was the closest of all things to himself, and looking into
every heart, save his own, for what was hidden in no other breast, he broke
into a laugh of scorn. It was the same slow, heavy laugh that had almost
appalled the lime-burner when it heralded the wayfarer's approach.
The solitary mountain side was made dismal by it. Laughter, when out of
place, mistimed, or bursting forth from a disordered state of feeling, may be
the most terrible modulation of the human voice. The laughter of one
asleep, even if it be a little child,—the madman's laugh,—the wild,
screaming laugh of a born idiot,—are sounds that we sometimes tremble to
hear, and would always willingly forget. Poets have imagined no utterance
of fiends Or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the
obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked
inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the
night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills.
"Joe," said he to his little son, "scamper down to the tavern in the village,
and tell the jolly fellows there that Ethan Brand has come back, and that he
has found the Unpardonable Sin!"
The boy darted away on his errand, to which Ethan Brand made no
objection, nor seemed hardly to notice it. He sat on a log of wood, looking
steadfastly at the iron door of the kiln. When the child was out of sight, and
his swift and light footsteps ceased to be heard treading first on the fallen
leaves and then on the rocky mountain path, the lime-burner began to regret
his departure. He felt that the little fellow's presence had been a barrier
between his guest and himself, and that he must now deal, heart to heart,
with a man who, on his own confession, had committed the one only crime
for which Heaven could afford no mercy. That crime, in its indistinct
blackness, seemed to overshadow him. The lime-burner's own sins rose up
within him, and made his memory riotous with a throng of evil shapes that
asserted their kindred with the Master Sin, whatever it might be, which it
was within the scope of man's corrupted nature to conceive and cherish.
They were all of one family; they went to and fro between his breast and
Ethan Brand's, and carried dark greetings from one to the other.
Then Bartram remembered the stories which had grown traditionary in
reference to this strange man, who had come upon him like a shadow of the
night, and was making himself at home in his old place, after so long
absence that the dead people, dead and buried for years, would have had
more right to be at home, in any familiar spot, than he. Ethan Brand, it was
said, had conversed with Satan himself in the lurid blaze of this very kiln.
The legend had been matter of mirth heretofore, but looked grisly now.
According to this tale, before Ethan Brand departed on his search, he had
been accustomed to evoke a fiend from the hot furnace of the lime-kiln,
night after night, in order to confer with him about the Unpardonable Sin;
the man and the fiend each laboring to frame the image of some mode of
guilt which could neither be atoned for nor forgiven. And, with the first
gleam of light upon the mountain-top, the fiend crept in at the iron door,
there to abide the intensest element of fire, until again summoned forth to
share in the dreadful task of extending man's possible guilt beyond the
scope of Heaven's else infinite mercy.
While the lime-burner was struggling with the horror of these thoughts,
Ethan Brand rose from the log, and flung open the door of the kiln. The
action was in such accordance with the idea in Bartram's mind, that he
almost expected to see the Evil One issue forth, red-hot from the raging
furnace.
"Hold! hold!" cried he, with a tremulous attempt to laugh; for he was
ashamed of his fears, although they overmastered him. "Don't, for mercy's
sake, bring out your Devil now!"
"Man!" sternly replied Ethan Brand, "what need have I of the Devil? I
have left him behind me, on my track. It is with such halfway sinners as you
that he busies himself. Fear not, because I open the door. I do but act by old
custom, and am going to trim your fire, like a lime-burner, as I was once."
He stirred the vast coals, thrust in more wood, and bent forward to gaze
into the hollow prison-house of the fire, regardless of the fierce glow that
reddened upon his face. The lime-burner sat watching him, and half
suspected his strange guest of a purpose, if not to evoke a fiend, at least to
plunge bodily into the flames, and thus vanish from the sight of man. Ethan
Brand, however, drew quietly back, and closed the door of the kiln.
"I have looked," said he, "into many a human heart that was seven times
hotter with sinful passions than yonder furnace is with fire. But I found not
there what I sought. No, not the Unpardonable Sin!"
"What is the Unpardonable Sin?" asked the lime-burner; and then he
shrank farther from his companion, trembling lest his question should be
answered.
"It is a sin that grew within my own breast," replied Ethan Brand,
standing erect, with a pride that distinguishes all enthusiasts of his stamp.
"A sin that grew nowhere else! The sin of an intellect that triumphed over
the sense of brotherhood with man and reverence for God, and sacrificed
everything to its own mighty claims! the only sin that deserves a
recompense of immortal agony! Freely, were it to do again, would I incur
the guilt. Unshrinkingly I accept the retribution!"
 "The man's head is turned," muttered the lime-burner to himself. "He
may be a sinner, like the rest of us,—nothing more likely,—but, I'll be
sworn, he is a madman too."
Nevertheless, he felt uncomfortable at his situation, alone with Ethan
Brand on the wild mountain side, and was right glad to hear the rough
murmur of tongues, and the footsteps of what seemed a pretty numerous
party, stumbling over the stones and rustling through the under-brush. Soon
appeared the whole lazy regiment that was wont to infest the village tavern,
comprehending three or four individuals who had drunk flip beside the bar-
room fire through all the winters, and smoked their pipes beneath the stoop
through all the summers, since Ethan Brand's departure. Laughing
boisterously, and mingling all their voices together in unceremonious talk,
they now burst into the moonshine and narrow streaks of firelight that
illuminated the open space before the lime-kiln. Bartram set the door ajar
again, flooding the spot with light, that the whole company might get a fair
view of Ethan Brand, and he of them.
There, among other old acquaintances, was a once ubiquitous[3] man,
now almost extinct, but whom we were formerly sure to encounter at the
hotel of every thriving village throughout the country. It was the stage-
agent. The present specimen of the genus was a wilted and smoke-dried
man, wrinkled and red-nosed, in a smartly cut, brown, bob-tailed coat, with
brass buttons, who, for a length of time unknown, had kept his desk and
corner in the bar-room, and was still puffing what seemed to be the same
cigar that he had lighted twenty years before. He had great fame as a dry
joker, though, perhaps, less on account of any intrinsic humor than from a
certain flavor of brandy toddy and tobacco smoke, which impregnated all
his ideas and expressions, as well as his person. Another well-remembered
though strangely altered face was that of Lawyer Giles, as people still called
him in courtesy; an elderly ragamuffin, in his soiled shirt-sleeves and tow-
cloth trousers. This poor fellow had been an attorney, in what he called his
better days, a sharp practitioner, and in great vogue among the village
litigants; but flip, and sling, and toddy, and cocktails, imbibed at all hours,
morning, noon, and night, had caused him to slide from intellectual to
various kinds and degrees of bodily labor, till, at last, to adopt his own
phrase, he slid into a soap vat. In other words, Giles was now a soap boiler,
in a small way. He had come to be but the fragment of a human being, a
part of one foot having been chopped off by an axe, and an entire hand torn
away by the devilish grip of a steam engine. Yet, though the corporeal hand
was gone, a spiritual member remained; for, stretching forth the stump,
Giles steadfastly averred that he felt an invisible thumb and fingers with as
vivid a sensation as before the real ones were amputated. A maimed and
miserable wretch he was; but one, nevertheless, whom the world could not
trample on, and had no right to scorn, either in this or any previous stage of
his misfortunes, since he had still kept up the courage and spirit of a man,
asked nothing in charity, and with his one hand—and that the left one—
fought a stern battle against want and hostile circumstances.
Among the throng, too, came another personage, who, with certain points
of similarity to Lawyer Giles, had many more of difference. It was the
village doctor; a man of some fifty years, whom, at an earlier period of his
life, we introduced as paying a professional visit to Ethan Brand during the
latter's supposed insanity. He was now a purple-visaged, rude, and brutal,
yet half-gentlemanly figure, with something wild, ruined, and desperate in
his talk, and in all the details of his gesture and manners. Brandy possessed
this man like an evil spirit, and made him as surly and savage as a wild
beast, and as miserable as a lost soul; but there was supposed to be in him
such wonderful skill, such native gifts of healing, beyond any which
medical science could impart, that society caught hold of him, and would
not let him sink out of its reach. So, swaying to and fro upon his horse, and
grumbling thick accents at the bedside, he visited all the sick chambers for
miles about among the mountain towns, and sometimes raised a dying man,
as it were, by miracle, or quite as often, no doubt, sent his patient to a grave
that was dug many a year too soon. The doctor had an everlasting pipe in
his mouth, and, as somebody said, in allusion to his habit of swearing, it
was always alight with hell-fire.
These three worthies pressed forward, and greeted Ethan Brand each
after his own fashion, earnestly inviting him to partake of the contents of a
certain black bottle, in which, as they averred, he would find something far
better worth seeking for than the Unpardonable Sin. No mind, which has
wrought itself by intense and solitary meditation into a high state of
enthusiasm, can endure the kind of contact with low and vulgar modes of
thought and feeling to which Ethan Brand was now subjected. It made him
doubt—and, strange to say, it was a painful doubt,—whether he had indeed
found the Unpardonable Sin and found it within himself. The whole
question on which he had exhausted life, and more than life, looked like a
delusion.
"Leave me," he said bitterly, "ye brute beasts, that have made yourselves
so, shrivelling up your souls with fiery liquors! I have done with you. Years
and years ago, I groped into your hearts, and found nothing there for my
purpose. Get ye gone!"
"Why, you uncivil scoundrel," cried the fierce doctor, "is that the way
you respond to the kindness of your best friends? Then let me tell you the
truth. You have no more found the Unpardonable Sin than yonder boy Joe
has. You are but a crazy fellow,—I told you so twenty years ago,—neither
better nor worse than a crazy fellow, and a fit companion of old Humphrey,
here!"
He pointed to an old man, shabbily dressed, with long white hair, thin
visage, and unsteady eyes. For some years past this aged person had been
wandering about among the hills, inquiring of all travellers whom he met
for his daughter. The girl, it seemed, had gone off with a company of circus
performers; and occasionally tidings of her came to the village, and fine
stories were told of her glittering appearance as she rode on horseback in
the ring, or performed marvellous feats on the tight rope.
The white-haired father now approached Ethan Brand, and gazed
unsteadily into his face.
"They tell me you have been all over the earth," said he, wringing his
hands with earnestness. "You must have seen my daughter, for she makes a
grand figure in the world, and everybody goes to see her. Did she send any
word to her old father, or say when she was coming back?"
Ethan Brand's eye quailed beneath the old man's. That daughter, from
whom he so earnestly desired a word of greeting, was the Esther of our tale,
the very girl whom, with such cold and remorseless purpose, Ethan Brand
had made the subject of a psychological experiment, and wasted, absorbed,
and perhaps annihilated her soul, in the process.
"Yes," murmured he, turning away from the hoary wanderer; "it is no
delusion. There is an Unpardonable Sin!"
While these things were passing, a merry scene was going forward in the
area of cheerful light, beside the spring and before the door of the hut. A
number of the youth of the village, young men and girls, had hurried up the
hillside, impelled by curiosity to see Ethan Brand, the hero of so many a
legend familiar to their childhood. Finding nothing, however, very
remarkable in his aspect,—nothing but a sunburnt wayfarer, in plain garb
and dusty shoes, who sat looking into the fire, as if he fancied pictures
among the coals,—these young people speedily grew tired of observing
him. As it happened, there was other amusement at hand. An old German
Jew, travelling with a diorama[4] on his back, was passing down, the
mountain road towards the village just as the party turned aside from it, and,
in hopes of eking out the profits of the day, the showman had kept them
company to the lime-kiln.
"Come, old Dutchman," cried one of the young men, "let us see your
pictures, if you can swear they are worth looking at!"
"O yes, Captain," answered the Jew,—whether as a matter of courtesy or
craft, he styled everybody Captain,—"I shall show you, indeed, some very
superb pictures!"
So, placing his box in a proper position, he invited the young men and
girls to look through the glass orifices of the machine, and proceeded to
exhibit a series of the most outrageous scratchings and daubings, as
specimens of the fine arts, that ever an itinerant showman had the face to
impose upon his circle of spectators. The pictures were worn out, moreover,
tattered, full of cracks and wrinkles, dingy with tobacco smoke, and
otherwise in a most pitiable condition. Some purported to be cities, public
edifices, and ruined castles in Europe; others represented Napoleon's battles
and Nelson's sea fights; and in the midst of these would be seen a gigantic,
brown, hairy hand,—which might have been mistaken for the Hand of
Destiny, though, in truth, it was only the showman's,—pointing its
forefinger to various scenes of the conflict, while its owner gave historical
illustrations. When, with much merriment at its abominable deficiency of
merit, the exhibition was concluded, the German bade little Joe put his head
into the box. Viewed through the magnifying glasses, the boy's round, rosy
visage assumed the strangest imaginable aspect of an immense Titanic[5]
child, the mouth grinning broadly, and the eyes and every other feature
overflowing with fun at the joke. Suddenly, however, that merry face turned
pale, and its expression changed to horror, for this easily impressed and
excitable child had become sensible that the eye of Ethan Brand was fixed
upon him through the glass.
 "You make the little man to be afraid. Captain." said the German Jew,
turning up the dark and strong outline of his visage, from his stooping
posture, "But look again, and, by chance, I shall cause you to see somewhat
that is very fine, upon my word!"
Ethan Brand gazed into the box for an instant, and then starting back,
looked fixedly at the German. What had he seen? Nothing, apparently; for a
curious youth, who had peeped in almost at the same moment, beheld only
a vacant space of canvas.
"I remember you now," muttered Ethan Brand to the showman.
"Ah, Captain," whispered the Jew of Nuremburg, with a dark smile, "I
find it to be a heavy matter in my show-box,—this Unpardonable Sin! By
my faith, Captain, it has wearied my shoulders, this long day, to carry it
over the mountain."
"Peace," answered Ethan Brand, sternly, "or get thee into the furnace
yonder!"
The Jew's exhibition had scarcely concluded, when a great, elderly dog—
who seemed to be his own master, as no person in the company laid claim
to him—saw fit to render himself the object of public notice. Hitherto, he
had shown himself a very quiet, well-disposed old dog, going round from
one to another, and, by way of being sociable, offering his rough head to be
patted by any kindly hand that would take so much trouble. But now, all of
a sudden, this grave and venerable quadruped, of his own mere motion, and
without the slightest suggestion from anybody else, began to run round after
his tail, which, to heighten the absurdity of the proceeding, was a great deal
shorter than it should have been. Never was seen such headlong eagerness
in pursuit of an object that could not possibly be attained; never was heard
such a tremendous outbreak of growling, snarling, barking, and snapping,—
as if one end of the ridiculous brute's body were at deadly and most
unforgivable enmity with the other. Faster and faster, round about went the
cur; and faster and still faster fled the unapproachable brevity of his tail;
and louder and fiercer grew his yells of rage and animosity; until, utterly
exhausted, and as far from the goal as ever, the foolish old dog ceased his
performance as suddenly as he had begun it. The next moment he was as
mild, quiet, sensible, and respectable in his deportment, as when he first
scraped acquaintance with the company.
 As may be supposed, the exhibition was greeted with universal laughter,
clapping of hands, and shouts of encore, to which the canine performer
responded by wagging all that there was to wag of his tail, but appeared
totally unable to repeat his very successful effort to amuse the spectators.
Meanwhile, Ethan Brand had resumed his seat upon the log, and moved,
it might be, by a perception of some remote analogy between his own case
and that of this self-pursuing cur, he broke into the awful laugh, which,
more than any other token, expressed the condition of his inward being.
From that moment, the merriment of the party was at an end; they stood
aghast, dreading lest the inauspicious sound should be reverberated around
the horizon, and that mountain would thunder it to mountain, and so the
horror be prolonged upon their ears. Then, whispering one to another that it
was late,—that the moon was almost down,—that the August night was
growing chill,—they hurried homewards, leaving the lime-burner and little
Joe to deal as they might with their unwelcome guest. Save for these three
human beings, the open space on the hillside was a solitude, set in a vast
gloom of forest. Beyond that darksome verge, the firelight glimmered on
the stately trunks and almost black foliage of pines, intermixed with the
lighter verdure of sapling oaks, maples, and poplars, while here and there
lay the gigantic corpses of dead trees, decaying on the leaf-strewn soil. And
it seemed to little Joe—a timorous and imaginative child—that the silent
forest was holding, its breath, until some fearful thing should happen.
Ethan Brand thrust more wood into the fire, and closed the door of the
kiln; then looking over his shoulder at the lime-burner and his son, he bade,
rather than advised, them to retire to rest.
"For myself, I cannot sleep." said he, "I have matters that it concerns me
to meditate upon. I will watch the fire, as I used to do in the old time."
"And call the Devil out of the furnace to keep you company, I suppose,"
muttered Bartram, who had been making intimate acquaintance with the
black bottle above mentioned. "But watch, if you like, and call as many
devils as you like! For my part, I shall be all the better for a snooze. Come,
Joe!"
As the boy followed his father into the hut, he looked back at the
wayfarer, and the tears came into his eyes, for his tender spirit had an
intuition of the bleak and terrible loneliness in which this man had
enveloped himself.
 When they had gone, Ethan Brand sat listening to the crackling of the
kindled wood, and looking at the little spirits of fire that issued through the
chinks of the door. These trifles, however, once so familiar, had but the
slightest hold of his attention, while deep within his mind he was reviewing
the gradual but marvellous change that had been wrought upon him by the
search to which he had devoted himself. He remembered how the night dew
had fallen upon him,—how the dark forest had whispered to him,—how the
stars had gleamed upon him,—a simple and loving man, watching his fire
in the years gone by, and ever musing as it burned. He remembered with
what tenderness, with what love and sympathy for mankind, and what pity
for human guilt and woe, he had first begun to contemplate those ideas
which afterwards became the inspiration of his life; with what reverence he
had then looked into the heart of man, viewing it as a temple originally
divine, and, however desecrated, still to be held sacred by a brother; with
what awful fear he had deprecated the success of his pursuit, and prayed
that the Unpardonable Sin might never be revealed to him. Then ensued that
vast intellectual development, which, in its progress, disturbed the
counterpoise between his mind and heart. The Idea that possessed his life
had operated as a means of education; it had gone on cultivating his powers
to the highest point of which they were susceptible; it had raised him from
the level of an unlettered laborer to stand on a starlit eminence, whither the
philosophers of the earth, laden with the lore of universities, might vainly
strive to clamber after him. So much for the intellect! But where was the
heart? That, indeed, had withered,—had contracted.—had hardened,—had
perished! It had ceased to partake of the universal throb, He had lost his
hold of the magnetic chain of humanity. He was no longer a brother-man,
opening the chambers of the dungeons of our common nature by the key of
holy sympathy, which gave him a right to share in all its secrets; he was
now a cold observer, looking on mankind as the subject of his experiment,
and, at length, converting man and woman to be his puppets, and pulling
the wires that moved them to such degrees of crime as were demanded for
his study.
Thus Ethan Brand became a fiend. He began to be so from the moment
that his moral nature had ceased to keep the pace of improvement with his
intellect. And now, as his highest effort and inevitable development,—as
the bright and gorgeous flower, and rich, delicious fruit of his life's labor,—
he had produced the Unpardonable Sin!
 "What more have I to seek? what more to achieve?" said Ethan Brand to
himself, "My task Is done, and well done!"
Starting from the log with a certain alacrity in his gait and ascending the
hillock of earth that was raised against the stone circumference of the lime-
kiln, he thus reached the top of the structure. It was a space of perhaps ten
feet across, from edge to edge, presenting a view of the upper surface of the
immense mass of broken marble with which the kiln was heaped. All these
innumerable blocks and fragments of marble were red-hot and vividly on
fire, sending up great spouts of blue flame, which quivered aloft and danced
madly, as within a magic circle, and sank and rose again, with continual and
multitudinous activity. As the lonely man bent forward over this terrible
body of fire, the blasting heat smote up against his person with a breath
that, it might be supposed, would have scorched and shrivelled him up in a
moment.
Ethan Brand stood erect, and raised his arms on high. The blue flames
played upon his face, and imparted the wild and ghastly light which alone
could have suited its expression; it was that of a fiend on the verge of
plunging into his gulf of intensest torment.
"O Mother Earth," cried he, "who art no more my Mother, and into
whose bosom this frame shall never be resolved! O mankind, whose
brotherhood I have cast off, and trampled thy great heart beneath my feet! O
stars of heaven, that shone on me of old, as if to light me onward and
upward!—farewell all, and forever. Come, deadly element of Fire,—
henceforth my familiar frame! Embrace me, as I do thee!"
That night the sound of a fearful peal of laughter rolled heavily through
the sleep of the lime-burner and his little son; dim shapes of horror and
anguish haunted their dreams, and seemed still present in the rude hovel,
when they opened their eyes to the daylight.
"Up, boy, up!" cried the lime-burner, staring about him. "Thank Heaven,
the night is gone, at last; and rather than pass such another, I would watch,
my lime-kiln, wide awake, for a twelvemonth. This Ethan Brand, with his
humbug of an Unpardonable Sin, has done me no such mighty favor, in
taking my place!"
He issued from the hut, followed by little Joe, who kept fast hold, of his
father's hand. The early sunshine was already pouring its gold upon the
mountain tops; and though the valleys were still in shadow, they smiled
cheerfully in the promise of the bright day that was hastening onward. The
village, completely shut in by hills, which swelled away gently about it,
looked as if it had rested peacefully in the hollow of the great hand of
Providence. Every dwelling was distinctly visible; the little spires of the
two churches pointed upwards, and caught a fore-glimmering of brightness
from the sun-gilt skies upon their gilded weathercocks. The tavern was astir,
and the figure of the old, smoke-dried stage-agent, cigar in mouth, was seen
beneath the stoop. Old Graylock was glorified with a golden cloud upon his
head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding mountains,
there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of them far down
into the valley, others high up towards the summits, and still others, of the
same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold radiance of the upper
atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the clouds that rested on the
hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood that sailed in air, it seemed
almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend into the heavenly regions.
Earth was so mingled with sky that it was a day-dream to look at it.
To supply that charm of the familiar and homely, which Nature so readily
adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach was rattling down the
mountain road, and the driver sounded his horn, while echo caught up the
notes, and intertwined them into a rich and varied and elaborate harmony, of
which the original performer could lay claim to little share. The great hills
played a concert among themselves, each contributing a strain of airy
sweetness.
Little Joe's face brightened at once.
"Dear father," cried he, skipping cheerily to and fro, "that strange man is
gone, and the sky and the mountains all seem glad of it!"
"Yes," growled the lime-burner, with an oath, "but he has let the fire go
down, and no thanks to him if five hundred bushels of lime are not spoiled.
If I catch the fellow hereabouts again, I shall feel like tossing him into the
furnace!"
With his long pole in his hand, he ascended to the top of the kiln. After a
moment's pause, he called to his son.
"Come up here, Joe!" said he.
So little Joe ran up the hillock, and stood by his father's side. The marble
was all burnt into perfect, snow-white lime. But on its surface, in the midst
of the circle,—snow-white too, and thoroughly converted into lime,—lay a
human skeleton, in the attitude of a person who, after long toil, lies down to
long repose. Within the ribs—strange to say—was the shape of a human
heart.
"Was the fellow's heart made of marble?" cried Bartram, in some
perplexity at this phenomenon. "At any rate, it is burnt into what looks like
special good lime; and, taking all the bones together, my kiln is half a
bushel the richer for him."
So saying, the rude lime-burner lifted his pole, and, letting it fall upon the
skeleton, the relics of Ethan Brand were crumbled into fragments.

NOTES
[1] Written in 1848; published in Holden's Dollar Magazine in 1851.
[2] 182:26 Delectable Mountains. A range of mountains referred to in
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
[3] 190:22 ubiquitous. Being present everywhere.
[4] 194:29 diorama. A series of paintings arranged for exhibition. See
dictionary.
[5] 195:30 Titanic. Characteristic of the Titans; therefore large.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Marble Faun, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Gray Champion, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Wedding Knell, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Great Carbuncle, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Haunted Mind, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Feathertop, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving.
The Elixir of Life, Honoré de Balzac.
The Leather Funnel, A. Conan Doyle.
The Return of Imray's Ghost, Rudyard Kipling.
A Gentle Ghost, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
 THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR[1]

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself a

grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain. Lads were
early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has been in a
pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in an honorable
fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and mankind, a certain
swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned. He had put up his horse with
due care, and supped with due deliberation; and then, in a very agreeable
frame of mind, went out to pay a visit in the gray of the evening. It was not
a very wise proceeding on the young man's part. He would have done better
to remain beside the fire or go decently to bed. For the town was full of the
troops of Burgundy and England under a mixed command; and though
Denis was there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him
little on a chance encounter.
It was September, 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty piping
wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the dead leaves ran
riot along the streets. Here and there a window was already lighted up; and
the noise of men-at-arms making merry over supper within came forth in
fits and was swallowed up and carried away by the wind. The night fell
swiftly: the flag of England, fluttering on the spire top, grew ever fainter
and fainter against the flying clouds—a black speck like a swallow in the
tumultuous, leaden chaos of the sky. As the night fell the wind rose, and
began to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley
below the town.
Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's
door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and make
an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so much to
delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he said good-by
upon the threshold. The wind had fallen again in the meanwhile; the night
was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a glimmer of moonshine, slipped
through the canopy of cloud. Denis was ill-acquainted with the intricate
lanes of Chateau Landon; even by daylight he had found some trouble in
picking his way; and in this absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether. He
was certain of one thing only—to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's
house lay at the lower end, or tail, of Chateau Landon, while the inn was up
at the head, under the great church spire. With this clew to go upon he
stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in the open places
where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the wall in
stifling closes. It is an eerie and mysterious position to be thus submerged in
opaque blackness in an almost unknown town. The silence is terrifying in
its possibilities. The touch of cold window bars to the exploring hand
startles the man like the touch of a toad; the inequalities of the pavement
shake his heart into his mouth; a piece of denser darkness threatens an
ambuscade or a chasm in the pathway; and where the air is brighter, the
houses put on strange and bewildering appearances, as if to lead him further
from his way. For Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting
notice, there was real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he
went warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an
observation.
He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go sharply
downward. Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his inn; but the
hope of a little more light tempted him forward to reconnoitre. The lane
ended in a terrace with a bartizan[2] wall, which gave an outlook between
high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the valley lying dark and formless
several hundred feet below. Denis looked down, and could discern a few
tree-tops waving and a single speck of brightness where the river ran across
a weir. The weather was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to
show the outline of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills. By
the uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of some
pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and turret-tops; the
round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying buttresses, projected boldly
from the main block; and the door was sheltered under a deep porch carved
with figures and overhung by two long gargoyles[3]. The windows of the
chapel gleamed through their intricate tracery with a light as of many
tapers, and threw out the buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense
blackness against the sky. It was plainly the hotel of some great family of
the neighborhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at
Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging the
skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.
There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he had
reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained some notion of
his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the main thoroughfare and
speedily regain the inn. He was reckoning without that chapter of accidents
which was to make this night memorable above all others in his career; for
he had not gone back above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming
to meet him, and heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing
narrows of the lane. It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round
with torches. Denis assured himself that they had all been making free with
the wine bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about safe-conducts or
the niceties of chivalrous war. It, was as like as not that they would kill him
like a dog and leave him where he fell. The situation was inspiriting but
nervous. Their own torches would conceal him from sight, he reflected; and
he hoped that they would drown the noise of his footsteps with their own
empty voices. If he were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice
altogether.
Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a
pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword rang
loudly on the stones. Two or three voices demanded who went there—some
in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and ran the faster
down the lane. Once upon the terrace, he paused to look back. They still
kept calling after him, and just then began to double the pace in pursuit,
with a considerable clank of armor, and great tossing of the torchlight to
and fro in the narrow jaws of the passage.
Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch. There he might
escape observation, or—if that were too much to expect—was in a capital
posture whether for parley or defence. So thinking, he drew his sword and
tried to set his back against the door. To his surprise it yielded behind his
weight; and though he turned in a moment, continued to swing back on
oiled and noiseless hinges until it stood wide open on a black interior. When
things fall out opportunely for the person concerned, he is not apt to be
critical about the how or why, his own immediate personal convenience
seeming a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our
sublunary things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation, stepped
within and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his place of refuge.
Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close it altogether; but for
some inexplicable reason—perhaps by a spring or a weight—the ponderous
mass of oak whipped itself out of his fingers and clanked to, with a
formidable rumble and a noise like the falling of an automatic bar.
The round, at that very moment, debouched[4] upon the terrace and
proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses. He heard them ferreting
in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled along the outer surface
of the door behind which he stood; but these gentlemen were in too high a
humor to be long delayed, and soon made off down a corkscrew pathway
which had escaped Denis' observation, and passed out of sight and hearing
along the battlements of the town.
Denis breathed again. He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of
accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door and
slipping forth again. The inner surface was quite smooth, not a handle, not a
moulding, not a projection of any sort. He got his finger nails round the
edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable. He shook it, it was as firm
as a rock, Denis de Beaulieu frowned, and gave vent to a little noiseless
whistle. What ailed the door? he wondered. Why was it open? How came it
to shut so easily and so effectually after him? There was something obscure
and underhand about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy. It
looked like a snare, and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet by-
street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior? And yet
—snare or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally—here he was, prettily
trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way out of it again. The
darkness began to weigh upon him. He gave ear; all was silent without, but
within and close by he seemed to catch a faint sighing, a faint sobbing
rustle, a little stealthy creak—as though many persons were at his side,
holding themselves quite still, and governing even their respiration with the
extreme of slyness. The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced
about suddenly as if to defend his life. Then, for the first time, he became
aware of a light about the level of his eyes and at some distance in the
interior of the house—a vertical thread of light, widening toward the
bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a doorway.
 To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a piece of solid ground
to a man laboring in a morass; his mind seized upon it with avidity; and he
stood staring at it and trying to piece together some logical conception of
his surroundings. Plainly there was a flight of steps ascending from his own
level to that of this illuminated doorway, and indeed he thought he could
make out another thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as
phosphorescence, which might very well be reflected along the polished
wood of a handrail. Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his
heart had continued to beat with smothering violence, and an intolerable
desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his spirit. He was in
deadly peril, he believed. What could be more natural than to mount the
staircase, lift the curtain, and confront his difficulty at once? At least he
would be dealing with something tangible; at least he would be no longer in
the dark. He stepped slowly forward with outstretched hands, until his foot
struck the bottom step; then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment
to compose his expression, lifted the arras and went in.
He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone. There were
three doors, one on each of three sides, all similarly curtained with tapestry.
The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a great stone
chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Malétroits. Denis recognized
the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in such good hands. The
room was strongly illuminated; but it contained little furniture except a
heavy table and a chair or two; the hearth was innocent of fire, and the
pavement was but sparsely strewn with rushes clearly many days old.
On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he
entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet. He sat with his legs crossed
and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by his elbow on a
bracket on the wall. His countenance had a strong masculine cast; not
properly human, but such as we see in the bull, the goat, or the domestic
boar; something equivocal and wheedling, something greedy, brutal and
dangerous. The upper lip was inordinately full, as though swollen by a blow
or a toothache; and the smile, the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong
eyes were quaintly and almost comically evil in expression. Beautiful white
hair hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a single curl
upon the tippet. His beard and mustache were the pink of venerable
sweetness. Age, probably in consequence of inordinate precautions, had left
no mark upon his hands; and the Malétroit hand was famous. It would be
difficult to imagine anything at once so fleshy and so delicate in design; the
taper, sensual fingers were like those of one of Leonardo's[5] women; the
fork of the thumb made a dimpled protuberance when closed; the nails were
perfectly shaped, and of a dead, surprising whiteness. It rendered his aspect
tenfold more redoubtable, that a man with hands like these should keep
them devoutly folded like a virgin martyr—that a man with so intent and
startling an expression of face should sit patiently on his seat and
contemplates people with an unwinking stare, like a god, or a god's statue.
His quiescence seemed ironical and treacherous, it fitted so poorly with his
looks.
Such was Alain, Sire de Malétroit.
Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.
"Pray step in," said the Sire de Malétroit. "I have been expecting you all
the evening."
He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a slight
but courteous inclination of the head. Partly from the smile, partly from the
strange musical murmur with which the sire prefaced his observation, Denis
felt a strong shudder of disgust go through his marrow. And what with
disgust and honest confusion of mind, he could scarcely get words together
in reply.
"I fear," he said, "that this is a double accident. I am not the person you
suppose me. It seems you were looking for a visit; but for my part, nothing
was further from my thoughts—nothing could be more contrary to my
wishes—than this intrusion."
"Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, "here you are, which
is the main point. Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself entirely at your
ease. We shall arrange our little affairs presently."
Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some
misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanation.
"Your door," he began.
"About my door?" asked the other raising his peaked eyebrows. "A little
piece of ingenuity." And he shrugged his shoulders. "A hospitable fancy!
By your own account, you were not desirous of making any acquaintance.
We old people look for such reluctance now and then; when it touches our
honor, we cast about until we find some way of overcoming it. You arrive
uninvited, but believe me, very welcome."
"You persist in error, sir," said Denis. "There can be no question between
you and me. I am a stranger in this countryside. My name is Denis,
damoiseau de Beaulieu. If you see me in your house it is only—"
"My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will permit me to have my
own ideas on that subject. They probably differ from yours at the present
moment," he added with a leer, "but time will show which of us is in the
right."
Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic. He seated himself with
a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during which he
thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of a prayer from behind
the arras immediately opposite him. Sometimes there seemed to be but one
person engaged, sometimes two; and the vehemence of the voice, low as it
was, seemed to indicate either great haste or an agony of spirit. It occurred
to him that this piece of tapestry covered the entrance to the chapel he had
noticed from without.
The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a
smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a mouse,
which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction. This state of matters
became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an end to it, remarked
politely that the wind had gone down.
The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged and
violent that he became quite red in the face. Denis got upon his feet at once,
and put on his hat with a flourish.
"Sir," he said, "if you are in your wits, you have affronted me grossly. If
you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better employment for my
brains than to talk with lunatics. My conscience is clear; you have made a
fool of me from the first moment; you have refused to hear my
explanations; and now there is no power under God will make me stay here
any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in a more decent fashion, I
will hack your door in pieces with my sword."
The Sire de Malétroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis with
the fore and little fingers extended.
"My dear nephew," he said, "sit down."
 "Nephew!" retorted Denis, "you lie in your throat;" and he snapped his
fingers in his face.
"Sit down, you rogue!" cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh voice
like the barking of a dog. "Do you fancy," he went on, "that when I had
made my little contrivance for the door I had stopped short with that? If you
prefer to be bound hand and foot till your bones ache, rise and try to go
away. If you choose to remain a free young buck, agreeably conversing with
an old gentleman—why, sit where you are in peace, and God be with you."
"Do you mean, I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis.
"I state the facts," replied the other. "I would rather leave the conclusion
to yourself."
Denis sat down again. Externally he managed to keep pretty calm, but
within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension. He
no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman. And if the old
gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look for? What absurd
or tragical adventure had befallen him? What countenance was he to
assume?
While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung the
chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth, and, giving
a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an undertone to Sire de
Malétroit.
"She is in a better frame of spirit?" asked the latter.
"She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest.
"Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!" sneered the old
gentleman. "A likely stripling—not ill-born—and of her own choosing,
too? Why, what more would the jade have?"
"The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said the other, "and
somewhat trying to her blushes."
"She should have thought of that before she began the dance! It was none
of my choosing, God knows that; but since she is in it, by our Lady, she
shall carry it to the end." And then addressing Denis, "Monsieur de
Beaulieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece? She has been waiting
your arrival, I may say, with even greater impatience than myself."
Denis had resigned himself with a good grace—all he desired was to
know the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and bowed
in acquiescence. The Sire de Malétroit followed his example and limped,
with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, toward the chapel door. The priest
pulled aside the arras, and all three entered. The building had considerable
architectural pretensions. A light groining sprang from six stout columns,
and hung down in two rich pendants from the centre of the vault. The place
terminated behind the altar in a round end, embossed and honeycombed
with a superfluity of ornament in relief, and pierced by many little windows
shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels. These windows were imperfectly is
glazed, so that the night air circulated freely in the chapel. The tapers, of
which there must have been half a hundred burning on the altar, were
unmercifully blown about; and the light went through many different phases
of brilliancy and semi-eclipse. On the steps in front of the altar knelt a
young girl richly attired as a bride. A chill settled over Denis as he observed
her costume; he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that
was being thrust upon his mind; it could not—it should not—be as he
feared.
"Blanche," said the sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have brought a
friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him your pretty hand. It
is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be polite, my niece."
The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the newcomers. She moved all
of a piece; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line of her
fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes upon the
pavement, as she came slowly forward. In the course of her advance her
eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet—feet of which he was justly vain,
be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant accoutrement even while
travelling. She paused—started, as if his yellow boots had conveyed some
shocking meaning—and glanced, suddenly up into the wearer's
countenance. Their eyes met; shame gave place to horror and terror in her
looks; the blood left her lips, with a piercing scream she covered her face
with her hands and sank upon, the chapel floor.
"That is not the man!" she cried. "My uncle, that is not the man!"
The Sire de Malétroit chirped agreeably. "Of course not," he said; "I
expected as much. It was so unfortunate you could not remember his
name."
"Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this person till this
moment—I have never so much as set eyes upon him—I never wish to see
him again. Sir," she said, turning to Denis, "if you are a gentleman, you will
hear me out. Have I ever seen you—have you ever seen me—before this
accursed hour?"
"To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the
young man. "This is the first time, messire, that I have met with your
engaging niece."
The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.
"I am distressed to hear it," he said. "But it is never too late to begin. I
had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I married her; which
proves," he added, with a grimace, "that these impromptu marriages may
often produce an excellent understanding in the long run. As the
bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I will give him two hours to
make up for lost time before we proceed with the ceremony." And he turned
toward the door, followed by the clergyman.
The girl was on her feet in a moment. "My uncle, you cannot be in
earnest," she said. "I declare before God I will stab myself rather than be
forced on that young man. The heart rises at it; God forbids such marriages;
you dishonor your white hair. Oh, my uncle, pity me! There is not a woman
in all the world but would prefer death to such a nuptial. Is it possible," she
added, faltering—"is it possible that you do not believe me—that you still
think this"—and she pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt
—"that you still think this to be the man?"
"Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, "I do. But let
me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Malétroit, my way of thinking
about this affair. When you took it into your head to dishonor my family
and the name that I have borne, in peace and war, for more than threescore
years, you forfeited, not only the right to question my designs, but that of
looking me in the face. If your father had been alive, he would have spat on
you and turned you out of doors. His was the hand of iron. You may bless
your God you have only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle. It
was my duty to get you married without delay. Out of pure goodwill, I have
tried to find your own gallant for you. And I believe I have succeeded. But
before God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Malétroit, if I have not, I
care not one jack-straw. So let me recommend you to be polite to our young
friend; for, upon my word, your next groom may be less appetizing."
 And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels; and the arras
fell behind the pair.
The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.
"And what, sir," she demanded, "may be the meaning of all this?"
"God knows," returned Denis, gloomily, "I am a prisoner in this house,
which seems full of mad people. More I know not; and nothing do I
understand."
"And pray how came you here?" she asked.
He told her as briefly as he could. "For the rest," he added, "perhaps you
will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all these riddles, and
what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it."
She stood silent for a little, and lie could see her lips tremble and her
tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre. Then she pressed her forehead in
both hands.
"Alas, how my head aches!" she said, wearily—"to say nothing of my
poor heart! But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it must
seem. I am called Blanche de Malétroit; I have been without father or
mother for—oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed I have been most
unhappy all my life. Three months ago a young captain began to stand near
me every day in church. I could see that I pleased him; I am much to blame,
but I was so glad that any one should love me; and when he passed me a
letter, I took it home with me and read it with great pleasure. Since that time
he has written many. He was so anxious to speak with me, poor fellow! and
kept asking me to leave the door open some evening that we might have
two words upon the stair. For he knew how much my uncle trusted me."
She gave something like a sob at that, and it was a moment before she could
go on. "My uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she said, at last.
"He has performed many feats in war, and was a great person at court, and
much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days. How he came to suspect me I
cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything from his knowledge; and this
morning, as we came from mass, he took my hand into his, forced it open,
and read my little billet, walking by my side all the while.
"When he finished, he gave it back to me with great politeness. It
contained another request to have the door left open; and this has been the
ruin of us all. My uncle kept me strictly in my room until evening, and then
ordered me to dress myself as you see me—a hard mockery for a young
girl, do you not think so? I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to
tell him the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him; into
which, alas! you have fallen in the anger of God. I looked for much
confusion; for how could I tell whether he was willing to take me for his
wife on these sharp terms? He might have been trifling with me from the
first; or I might have made myself too cheap in his eyes. But truly I had not
looked for such a shameful punishment as this? I could not think that God
would let a girl be so disgraced before a young man. And now I tell you all;
and I can scarcely hope that you will not despise me."
Denis made her a respectful inclination.
"Madam," he said, "you have honored me by your confidence. It remains
for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honor. Is Messire de Malétroit
at hand?"
"I believe he is writing in the salle[6] without," she answered.
"May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, offering his hand with his
most courtly bearing.
She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a very
drooping and shamefast condition, but Denis strutting and raffling in the
consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty of accomplishing it
with honor.
The Sire Malétroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance.
"Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I believe I am to have
some say in the matter of this marriage; and let me tell you at once, I will be
no party to forcing the inclination of this young lady. Had it been freely
offered to me, I should have been proud to accept her hand, for I perceive
she is as good as she is beautiful; but as things are, I have now the honor,
messire, of refusing."
Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old gentleman
only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively sickening to Denis.
"I am afraid," he said, "Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not perfectly
understand the choice I have offered you. Follow me, I beseech you, to this
window." And he led the way to one of the large windows which stood open
on the night. "You observe," he went on, "there is an iron ring in the upper
masonry, and reeved through that, a very efficacious rope. Now, mark my
words: if you should find your disinclination to my niece's person
insurmountable, I shall have you hanged out of this window before sunrise.
I shall only proceed to such an extremity with the greatest regret, you may
believe me. For it is not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's
establishment in life. At the same time, it must come to that if you prove
obstinate. Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in its way; but if
you sprung from Charlemagne[7], you should not refuse the hand of a
Malétroit with impunity—not if she had been as common as the Paris road
—not if she was as hideous as the gargoyle over my door. Neither my niece
nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me at all in this matter. The
honor of my house has been compromised; I believe you to be the guilty
person, at least you are now in the secret; and you can hardly wonder if I
request you to wipe out the stain. If you will not, your blood be on your
own head! It will be no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting
relics kicking their heels in the breeze below my windows, but half a loaf is
better than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonor, I shall at least stop
the scandal."
There was a pause.
"I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
gentlemen," said Denis. "You wear a sword, and I hear you have used it
with distinction."
The Sire de Malétroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of the three
doors. It was only a moment before he let it fall again; but Denis had time
to see a dusky passage full of armed men.
"When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honor you,
Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain: "but I am now too old. Faithful
retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the strength I have. This
is one of the hardest things to swallow as a man grows up in years; but with
a little patience, even this becomes habitual. You and the lady seem to
prefer the salle for what remains of your two hours; and as I have no desire
to cross your preference, I shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in
the world. No haste!" he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous
look come into Denis de Beaulieu's face. "If your mind revolt against
hanging, it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out of the
window or upon the pikes of my retainers. Two hours of life are always two
hours. A great many things may turn up in even as little a while as that.
And, besides. If I understand her appearance, my niece has something to
say to you. You will not disfigure your last hours by a want of politeness to
a lady?"
Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.
It is likely that the old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom of
an understanding; for he smiled on both, and added sweetly: "If you will
give me your word of honor, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my return at
the end of the two hours before attempting anything desperate, I shall
withdraw my retainers, and let you speak in greater privacy with
mademoiselle."
Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.
"I give you my word of honor," he said.
Messire de Malétroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment,
clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had already
grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Bealieu. He first possessed
himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went to the mouth
of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men behind the arras;
and lastly he hobbled out through the door by which Denis had come in,
turning upon the threshold to address a last smiling bow to the young
couple, and followed by the chaplain with a hand lamp.
No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced toward Denis with her
hands extended. Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone with
tears.
"You shall not die!" she cried, "you shall marry me after all."
"You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in fear of
death."
"Oh, no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon[8]. It is for my own
sake—I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."
"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty, madam.
What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to accept. In a
moment of noble feeling toward me, you forget what you perhaps owe to
others."
He had the decency to keep his eyes on the floor as he said this, and after
he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion. She stood silent for a
moment, then walked suddenly away, and falling on her uncle's chair, fairly
burst out sobbing. Denis was in the acme of embarrassment. He looked
round, as if to seek for inspiration, and, seeing a stool, plumped down upon
it for something to do. There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier,
and wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the nastiest
kitchen-heap in France. His eyes wandered round the apartment, but found
nothing to arrest them. There were such wide spaces between the furniture,
the light fell so badly and cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in
so coldly through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church
so vast, nor a tomb so melancholy. The regular sobs of Blanche de Malétroit
measured out the time like the ticking of a clock. He read the device upon
the shield over and over again, until his eyes became obscured; he stared
into shadowy corners until he imagined they were swarming with horrible
animals; and every now and again he awoke with a start, to remember that
his last two hours were running, and death was on the march.
Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on the girl
herself. Her face was bowed forward and covered with her hands, and she
was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccough of grief. Even thus she
was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so plump and yet so fine, with a
warm brown skin, and the most beautiful hair, Denis thought, in the whole
world of womankind. Her hands were like her uncle's: but they were more
in place at the end of her young arms, and looked infinitely soft and
caressing. He remembered how her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of
anger, pity, and innocence. And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the
uglier death looked, and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence at
her continued tears. Now he felt that no man could have the courage to
leave a world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would
have given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.
Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows. And this shattering noise in the silence
of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook them both out of
their reflections.
"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.
"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said anything
to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not for mine."
She thanked him with a tearful look.
 "I feel your position cruelly," he went on. "The world has been bitter,
hard on you. Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind. Believe me, madam,
there is no young gentleman in all France but would be glad of my
opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."
"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she answered.
"What I want to know is whether I can serve you—now or afterward," she
added, with a quaver.
"Most certainly," he answered, with a smile. "Let me sit beside you as if I
were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget how awkwardly we
are placed to one another; make my last moments go pleasantly; and you
will do me the chief service possible."
"You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness—"very
gallant—and it somehow pains me. But draw nearer, if you please; and if
you find anything to say to me, you will at least make certain of a very
friendly listener. Ah! Monsieur de Beaulieu," she broke forth—"ah!
Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the face?" And she fell to
weeping again with a renewed effusion.
"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on the little
time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I am cast by the
sight of your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the spectacle of what I
cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my life."
"I am very selfish," answered Blanche. "I will be braver, Monsieur de
Beaulieu, for your sake. But think if I can do you no kindness in the future
—if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge me as
heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so little, the invaluable
gratitude I owe you. Put it in my power to do something more for you than
weep."
"My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for. My
brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error, that will
content him amply for my death. Life is a little vapor that passeth away, as
we are told by those in holy orders. When a man is in a fair way and sees all
life open in front of him, he seems to himself to make a very important
figure in the world. His horse whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the
girls look out of window as he rides into town before his company; he
receives many assurances of trust and regard—sometimes by express in a
letter—sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence falling
on his neck. It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a time. But once he
is dead, were he as brave as Hercules[9] or as wise as Solomon[10], he is
soon forgotten. It is not ten years since my father fell, with many other
knights around him, in a very fierce encounter, and I do not think that any
one of them, nor so much as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No,
no, madam, the nearer you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty
corner, where a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till
the judgment day. I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall
have none."
"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Malétroit."
"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a little
service far beyond its worth."
"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if you think I am easily
touched by my own concerns. I say so because you are the noblest man I
have ever met; because I recognize in you a spirit that would have made
even a common person famous in the land."
"And yet here I die in a mousetrap—with no more noise about it than my
own squeaking," answered he.
A look of pain crossed her face and she was silent for a little while. Then
a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke again.
"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who
gives his life for another will be met in paradise by all the heralds and
angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to hang your head. For
—Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, with a deep flush.
"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.
"I am glad of that," she answered heartily. "Do you think there are many
men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden—
with her own lips—and who have refused her to her face? I know you men
would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we women know more
of what is precious in love. There is nothing that should set a person higher
in his own esteem; and we women would prize nothing more dearly."
"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I was
asked in pity and not for love."
 "I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head. "Hear me
to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must despise me; I feel
you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature to occupy one thought of
your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this morning. But when I
asked you to marry me, indeed, and indeed, it was because I respected and
admired you, and loved you with my whole soul, from the very moment
that you took my part against my uncle. If you had seen yourself, and how
noble you looked, you would pity rather than despise me. And now," she
went on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid aside
all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your sentiments
toward me already. I would not, believe me, being nobly born, weary you
with importunities into consent. I too have a pride of my own: and I declare
before the holy mother of God, if you should now go back from your word
already given, I would no more marry you than I would marry my uncle's
groom."
Denis smiled a little bitterly.
"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."
She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.
"Come hither to the window," he said with a sigh. "Here is the dawn."
And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky was
full of essential daylight, colorless and clean; and the valley underneath was
flooded with a gray reflection. A few thin vapors clung in the coves of the
forest or lay along the winding course of the river. The scene disengaged a
surprising effect of stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks
began once more to crow among the steadings[11]. Perhaps the same fellow
who had made so horrid a clangor in the darkness not half an hour before,
now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went
bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows. And
still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which was soon to
grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.
Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had taken her
hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.
"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then illogically enough: "the
night has been so long! Alas! what shall we say to my uncle when he
returns?"
 "What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.
She was silent.
"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance, "you
have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough that I would as
gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as to lay a finger on you
without your free and full consent. But if you care for me at all do not let
me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I love you better than the whole
world; and though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys of
Paradise to live on and spend my life in your service."
As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior of the
house; and a clatter of armor in the corridor showed that the retainers were
returning to their post, and the two hours were at an end.
"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning toward him with
her lips and eyes.
"I have heard nothing," he replied.
"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his ear.
"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms, and
covered her wet face with kisses.
A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew a
good morning.
NOTES
[1] Published in 1878. Acknowledgment is due to the Charles Scribner's
Sons Company, Publishers, for the use of the text of their edition of
Stevenson's works.
[2] 207:18 bartizan. A small overhanging turret with loop-holes and
embrasures projecting from the parapet of a medieval building.
[3] 208:1 gargoyles. Mouths of spouts, in antic shapes.
[4] 209:30 debouched. Passed out.
[5] 212:29 Leonardo. (1452-1519.) A famous Italian painter, architect,
sculptor, scientist, engineer, mechanician, and musician.
[6] 222:7 salle. French word for hall or room.
 [7] 223:13 Charlemagne. (742 or 747-814.) A great king of the Franks
and emperor of the Romans.
[8] 225:25 poltroon. A coward, a dastard.
[9] 229:12 Hercules. A mighty hero in Greek and Roman mythology.
[10] 229:13 Solomon. Son of David. King of Israel, 993-953 B.C.
[11] 231: 26 steadings. A farmstead—barns, stables, cattle-sheds, etc.
BIOGRAPHY
Robert Louis Stevenson was born November 13, 1850, in Edinburgh. He
was an only child. On his mother's side he came from a line of Scotch
philosophers and ministers; on his father's, from a line of active workers
and scientists. His grandfather, Robert Stevenson, and his father, Thomas
Stevenson, gained world-wide reputations in engineering.
Robert inherited from his mother throat and lung troubles. His health was
very poor from his birth and his life was preserved only by the careful
watchfulness of his mother and his devoted nurse, Alison Cunningham. As
a child he was very lovable and possessed a very active imagination.
He went to school in Edinburgh between the years 1858-1867. He first
attended a preparatory school, then the Edinburgh academy. He spent
considerable time at his maternal grandfather's home. It was there that he
first tasted the delights of romance. In his school work he was none too
studious, but all his teachers were charmed by his pleasing manner and
general intelligence. Though an idler in other things, he worked constantly
on the art of writing. Throughout his study in Edinburgh University and his
unsuccessful efforts in engineering and the practice of law, literature
became more and more a passion with him.
The period between 1875 and 1879 was one of improved health and
considerable literary activity. During this time he published A Lodging for
the Night, Will o' the Mill, The New Arabian Nights, and an Inland Voyage.
While in southern Europe he met and fell in love with Mrs. Osbourne. So
after she returned to her home in California, Stevenson received the news
that she was seriously ill. He immediately sailed for San Francisco,
travelling as a steerage passenger because of lack of funds and a desire for
literary material. Out of this experience grew a number of stories and
essays. Exposure on the voyage affected his health and caused a very
dangerous illness. After his recovery he married Mrs. Osbourne and
returned to England with his wife and stepson.
For a few years his work was more or less spasmodic on account of his
bitter struggle with poor health, in 1883 he achieved success by the
publication of Treasure Island. Markheim appeared in 1884. Kidnapped and
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde were published in 1886.
After the death of his father in 1887, Stevenson and his family sailed to
America, where they settled in the Adirondacks for the winter of 1888.
Here his health was good and he wrote a number of essays for Scribner's
Magazine. In the spring of the same year they started on a cruise of the
south seas. They visited many of the southern islands and settled at Vailima,
Samoa. Stevenson was interested in the Samoaas and took an active part in
their political affairs. The tropical climate agreed with him and his creative
power was renewed. He wrote a number of short stories, a series of letters
on the South Seas, and the novel David Balfour.
Political reverses and failing strength took away for a time his power to
write. He was again stimulated, however, by the love and appreciation of
his Samoan followers, and started on what promised to be his period of
highest achievement. This promise was soon blighted by his untimely death
from a stroke of apoplexy, December 13, 1894. He was buried in Samoa.
BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, 2 vols., Graham Balfour.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Isobel Strong.
Memories and Portraits, Robert Louis Stevenson.
Friends on the Shelf, Bradford Torrey.
"Personal Recollections," Edmund Gosse, Century Magazine, 50:447.
"Character Sketch," Atlantic Monthly, 89:89-99.
"The Real Stevenson," Atlantic Monthly, 85:702-5.
A Bibliography of the Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, W.F. Prideaux.
CRITICISMS
Fundamentally Stevenson's style is marked by a conscious aim to
entertain. His engaging humor, free of all affectation, sentimentality, and
exaggeration, is spontaneous and natural. His most original writing is The
Child's Garden of Verses. His touch is light and his thought is clear and
lucid. Across the Plains is written in his most straightforward and natural
style.
Stevenson was a careful writer, doing with great skill any established
piece of art. He practised diligently, and gained, as he himself states, his
high rank by constantly drilling himself in the art of writing. This imitation
of form to the point of perfection, rather than an expression of a great and
moving idea, gives an air of insincerity to some of Stevenson's works. Yet,
although seemingly artificial, he never chose words for the sake of mere
sounds, but for their accuracy in truth and fitness. He was as an ephemeral
shadow with an optimistic and real spirit. He infused an intimacy and
spirituality into his writings that prove delightful to all his readers.
The subject of Markheim, a man failing through weakness, was a favorite
topic for Stevenson. Markheim is almost an ideal specimen of the
impressionistic short-story. It has a plot in which Hawthorne might justly
have revelled, a treatment as intellectual as that of Poe, descriptions not
unlike those of Flaubert's, and a moral ending true to the Puritanic type. The
movement of the story is swift and possesses perfect unity. The surprise at
the end comes as a shock although the author has consistently and logically
constructed his plot.

GENERAL REFERENCES
Emerson and Other Essays, John Jay Chapman.
Robert Louis Stevenson, L. Cope Cornford.
Modern Novelists, William Lyon Phelps.
Makers of English Fiction, W.J. Dawson.
"Art of Stevenson," North American Review, 171: 348-358.
"Criticism," Dial, 30:345. May 18, 1901.
COLLATERAL READINGS
The Suicide Club (New Arabian Nights), Robert Louis Stevenson.
Story of the Physician and the Saratoga Trunk, Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Adventure of the Hansom Cab, Robert Louis Stevenson.
 The Rajah's Diamond, Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Story of the House with the Green Blinds, Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Adventure of Prince Florizel and the Detective, Robert Louis
Stevenson.
A Lodging for the Night, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Providence and the Guitar, Robert Louis Stevenson.
In the Valley, Robert Louis Stevenson.
With the Children of Israel, Robert Louis Stevenson.
The Lotus and the Cockleburrs, "O. Henry."
Two Bites at a Cherry, Thomas Bailey Aldrich.
The Notary of Perigueux, Henry W. Longfellow.
 MARKHEIM[1]

By Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

"Yes," said the dealer, "our windfalls[2] are of various kinds. Some
customers are ignorant, and then I touch a dividend[3] on my superior
knowledge. Some are dishonest," and here he held up the candle, so that the
light fell strongly on his visitor, "and in that case," he continued, "I profit by
my virtue."
Markheim had but just entered from the daylight streets, and his eyes had
not yet grown familiar with the mingled shine and darkness in the shop. At
these pointed words, and before the near presence of the flame, he blinked
painfully and looked aside.
The dealer chuckled. "You come to me on Christmas Day," he resumed,
"when you know that I am alone in my house, put up my shutters, and make
a point of refusing business. Well, you will have to pay for that; you will
have to pay for my loss of time, when I should be balancing my books; you
will have to pay, besides; for a kind of manner that I remark in you to-day
very strongly. I am the essence of discretion, and ask no awkward
questions; but when a customer cannot look me in the eye, he has to pay for
it." The dealer once more chuckled; and then, changing to his usual
business voice, though still with a note of irony, "You can give, as usual, a
clear account of how you came into the possession of the object?" he
continued. "Still your uncle's cabinet? A remarkable collector, sir!"
And the little pale, round-shouldered dealer stood almost on tiptoe,
looking over the top of his gold spectacles, and nodding his head with every
mark of disbelief. Markheim returned his gaze with one of infinite pity, and
a touch of horror.
"This time," said he, "you are in error. I have not come to sell, but to buy.
I have no curios to dispose of; my uncle's cabinet is bare to the wainscot:
even were it still intact, I have done well on the Stock Exchange, and
should more likely add to it than otherwise, and my errand to-day is
simplicity itself. I seek, a Christmas present for a lady," he continued,
waxing more fluent as he struck into the speech he had prepared; "and
certainly I owe you every excuse for thus disturbing you upon so small a
matter. But the thing was neglected yesterday; I must produce my little
compliment at dinner; and, as you very well know, a rich marriage is not a
thing to be neglected."
There followed a pause, during which the dealer seemed to weigh this
statement incredulously. The ticking of many clocks among the curious
lumber of the shop, and the faint rushing of the cabs in a near thoroughfare,
filled up the interval of silence.
"Well, sir," said the dealer, "be it so. You are an old customer after all;
and if, as you say, you have the chance of a good marriage, far be it from
me to be an obstacle. Here is a nice thing for a lady, now," he went on, "this
hand glass—fifteenth century, warranted; comes from a good collection,
too; but I reserve the name, in the interests of my customer, who was just
like yourself, my dear sir, the nephew and sole heir of a remarkable
collector."
The dealer, while he thus ran on in his dry and biting voice, had stooped
to take the object from its place; and, as he had done so, a shock had passed
through Markheim, a start both of hand and foot, a sudden leap of many
tumultuous passions to the face. It passed as swiftly as it came, and left no
trace beyond a certain trembling of the hand that now received the glass.
"A glass," he said hoarsely, and then paused, and repeated it more clearly.
"A glass? For Christmas? Surely not."
"And why not?" cried the dealer. "Why not a glass?"
Markheim was looking upon him with an indefinable expression. "You
ask me why not?" he said. "Why, look here—look in it—look at yourself!
Do you like to see it? No! nor I—nor any man."
The little man had jumped back when Markheim had so suddenly
confronted him with the mirror; but now, perceiving there was nothing
worse on hand, he chuckled. "Your future lady, sir, must be pretty hard
favored," said he.
"I ask you," said Markheim, "for a Christmas present, and you give me
this—this damned reminder of years and sins and follies—this hand-
conscience! Did you mean it? Had you a thought in your mind? Tell me. It
will be better for you if you do. Come, tell me about yourself, I hazard a
guess now, that you are in secret a very charitable man?"
The dealer looked closely at his companion. It was very odd, Markheim
did not appear to be laughing; there was something in his face like an eager
sparkle of hope, but nothing of mirth.
"What are you driving at?" the dealer asked.
"Not charitable?" returned the other, gloomily. "Not charitable; not pious;
not scrupulous; unloving; unbeloved; a hand to get money, a safe to keep it.
Is that all? Dear God, man, is that all?"
"I will tell you what it is," began the dealer, with some sharpness, and
then broke off again into a chuckle. "But I see this is a love match of yours,
and you have been drinking the lady's health."
"Ah!" cried Markheim, with a strange curiosity, "Ah, have you been in
love? Tell me about that."
"I!" cried the dealer. "I in love! I never had the time, nor have I the time
to-day for all this nonsense. Will you take the glass?"
"Where is the hurry?" returned Markheim. "It is very pleasant to stand
here talking; and life is so short and insecure that I would not hurry away
from any pleasure—no, not even from so mild a one as this. We should,
rather cling, cling to what little we can get, like a man at a cliff's edge.
Every second is a cliff, if you think upon it—a cliff a mile high—high
enough, if we fall, to dash us out of every feature of humanity. Hence it is
best to talk pleasantly. Let us talk of each other; why should we wear this
mask? Let us be confidential. Who knows, we might become friends?"
"I have just one word to say to you," said the dealer. "Either make your
purchase, or walk out of my shop."
"True, true," said Markheim. "Enough fooling. To business. Show me
something else."
The dealer stooped once more, this time to replace the glass upon the
shelf, his thin blond hair falling over his eyes as he did so. Markheim
moved a little nearer, with one hand in the pocket of his greatcoat; he drew
himself up and filled his lungs; at the same time many different emotions
were depicted together on his face—terror, horror, and resolve, fascination,
and a physical repulsion; and through a haggard lift of his upper lip, his
teeth looked out.
"This, perhaps, may suit," observed the dealer; and then, as he began to
re-arise, Markheim bounded from behind upon his victim. The long,
skewer-like[4] dagger flashed and fell. The dealer straggled like a hen,
striking his temple on the shelf, and then tumbled on the floor in a heap.
Time had some score of small voices in that shop, some stately and slow
as was becoming to their great age, others garrulous and hurried. All these
told out the seconds in an intricate chorus of tickings. Then the passage of a
lad's feet, heavily running on the pavement, broke in upon these smaller
voices and startled Markheim into the consciousness of his surroundings.
He looked about him awfully. The candle stood on the counter, its flame
solemnly wagging in a draught; and by that inconsiderable movement, the
whole room was filled with noiseless bustle and kept heaving like a sea: the
tall shadows nodding, the gross blots of darkness swelling and dwindling as
with respiration, the faces of the portraits and the china gods changing and
wavering like images in water. The inner door stood ajar, and peered into
that leaguer[5] of shadows with a long slit of daylight like a pointing finger.
From these fear-stricken rovings, Markheim's eyes returned to the body
of his victim, where it lay both humped and sprawling, incredibly small and
strangely meaner than in life. In these poor, miserly clothes, in that ungainly
attitude, the dealer lay like so much sawdust. Markheim had feared to see it,
and, lo! it was nothing. And yet, as he gazed, this bundle of old clothes and
pool of blood began to find eloquent voices. There it must lie; there was
none to work the cunning hinges or direct the miracle of locomotion—there
it must lie till it was found. Found! aye, and then? Then would this dead
flesh lift up a cry that would ring over England, and fill the world with the
echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that
when the brains were out[6]," he thought; and the first word struck into his
mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had dosed
for the victim, had become instant and momentous for the slayer.
The thought was yet in his mind, when, first one and then another, with
every variety of pace and voice—one deep as the bell from a cathedral
turret, another ringing on its treble notes the prelude of a waltz—the clocks
began to strike the hour of three in the afternoon.
 The sudden outbreak of so many tongues in that dumb chamber staggered
him. He began to bestir himself, going to and fro with the candle,
beleaguered by moving shadows, and startled to the soul by chance
reflections. In many rich mirrors, some of home designs, some from Venice
or Amsterdam, he saw his face repeated and repeated, as it were an army of
spies; his own eyes met and detected him; and the sound of his own steps,
lightly as they fell, vexed the surrounding quiet. And still as he continued to
fill his pockets, his mind accused him, with a sickening iteration[7], of the
thousand faults of his design. He should have chosen a more quiet hour; he
should have prepared an alibi; he should not have used a knife; he should
have been more cautious, and only bound and gagged the dealer, and not
killed him; he should have been more bold, and killed the servant also; he
should have done all things otherwise; poignant regrets, weary, incessant
toiling of the mind to change what was unchangeable, to plan what was
now useless, to be the architect of the irrevocable past. Meanwhile, and
behind all this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted
attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the
constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a
hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the
gallows, and the black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down
before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but
that some rumor of the struggle must have reached their ears and set on
edge their curiosity; and now, in all the neighboring houses, he divined
them sitting motionless and with uplifted ear—solitary people, condemned
to spend Christmas dwelling alone on memories of the past, and now
startlingly recalled from that tender exercise: happy family parties, struck
into silence round the table, the mother still with raised finger; every degree
and age and humor, but all, by their own hearths, prying and hearkening and
weaving the rope that was to hang him. Sometimes it seemed to him he
could not move too softly; the clink of the tall Bohemian goblets rang out
loudly like a bell; and alarmed by the bigness of the ticking, he was tempted
to stop the clocks. And then, again, with a swift transition of his terrors, the
very silence of the place appeared a source of peril, and a thing to strike and
freeze the passer-by; and he would step more boldly, and bustle aloud
among the contents of the shop, and imitate, with elaborate bravado, the
movements of a busy man at ease in his own house.
 But he was now so pulled about by different alarms that, while one
portion of his mind was still alert and cunning, another trembled on the
brink of lunacy. One hallucination in particular took a strong hold on his
credulity. The neighbor hearkening with white face beside his window, the
passer-by arrested by a horrible surmise on the pavement—these could at
worst suspect, they could not know; through the brick walls and shuttered
windows only sounds could penetrate. But here, within the house, was he
alone? He knew he was; he had watched the servant set forth sweethearting,
in her poor best, "out for the day" written in every ribbon and smile. Yes, he
was alone, of course; and yet, in the bulk of empty house about him, he
could surely hear a stir of delicate footing—he was surely conscious,
inexplicably conscious, of some presence. Ay, surely; to every room and
corner of the house his imagination followed it; and now it was a faceless
thing, and yet had eyes to see with; and again it was a shadow of himself;
and yet again behold the image of the dead dealer, reinspired with cunning
and hatred.
At times, with a strong effort, he would glance at the open door which
still seemed to repel his eyes. The house was tall, the skylight small and
dirty, the day blind with fog; and the light that filtered down to the ground
story was exceedingly faint, and showed dimly on the threshold of the shop.
And yet, in that strip of doubtful brightness, did there not hang wavering a
shadow?
Suddenly, from the street outside, a very jovial gentleman began to beat
with a staff on the shop door, accompanying his blows with shouts and
railleries[8] in which the dealer was continually called upon by name.
Markheim, smitten into ice, glanced at the dead man. But no! he lay quite
still; he was fled away far beyond earshot of these blows and shoutings; he
was sunk beneath seas of silence; and his name, which would once have
caught his notice above the howling of a storm, had become an empty
sound. And presently the jovial gentleman desisted from his knocking and
departed.
Here was a broad hint to hurry what remained to be done, to get forth
from, this accusing neighborhood, to plunge into a bath of London
multitudes, and to reach, on the other side of day, that haven of safety and
apparent, innocence—-his bed. One visitor had come: at any moment it
another might follow and be more obstinate. To have done the deed, and yet
not to reap the profit, would be too abhorrent a failure. The money, that was
now Markheim's concern: and as a means to that, the keys.
He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, where the shadow was
still lingering and shivering; and with no conscious repugnance of the mind,
yet with a tremor of the belly, he drew near the body of his victim. The
human character had quite departed. Like a suit half-stuffed with bran, the
limbs lay scattered, the trunk doubled, on the floor; and yet the thing
repelled him. Although so dingy and inconsiderable to the eye, he feared it
might have more significance to the touch. He took the body by the
shoulders, and turned it on its back. It was strangely light and supple, and
the limbs, as if they had been broken, fell into the oddest postures. The face
was robbed of all expression; but it was as pale as wax, and shockingly
smeared with blood about one temple. That was, for Markheim, the one
displeasing circumstance. It carried him back, upon the instant, to a certain
fair day in a fishers' village: a gray day, a piping wind, a crowd upon the
street, the blare of brasses, the booming of drums, the nasal voice of a
ballad singer; and a boy going to and fro, buried over head in the crowd and
divided between interest and fear, until, coming out upon the chief place of
concourse, he beheld a booth and a great screen with pictures, dismally
designed, garishly[9] colored: Brownrigg[10] with her apprentice; the
Mannings[11] with their murdered guest; Weare in the death grip of
Thurtell[12]; and a score besides of famous crimes. The thing was as clear
as an illusion; he was once again that little boy; he was looking once again,
and with the same sense of physical revolt, at these vile pictures; he was
still stunned by the thumping of the drums. A bar of that day's music
returned upon his memory; and at that, for the first time, a qualm came over
him, a breath of nausea, a sudden weakness of the joints, which he must
instantly resist and conquer.
He judged it more prudent to confront than to flee from these
considerations; looking the more hardily in the dead face, bending his mind
to realize the nature and greatness of his crime. So little a while ago that
face had moved with every change of sentiment, that pale mouth had
spoken, that body had been all on fire with governable energies; and now,
and by his act, that piece of life had been arrested, as the horologist[13],
with interjected finger, arrests the beating of the clock. So he reasoned in
vain; he could rise to no more remorseful consciousness; the same heart
which had shuddered before the painted effigies of crime, looked on its
reality unmoved. At best, he felt a gleam of pity for one who had been
endowed in vain with all those faculties that can make the world a garden of
enchantment, one who had never lived and who was now dead. But of
penitence, no, not a tremor.
With that, shaking himself clear of these considerations, he found the
keys and advanced toward the open door of the shop. Outside, it had begun
to rain smartly; and the sound of the shower upon the roof had banished
silence. Like some dripping cavern, the chambers of the house were
haunted by an incessant echoing, which filled the ear and mingled with the
ticking of the clocks. And, as Markheim approached the door, he seemed to
hear, in answer to his own cautious tread, the steps of another foot
withdrawing up the stair. The shadow still palpitated loosely on the
threshold. He threw a ton's weight of resolve upon his muscles, and drew
back the door.
The faint, foggy daylight glimmered dimly on the bare floor and stairs;
on the bright suit of armor posted, halbert in hand, upon the landing; and on
the dark wood carvings and framed pictures that hung against the yellow
panels of the wainscot. So loud was the beating of the rain through all the
house that, in Markheim's ears, it began to be distinguished into many
different sounds. Footsteps and sighs, the tread of regiments marching in
the distance, the chink of money in the counting, and the creaking of doors
held stealthily ajar, appeared to mingle with the patter of the drops upon the
cupola and the gushing of the water in the pipes. The sense that he was not
alone grew upon him to the verge of madness. On every side he was
haunted and begirt by presences. He heard them moving in the upper
chambers; from the shop, he heard the dead man getting to his legs; and as
he began with a great effort to mount the stairs, feet fled quietly before him
and followed stealthily behind. If he were but deaf, he thought, how
tranquilly he would possess his soul! And then again, and hearkening with
ever fresh attention, he blessed himself for that unresting sense which held
the outposts and stood a trusty sentinel upon his life. His head turned
continually on his neck; his eyes, which seemed starting from their orbits,
scouted on every side, and on every side were half rewarded as with the tail
of something nameless vanishing. The four-and-twenty steps to the first
floor were four-and-twenty agonies.
 On that first story the doors stood ajar, three of them like three ambushes,
shaking his nerves like the throats of cannon. He could never again, he felt,
be sufficiently immured and fortified from men's observing eyes; he longed
to be home, girt in by walls, buried among bed-clothes, and invisible to all
but God. And at that thought he wondered a little, recollecting tales of other
murderers and the fear they were said to entertain of heavenly avengers. It
was not so, at least, with him. He feared the laws of nature, lest, in their
callous and immutable procedure, they should preserve some damning
evidence of his crime. He feared tenfold more, with a slavish, superstitious
terror, some scission[14] in the continuity of man's experience, some wilful
illegality of nature. He played a game of skill, depending on the rules,
calculating consequence from cause; and what if nature, as the defeated
tyrant overthrew the chessboard, should break the mould of their
succession? The like had befallen Napoleon (so writers said) when the
winter changed the time of its appearance. The like might befall Markheim:
the solid walls might become transparent and reveal his doings like those of
bees in a glass hive; the stout planks might yield under his foot like
quicksands and detain him in their clutch; aye, and there were soberer
accidents that might destroy him: if, for instance, the house should fall and
imprison him beside the body of his victim; or the house next door should
fly on fire, and the firemen invade him from all sides. These things he
feared; and, in a sense, these things might be called the hands of God
reached forth against sin. But about God himself he was at ease; his act was
doubtless exceptional, but so were his excuses, which God knew; it was
there, and not among men, that he felt sure of justice.
When he got safe into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him,
he was aware of a respite from alarms. The room was quite dismantled,
uncarpeted besides, and strewn with packing cases and incongruous
furniture; several great pier glasses, in which he beheld himself at various
angles, like an actor on a stage; many pictures, framed and unframed,
standing, with their faces to the wall; a fine Sheraton[15] sideboard, a
cabinet of marquetry[16], and a great old bed, with tapestry hangings. The
windows opened to the floor; but by great good fortune the lower part of the
shutters had been closed, and this concealed him from the neighbors. Here,
then, Markheim drew in a packing case before the cabinet, and began to
search among the keys. It was a long business, for there were many; and it
was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet,
and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him.
With the tail of his eye he saw the door—even glanced at it from time to
time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate
of his defences. But in truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street
sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a
piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many
children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the
melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly,
as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas
and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ;
children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers on the brambly common,
kite-flyers in the windy and cloud-navigated sky; and then, at another
cadence of the hymn, back again to church, and the somnolence of summer
Sundays, and the high, genteel voice of the parson (which he smiled a little
to recall), and the painted Jacobean[17] tombs, and the dim lettering of the
Ten Commandments in the chancel.
And as he sat thus, at once busy and absent, he was startled to his feet. A
flash of ice, a flash of fire, a bursting gush of blood, went over him, and
then he stood transfixed and thrilling. A step mounted the stair slowly and
steadily, and presently a hand was laid upon the knob, and the lock clicked,
and the door opened.
Fear held Markheim in a vice. What to expect he knew not, whether the
dead man walking, or the official ministers of human justice, or some
chance witness blindly stumbling in to consign him to the gallows. But
when a face was thrust into the aperture, glanced round the room, looked at
him, nodded and smiled as if in friendly recognition, and then withdrew
again, and the door closed behind it, his fear broke loose from his control in
a hoarse cry. At the sound of this the visitant returned.
"Did you call me?" he asked pleasantly, and with that he entered the
room, and closed the door behind him.
Markheim stood and gazed at him with all his eyes. Perhaps there was a
film upon his sight, but the outlines of the newcomer seemed to change and
waver like those of the idols in the wavering candlelight of the shop: and at
times he thought he knew him; and at times he thought he bore a likeness to
himself; and always, like a lump of living terror, there lay in his bosom the
conviction that this thing was not of the earth and not of God.
 And yet the creature had a strange air of the commonplace, as he stood
looking on Markheim with a smile; and when he added: "You are looking
for the money, I believe?" it was in the tones of everyday politeness.
Markheim made no answer.
"I should warn you," resumed the other, "that the maid has left her
sweetheart earlier than usual and will soon be here. If Mr. Markheim be
found in this house, I need not describe to him the consequences."
"You know me?" cried the murderer.
The visitor smiled. "You have long been a favorite of mine," he said;
"and I have long observed and often sought to help you."
"What are you?" cried Markheim: "the devil?"
"What I may be," returned the other, "cannot affect the service I propose
to render you."
"It can," cried Markheim; "it does! Be helped by you? No, never; not by
you! You do not know me yet; thank God, you do not know me!"
"I know you," replied the visitant, with a sort of kind severity or rather
firmness. "I know you to the soul."
"Know me!" cried Markheim. "Who can do so? My life is but a
travesty[18] and slander on myself. I have lived to belie my nature. All men
do; all men are better than this disguise that grows about and stifles them.
You see each dragged away by life, like one whom bravos have seized and
muffled in a cloak. If they had their own control—if you could see their
faces, they would be altogether different, they would shine out for heroes
and saints! I am worse than most; myself is more overlaid; my excuse is
known to me and God. But, had I the time, I could disclose myself."
"To me?" inquired the visitant.
"To you before all," returned the murderer. "I supposed you were
intelligent. I thought—since you exist—you would prove a reader of the
heart. And yet you would propose to judge me by my acts! Think of it; my
acts! I was born and I have lived in a land of giants; giants have dragged me
by the wrists since I was born out of my mother—the giants of
circumstance. And you would judge me by my acts! But can you not look
within? Can you not understand that evil is hateful to me? Can you not see
within me the clear writing of conscience, never blurred by any wilful
sophistry[19] although too often disregarded? Can you not read me for a
thing that surely must be common as humanity—the unwilling sinner?"
"All this is very feelingly expressed," was the reply, "but it regards me
not. These points of consistency are beyond my province, and I care not in
the least by what compulsion you may have been dragged away, so as you
are but carried in the right direction. But time flies; the servant delays,
looking in the faces of the crowd and at the pictures on the hoardings, but
still she keeps moving nearer; and remember, it is as if the gallows itself
were striding toward you through the Christmas streets! Shall I help you—I,
who know all? Shall I tell you where to find the money?"
"For what price?" asked Markheim.
"I offer you the service for a Christmas gift," returned the other.
Markheim could not refrain from smiling with a kind of bitter triumph,
"No," said he, "I will take nothing at your hands; if I were dying of thirst,
and it was your hand that put the pitcher to my lips, I should find the
courage to refuse. It may be credulous, but I will do nothing to commit
myself to evil."
"I have no objection to a death-bed repentance," observed the visitant.
"Because you disbelieve their efficacy[20]!" Markheim cried.
"I do not say so," returned the other; "but I look on these things from a
different side, and when the life is done my interest falls. The man has lived
to serve me, to spread black looks under color of religion, or to sow
tares[21] in the wheat field, as you do, in a course of weak compliance with
desire. Now that he draws so near to his deliverance, he can add but one act
of service—to repent, to die smiling, and thus to build up in confidence and
hope the more timorous of my surviving followers. I am not so hard a
master. Try me. Accept my help. Please yourself in life as you have done
hitherto; please yourself more amply, spread your elbows at the board; and
when the night begins to fall and the curtains to be drawn, I tell you, for
your greater comfort, that you will find it even easy to compound your
quarrel with your conscience, and to make a truckling peace with God. I
came but now from such a death-bed, and the room was full of sincere
mourners, listening to the man's last words; and when I looked into that
face, which had been set as a flint against mercy, I found it smiling with
hope."
 "And do you, then, suppose me such a creature?" asked Markheim. "Do
you think I have no more generous aspirations than to sin, and sin, and sin,
and, at last, sneak into heaven? My heart rises at the thought. Is this, then,
your experience of mankind? or is it because you find me with red hands
that you presume such baseness? and is this crime of murder indeed so
impious as to dry up the very springs of good?"
"Murder is to me no special category[22]," replied the other. "All sins are
murder, even all life is war. I behold your race, like starving mariners on a
raft, plucking crusts out of the hands of famine and feeding on each other's
lives. I follow sins beyond the moment of their acting; I find in all that the
last consequence is death; and to my eyes, the pretty maid who thwarts her
mother with such taking graces on a question of a ball, drips no less visibly
with human gore than such a murderer as yourself. Do I say that I follow
sins? I follow virtues also; they differ not by the thickness of a nail, they are
both scythes for the reaping angel of Death. Evil, for which I live, consists
not in action but in character. The bad man is dear to me; not the bad act,
whose fruits, if we could follow them far enough down the hurtling[23]
cataract of the ages, might yet be found more blessed than those of the
rarest virtues. And it is not because you have killed a dealer, but because
you are Markheim, that I offered to forward your escape."
"I will lay my heart open to you," answered Markheim. "This crime on
which you find me is my last. On my way to it I have learned many lessons;
itself is a lesson, a momentous lesson. Hitherto I have been driven with
revolt to what I would not; I was a bondslave to poverty, driven and
scourged. There are robust virtues that can stand in these temptations; mine
was not so: I had a thirst of pleasure. But to-day, and out of this deed, I
pluck both warning and riches—both the power and a fresh resolve to be
myself. I become in all things a free actor in the world; I begin to see
myself all changed, these hands the agents of good, this heart at peace.
Some thing comes over me out of the past; something of what I have
dreamed on Sabbath evenings to the sound of the church organ, of what I
forecast when I shed tears over noble books, or talked, an innocent child,
with my mother. There lies my life; I have wandered a few years, but now I
see once more my city of destination."
"You are to use this money on the Stock Exchange, I think?" remarked
the visitor; "and there, if I mistake not, you have already lost some
thousands?"
"Ah," said Markheim, "but this time I have a sure thing."
"This time, again, you will lose," replied the visitor, quietly.
"Ah, but I keep back the half!" cried Markheim.
"That also you will lose," said the other.
The sweat started upon Markheim's brow. "Well, then, what matter?" he
exclaimed. "Say it be lost, say I am plunged again in poverty, shall one part
of me, and that the worse, continue until the end to override the better? Evil
and good ran strong in me, hailing me both ways. I do not love the one
thing, I love all. I can conceive great deeds, renunciations, martyrdoms; and
though I be fallen to such a crime as murder, pity is no stranger to my
thoughts. I pity the poor; who knows their trials better than myself? I pity
and help them; I prize love, I love honest laughter; there is no good thing
nor true thing on earth but I love it from my heart. And are my vices only to
direct my life, and my virtues to lie without effect, like some passive
lumber of the mind? Not so; good, also, is a spring of acts."
But the visitant raised his finger. "For six-and-thirty years that you have
been in this world," said he, "through many changes of fortune and varieties
of humor, I have watched you steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would
have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the
name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from
which you still recoil?—five years from now I shall detect you in the fact!
Downward, downward lies your way; nor can anything but death avail to
stop you."
"It is true," Markheim said huskily, "I have in some degree complied with
evil. But it is so with all: the very saints, in the mere exercise of living,
grow less dainty, and take on the tone of their surroundings."
"I will propound to you one simple question," said the other; "and as you
answer, I shall read to you your moral horoscope. You have grown in many
things more lax; possibly you do right to be so; and at any account, it is the
same with all men. But granting that, are you in any one particular, however
trifling, more difficult to please with your own conduct, or do you go in all
things with a looser rein?"
"In any one?" repeated Markheim, with an anguish of consideration.
"No," he added, with despair, "in none! I have gone down in all."
 "Then," said the visitor, "content yourself with what you are, for you will
never change; and the words of your part on this stage are irrevocably
written down."
Markheim stood for a long while silent, and indeed it was the visitor who
first broke the silence. "That being so," he said, "shall I show you the
money?"
"And grace?" cried Markheim.
"Have you not tried it?" returned the other. "Two or three years ago, did I
not see you on the platform of revival meetings, and was not your voice the
loudest in the hymn?"
"It is true," said Markheim; "and I see clearly what remains for me by
way of duty. I thank you for these lessons from my soul; my eyes are
opened, and I behold myself at last for what I am."
At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through the house;
and the visitant, as though this were some concerted signal for which he had
been waiting, changed at once in his demeanor.
"The maid!" he cried. "She has returned, as I forewarned you, and there
is now before you one more difficult passage. Her master, you must say, is
ill; you must let her in, with an assured but rather serious countenance—no
smiles, no overacting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and
the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer
will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have
the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of
the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with
the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your life hangs trembling in
the scales: up, and act!"
Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. "If I be condemned to evil
acts," he said, "there is still one door of freedom open—I can cease from
action. If my life be an ill thing, I can lay it down. Though I be, as you say
truly, at the beck of every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive
gesture, place myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to
barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred of evil; and from
that, to your galling disappointment, you shall see that I can draw both
energy and courage."
 The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and lovely
change: they brightened and softened with a tender triumph; and, even as
they brightened, faded and dislimned[24]. But Markheim did not pause to
watch or understand the transformation. He opened the door and went
downstairs very slowly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before
him; he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random as
chance-medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed it, tempted
him no longer; but on the farther side he perceived a quiet haven for his
bark. He paused in the passage, and looked into the shop, where the candle
still burned by the dead body. It was strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer
swarmed into his mind, as he stood gazing. And then the bell once more
broke out into impatient clamor.
He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile.
"You had better go for the police," said he: "I have killed your master."
NOTES
[1] Written in 1884. This story is used by permission of and special
arrangement with the Charles Scribner's Sons Company, Publishers.
[2] 237:1 windfalls. Unexpected gains.
[3] 237:3 dividend. His knowledge a business asset that draws interest.
[4] 241:22 skewer-like. Like a wooden pin now used to fasten meat.
[5] 242:11 leaguer. Place besieged with shadows.
[6] 242:27 Time was that when the brains were out. See Macbeth, Act III,
sc. 4, line 78.
[7] 243:16 iteration. Repetition.
[8] 246:25 railleries. Merry jesting or ridicule.
[9] 247:7 garishly. A blinding, gaudy effect.
[10] 247:7 Brownrigg. A notorious murderess living in England in the
middle of the eighteenth century. She was hanged and her skeleton is still
preserved.
[11] 247:8 Mannings. Marie Manning and her husband murdered a
former suitor. They were given, a death sentence.
[12] 247:9 Thurtell. A gambler who quarrelled with Weare and killed him
after he had professed peace. He designed his own gallows.
 [13] 247:25 horologist. One who makes timepieces.
[14] 249:27 scission. A cleaving or a dividing.
[15] 250:25 Sheraton. Next to Chippendale the greatest furniture designer
and cabinet-maker.
[16] 250:25 marquetry. An inlay of some thin material in the surface of a
piece of furniture or other object.
[17] 251:23 Jacobean. Pertaining to the time of James I of England.
[18] 253:12 travesty. A grotesque imitation.
[19] 254:3 sophistry. Methods of the Greek sophists.
[20] 254:29 efficacy. Effective energy.
[21] 255:5 sow tares, etc. See Matthew XII, 24-30.
[22] 255:29 category. A class, condition, or predicament.
[23] 256:14 hurtling. Rushing headlong or confusedly.
[24] 280:10 dislimned. Erased or effaced.
COLLATERAL READINGS
Treasure Island, R.L. Stevenson.
Kidnapped, R.L. Stevenson.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, R.L. Stevenson.
Prince Otto, R.L. Stevenson.
Across the Plains, R.L. Stevenson.
Travels with a Donkey, R.L. Stevenson.
An Inland Voyage, R.L. Stevenson.
Essays on Burns and Thoreau, R.L. Stevenson.
Virginibus Puerisque, R.L. Stevenson.
The Child's Garden of Verses, R.L. Stevenson.
The Masque of the Red Death, Edgar Allan Poe.
The Pit and the Pendulum, Edgar Allan Poe.
A Coward, Guy de Maupassant.
The Substitute, François Coppée.
The Revolt of Mother, Mary Wilkins Freeman.
Flute and Violin, James Lane Alien.
A Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgeneff.
Rappacini's Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A COLLECTION
OF SHORT-STORIES ***

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