I will thank you to behave yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style? Our friend here can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate imagined himself. Your acting is very natural, as I live. I had no intention of offending. Menhoult--you will find it particularly fine.
I will change my plate, however, and try some of the rabbit. I will just help myself to some of the ham. I will have none of their rabbit au-chat--and, for the matter of that, none of their cat-au-rabbit either. I mean the man who took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with a pop and a fizz, in this fashion. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only observe that it is a pity he was not.
He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies--a thing which the cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means sure that a pumpkin pie a la Desoulieres would not have been very capital eating indeed! You must not be astonished, mon ami; our friend here is a wit--a drole--you must not understand him to the letter. He grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two heads. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory, and could not refrain from display.
I call him the tee-totum because, in fact, he was seized with the droll but not altogether irrational crotchet, that he had been converted into a tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin. He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this manner--soHere the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper, performed an exactly similar office for himself.
The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person, as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such, she behaved with propriety.
She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful girl of the little parlor. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside instead of inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all. My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for a repetition of the sound.
It came again--louder and seemingly nearer--and then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time with a vigor evidently diminished. I now ventured to inquire the cause of the disturbance.
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The lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at night. It occasionally happens, however, that the concerto yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose, when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended. I have always understood that the majority of lunatics were of the gentler sex. Some time ago, there were about twentyseven patients here; and, of that number, no less than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very much, as you see.
Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands, until the end of the entertainment. This lady, my particular old friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself.
She has her little eccentricities, to be sure--but then, you know, all old women--all very old women--are more or less eccentric! They behave a little odd, eh? By the bye, Monsieur, did I understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place of the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous severity? Our confinement is necessarily close; but the treatment--the medical treatment, I mean--is rather agreeable to the patients than otherwise.
Some portions of it are referable to Professor Tarr, of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as belonging of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I mistake not, you have the honor of an intimate acquaintance. You did not intend to say, eh? Nevertheless, I feel humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of these, no doubt, extraordinary men.
I will seek out their writings forthwith, and peruse them with deliberate care. Monsieur Maillard, you have really--I must confess it--you have really--made me ashamed of myself! The company followed our example without stint. They chatted-they jested--they laughed--they perpetrated a thousand absurdities--the fiddles shrieked--the drum row-de-dowed--the trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris--and the whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of Brazilian Portuguese agreeable: In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our conversation at the top of the voice.
A word spoken in an ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice of a fish from the bottom of Niagra Falls. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and, in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large unattended. His cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of mind.
When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high time to put him in a straitjacket. They behaved remarkably well-especially so, any one of sense might have known that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact, that the fellows behaved so remarkably well.
And, sure enough, one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had usurped the offices of the keepers. I never heard of any thing so absurd in my life! He wished to give his invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the reigning powers.
The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange places. Not that exactly either--for the madmen had been free, but the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner. This condition of things could not have long existed. The country people in the neighborhoodvisitors coming to see the establishment--would have given the alarm. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He admitted no visitors at all--with the exception, one day, of a very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to be afraid.
He let him in to see the place-just by way of variety,--to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his business. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly season of it--that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The cellars of the chateau were well stocked with wine; and these madmen are just the devils that know how to drink it.
They lived well, I can tell you. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from persons rapidly approaching. He had scarcely finished the sentence, before loud shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the windows; and, immediately afterward, it became evident that some persons outside were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room.
The door was beaten with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and the shutters were wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence. Monsieur Maillard, to my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board. I had expected more resolution at his hands. Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and glasses, leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been restrained from leaping there before.
As soon as he fairly settled himself, he commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a very capital one, if it could only have been heard. At the same moment, the man with the teetotum predilection, set himself to spinning around the apartment, with immense energy, and with arms outstretched at right angles with his body; so that he had all the air of a tee-totum in fact, and knocked everybody down that happened to get in his way.
And now, too, hearing an incredible popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered at length, that it proceeded from the person who performed the bottle of that delicate drink Brazilian Portuguese accord: Edgar Allan Poe 53 during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every note that he uttered.
And, in the midst of all this, the continuous braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed. As no resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in.
But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele, fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.
After lying there some fifteen minutes, during which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in the room, I came to same satisfactory denouement of this tragedy. Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been merely relating his own exploits.
This gentleman had, indeed, some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient. This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced me. The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered, were first well tarred, then--carefully feathered, and then shut up in underground cells.
The latter was pumped on them daily. At length, one escaping through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest. My name is the Signora Psyche Zenobia. This I know to be a fact. Nobody but my enemies ever calls me Suky Snobbs. Miss Tabitha Turnip propagated that report through sheer envy. Oh the little wretch! But what can we expect from a turnip? I have been assured that Snobbs is a mere corruption of Zenobia, and that Zenobia was a queen-- So am I. Nobody but Tabitha Turnip calls me Suky Snobbs. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia.
Moneypenny made the title for us, and says he chose it because it sounded big like an empty rumpuncheon. We all sign the initials of the society after our names, in the fashion of the R. Moneypenny says that S. Moneypenny is such a queer man that I am never sure when he is telling me the truth. At any rate we always add to our names the initials P. Notwithstanding the good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met with no very great success until I joined it.
The truth is, the members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no investigation of any thing at all. It was all low--very! No profundity, no reading, no metaphysics--nothing which the learned call spirituality, and which the Brazilian Portuguese causes: We get up as good papers now in the P.
I say, Blackwood, because I have been assured that the finest writing, upon every subject, is to be discovered in the pages of that justly celebrated Magazine. We now take it for our model upon all themes, and are getting into rapid notice accordingly. Everybody knows how they are managed, since Dr. Moneypenny calls the bizarreries whatever that may mean and what everybody else calls the intensities.
This is a species of writing which I have long known how to appreciate, although it is only since my late visit to Mr. Blackwood deputed by the society that I have been made aware of the exact method of composition. This method is very simple, but not so much so as the politics. Upon my calling at Mr. The matter stands thus: In the Brazilian Portuguese accordingly: And, mark me, Miss Psyche Zenobia!
Herein, madam, lies the secret, the soul, of intensity. I assume upon myself to say, that no individual, of however great genius ever wrote with a good pen--understand me,--a good article. You may take, it for granted, that when manuscript can be read it is never worth reading. This is a leading principle in our faith, to which if you cannot readily assent, our conference is at an end.
But, of course, as I had no wish to put an end to the conference, I assented to a proposition so very obvious, and one, too, of whose truth I had all along been sufficiently aware. He seemed pleased, and went on with his instructions. You would have sworn that the writer had been born and brought up in a coffin. That was a nice bit of flummery, and went down the throats of the people delightfully. They would have it that Coleridge wrote the paper--but not so.
Blackwood, who assured me of it. Edgar Allan Poe 59 paper by-the-by, Miss Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the history of a young person who goes to sleep under the clapper of a church bell, and is awakened by its tolling for a funeral. The sound drives him mad, and, accordingly, pulling out his tablets, he gives a record of his sensations.
Sensations are the great things after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations--they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet. If you wish to write forcibly, Miss Zenobia, pay minute attention to the sensations. But I must put you au fait to the details necessary in composing what may be denominated a genuine Blackwood article of the sensation stamp--the kind which you will understand me to say I consider the best for all purposes.
The oven, for instance,--that was a good hit. But if you have no oven or big bell, at hand, and if you cannot conveniently tumble out of a balloon, or be swallowed up in an earthquake, or get stuck fast in a chimney, you will have to be contented with simply imagining some similar misadventure. I should prefer, however, that you have the actual fact to bear you out. Nothing so well assists the fancy, as an experimental knowledge of the matter in hand.
Perhaps you might do better. However, my instructions will apply equally well to any variety of misadventure, and in your way home you may easily get knocked in the head, or run over by an omnibus, or bitten by a mad dog, or drowned in a gutter. There is the tone didactic, the tone enthusiastic, the tone natural--all common--place enough. But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come much into use.
It consists in short sentences. Always a full stop. And never a paragraph. Some of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be all in a whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very similar, which answers remarkably well instead of meaning. This is the best of all possible styles where the writer is in too great a hurry to think.
If you know any big words this is your chance for them. Say something about objectivity and subjectivity. Be sure and abuse a man named Locke. In the former the merit consists in seeing into the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody else. This second sight is very efficient when properly managed. Eschew, in this case, big words; get them as small as possible, and write them upside down. Above all, study innuendo. Edgar Allan Poe 61 butter.
He kissed me and continued: The most important portion--in fact, the soul of the whole business, is yet to be attended to--I allude to the filling up. It is not to be supposed that a lady, or gentleman either, has been leading the life of a book worm. And yet above all things it is necessary that your article have an air of erudition, or at least afford evidence of extensive general reading. You might as well note down a few while I read them to you. I shall make two divisions: You see it is not generally known, and looks recherche.
You must be careful and give the thing with a downright improviso air. Turn it about a little, and it will do wonders. The natives suspend it by a cord from the ceiling, and enjoy its fragrance for years. That will do for the similes. Now for the Piquant Expressions. By introducing these few words with dexterity you will evince your intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of the Chinese.
With the aid of this you may either get along without either Arabic, or Sanscrit, or Chickasaw. I must look you out a little specimen of each. Any scrap will answer, because you must depend upon your own ingenuity to make it fit into your article. Alludes to the frequent repetition of the phrase, la tendre Zaire, in the French tragedy of that name. Properly introduced, will show not only your knowledge of the language, but your general reading and wit. You can say, for instance, that the chicken you were eating write an article about being choked to death by a chicken-bone was not altogether aussi tendre que Zaire.
Edgar Allan Poe 63 appearance should unfortunately bring me back again to life. It means that a great hero, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he had been fairly killed, continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was. The application of this to your own case is obvious--for I trust, Miss Psyche, that you will not neglect to kick for at least an hour and a half after you have been choked to death by that chicken-bone. He has committed an ignoratio elenchi--that is to say, he has understood the words of your proposition, but not the idea. The man was a fool, you see. Throw the ignoratio elenchi in his teeth, and, at once, you have him annihilated.
If he dares to reply, you can tell him from Lucan here it is that speeches are mere anemonae verborum, anemone words. The anemone, with great brilliancy, has no smell. This will be sure and cut him to the heart. He can do nothing but roll over and die. Will you be kind enough to write? The very letters have an air of profundity about them. Only observe, madam, the astute look of that Epsilon! That Phi ought certainly to be a bishop! Was ever there a smarter fellow than that Omicron? Just twig that Tau! In short, there is nothing like Greek for a genuine sensation-paper.
In the present case your application is the most obvious thing in the world. I was, at length, able to write a genuine Blackwood article, and determined to do it forthwith. In taking leave of me, Mr. Notwithstanding this niggardly spirit, however, the gentleman showed his consideration for me in all other respects, and indeed treated me with the greatest civility.
His parting words made a deep impression upon my heart, and I hope I shall always remember them with gratitude. It is just possible that you may not be able, so soon as convenient, to-to--get yourself drowned, or--choked with a chicken-bone, or--or hung,--or-bitten by a--but stay! Blackwood, to get into some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view I spent the greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh, seeking for desperate adventures--adventures adequate to the intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the article I intended to write.
In this excursion I was attended by one negro--servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had brought with me from Philadelphia. It was not, however, until late in the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An important event then happened of which the following Blackwood article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance and result.
The confusion and bustle in the streets were terrible. Could it then be possible? Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over! Thus it is ever. What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and anon be awakened in the mind of genius and imaginative contemplation, especially of a genius doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and continual, and, as one might say, the--continued--yes, the continued and continuous, bitter, harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike, and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable--nay!
In such a mind, I repeat, what a host of Brazilian Portuguese anon: Edgar Allan Poe 67 recollections are stirred up by a trifle! They capered--I sobbed aloud. She had a quantity of hair over her one eye, and a blue ribband tied fashionably around her neck. Diana was not more than five inches in height, but her head was somewhat bigger than her body, and her tail being cut off exceedingly close, gave an air of injured innocence to the interesting animal which rendered her a favorite with all. And Pompey, my negro! He was three feet in height I like to be particular and about seventy, or perhaps eighty, years of age.
He had bow-legs and was corpulent. His mouth should not be called small, nor his ears short. His teeth, however, were like pearl, and his large full eyes were deliciously white. Nature had endowed him with no neck, and had placed his ankles as usual with that race in the middle of the upper portion of the feet. He was clad with a striking simplicity. His sole garments were a stock of nine inches in height, and a nearly-new drab overcoat which had formerly been in the service of the tall, stately, and illustrious Dr. It was a good overcoat. It was well cut.
It was well made. The coat was nearly new. Pompey held it up out of the dirt with both hands. There were three persons in our party, and two of them have already been the subject of remark. There was a third--that person was myself. I am not Suky Snobbs. My appearance is commanding. On the memorable occasion of which I speak I was habited in a crimson satin dress, with a sky-blue Arabian mantelet.
And the dress had trimmings of green agraffas, and seven graceful flounces of the orange-colored auricula. I thus formed the third of the party. There was the poodle. There Brazilian Portuguese admirable: On a sudden, there presented itself to view a church--a Gothic cathedral--vast, venerable, and with a tall steeple, which towered into the sky. What madness now possessed me? Why did I rush upon my fate? I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to ascend the giddy pinnacle, and then survey the immense extent of the city. The door of the cathedral stood invitingly open. I entered the ominous archway.
Where then was my guardian angel? I entered the ominous archway! I entered; and, without injury to my orange-colored auriculas, I passed beneath the portal, and emerged within the vestibule. Thus it is said the immense river Alfred passed, unscathed, and unwetted, beneath the sea. I thought the staircase would never have an end. Yes, they went round and up, and round and up and round and up, until I could not help surmising, with the sagacious Pompey, upon whose supporting arm I leaned in all the confidence of early affection--I could not help surmising that the upper end of the continuous spiral ladder had been accidentally, or perhaps designedly, removed.
I paused for breath; and, in the meantime, an accident occurred of too momentous a nature in a moral, and also in a metaphysical point of view, to be passed over without notice. It appeared to me--indeed I was quite confident of the fact--I could not be mistaken--no! I had, for some moments, carefully and anxiously observed the motions of my Diana--I say that I could not be mistaken--Diana smelt a rat! There was then no longer any reasonable room for doubt. The rat had been smelled--and by Diana.
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Diana smelled Brazilian Portuguese accidentally: Edgar Allan Poe 69 the rat. Thus it is said the Prussian Isis has, for some persons, a sweet and very powerful perfume, while to others it is perfectly scentless. We still ascended, and now only one step remained. One little, little step! Upon one such little step in the great staircase of human life how vast a sum of human happiness or misery depends! I thought of myself, then of Pompey, and then of the mysterious and inexplicable destiny which surrounded us.
I thought of Pompey! I thought of my many false steps which have been taken, and may be taken again. I resolved to be more cautious, more reserved. I abandoned the arm of Pompey, and, without his assistance, surmounted the one remaining step, and gained the chamber of the belfry. I was followed immediately afterward by my poodle. Pompey alone remained behind. I stood at the head of the staircase, and encouraged him to ascend. He stretched forth to me his hand, and unfortunately in so doing was forced to abandon his firm hold upon the overcoat.
Will the gods never cease their persecution? The overcoat is dropped, and, with one of his feet, Pompey stepped upon the long and trailing skirt of the overcoat. He stumbled and fell--this consequence was inevitable. He fell forward, and, with his accursed head, striking me full in the-in the breast, precipitated me headlong, together with himself, upon the hard, filthy, and detestable floor of the belfry.
But my revenge was sure, sudden, and complete. Seizing him furiously by the wool with both hands, I tore out a vast quantity of black, and crisp, and curling material, and tossed it from me with every manifestation of disdain. It fell among the ropes of the belfry and remained. Pompey arose, and said no word. But he regarded me piteously with his large eyes and--sighed. It sunk into my heart. And the hair--the wool! Could I have reached that wool I would have bathed it with my tears, in testimony of regret.
As it dangled among the cordage of the bell, I fancied it alive. I fancied that it stood on end with indignation. Thus the happy-dandy Flos Aeris of Java bears, it is said, a beautiful flower, which will live when pulled up by the roots. The natives suspend it by a cord from the ceiling and enjoy its fragrance for years. Windows there were none. The sole light admitted into the gloomy chamber proceeded from a square opening, about a foot in diameter, at a height of about seven feet from the floor.
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Yet what will the energy of true genius not effect? I resolved to clamber up to this hole. A vast quantity of wheels, pinions, and other cabalistic--looking machinery stood opposite the hole, close to it; and through the hole there passed an iron rod from the machinery. Between the wheels and the wall where the hole lay there was barely room for my body--yet I was desperate, and determined to persevere.
I called Pompey to my side. I wish to look through it. You will stand here just beneath the hole--so. Now, hold out one of your hands, Pompey, and let me step upon it--thus. Now, the other hand, Pompey, and with its aid I will get upon your shoulders. The prospect was sublime. Nothing could be more magnificent. I merely paused a moment to bid Diana behave herself, and assure Pompey that I would be considerate and bear as lightly as possible upon his shoulders.
I told him I would be tender of his feelings--ossi tender que beefsteak. Having done this justice to my faithful friend, I gave myself up with great zest and enthusiasm to the enjoyment of the scene which so obligingly spread itself out before my eyes. Upon this subject, however, I shall forbear to dilate.
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I will not describe the city of Edinburgh. Every one has been to the city of Edinburgh. Every one has been to Edinburgh--the classic Edina. I will confine myself to the momentous details of my own lamentable adventure. Having, in some measure, satisfied my curiosity in regard to the extent, situation, and general appearance of the city, I had leisure to survey the church in which I was, and the delicate architecture of the steeple. I observed that the aperture through which I had thrust my head was an opening in the dial-plate of a gigantic clock, and must have appeared, from the street, as a large key-hole, such as we see in the face of the French watches.
Edgar Allan Poe 71 No doubt the true object was to admit the arm of an attendant, to adjust, when necessary, the hands of the clock from within.
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I observed also, with surprise, the immense size of these hands, the longest of which could not have been less than ten feet in length, and, where broadest, eight or nine inches in breadth. They were of solid steel apparently, and their edges appeared to be sharp.
Having noticed these particulars, and some others, I again turned my eyes upon the glorious prospect below, and soon became absorbed in contemplation. This was unreasonable, and I told him so in a speech of some length. He replied, but with an evident misunderstanding of my ideas upon the subject. With this he appeared satisfied, and I resumed my contemplations. It might have been half an hour after this altercation when, as I was deeply absorbed in the heavenly scenery beneath me, I was startled by something very cold which pressed with a gentle pressure on the back of my neck.
It is needless to say that I felt inexpressibly alarmed. I knew that Pompey was beneath my feet, and that Diana was sitting, according to my explicit directions, upon her hind legs, in the farthest corner of the room. What could it be? I but too soon discovered. Turning my head gently to one side, I perceived, to my extreme horror, that the huge, glittering, scimetar-like minute-hand of the clock had, in the course of its hourly revolution, descended upon my neck. There was, I knew, not a second to be lost. I pulled back at once--but it was too late. There was no chance of forcing my head through the mouth of that terrible trap in which it was so fairly caught, and which grew narrower and narrower with a rapidity too horrible to be conceived.
The agony of that moment is not to be imagined. I threw up my hands and endeavored, with all my strength, to force upward the ponderous iron bar. I might as well have tried to lift the cathedral itself. Down, down, down it came, closer and yet closer. I screamed to Pompey for aid; but he Brazilian Portuguese adjust: Down and still down, it came.
It had already buried its sharp edge a full inch in my flesh, and my sensations grew indistinct and confused. At one time I fancied myself in Philadelphia with the stately Dr. Moneypenny, at another in the back parlor of Mr. Blackwood receiving his invaluable instructions. And then again the sweet recollection of better and earlier times came over me, and I thought of that happy period when the world was not all a desert, and Pompey not altogether cruel. The ticking of the machinery amused me. Amused me, I say, for my sensations now bordered upon perfect happiness, and the most trifling circumstances afforded me pleasure.
The eternal click-clak, click-clak, click-clak of the clock was the most melodious of music in my ears, and occasionally even put me in mind of the graceful sermonic harangues of Dr. Then there were the great figures upon the dial-plate--how intelligent how intellectual, they all looked! And presently they took to dancing the Mazurka, and I think it was the figure V. She was evidently a lady of breeding. None of your swaggerers, and nothing at all indelicate in her motions.
She did the pirouette to admiration--whirling round upon her apex. I made an endeavor to hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued with her exertions--and it was not until then that I fully perceived my lamentable situation. The bar had buried itself two inches in my neck. I was aroused to a sense of exquisite pain. I prayed for death, and, in the agony of the moment, could not help repeating those exquisite verses of the poet Miguel De Cervantes: Vanny Buren, tan escondida Brazilian Portuguese afforded: But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient to startle the strongest nerves.
My eyes, from the cruel pressure of the machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets. While I was thinking how I should possibly manage without them, one actually tumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep side of the steeple, lodged in the rain gutter which ran along the eaves of the main building. The loss of the eye was not so much as the insolent air of independence and contempt with which it regarded me after it was out.
There it lay in the gutter just under my nose, and the airs it gave itself would have been ridiculous had they not been disgusting. Such a winking and blinking were never before seen. This behavior on the part of my eye in the gutter was not only irritating on account of its manifest insolence and shameful ingratitude, but was also exceedingly inconvenient on account of the sympathy which always exists between two eyes of the same head, however far apart. I was forced, in a manner, to wink and to blink, whether I would or not, in exact concert with the scoundrelly thing that lay just under my nose.
I was presently relieved, however, by the dropping out of the other eye. In falling it took the same direction possibly a concerted plot as its fellow. Both rolled out of the gutter together, and in truth I was very glad to get rid of them. The bar was now four inches and a half deep in my neck, and there was only a little bit of skin to cut through. My sensations were those of entire happiness, for I felt that in a few minutes, at farthest, I should be relieved from my disagreeable situation.
And in this expectation I was not at all deceived. At twenty-five minutes past five in the afternoon, precisely, the huge minute-hand had proceeded sufficiently far on its terrible revolution to sever the small remainder of my neck. I was not sorry to see the head which had occasioned me so much embarrassment at length make a final separation from my body.
It first rolled down the side of the steeple, then lodge, for a few seconds, in the gutter, and then made its way, with a plunge, into the middle of the street.
My senses were here and there at one and the same moment. With my head I imagined, at one time, that I, the head, was the real Signora Psyche Zenobia--at another I felt convinced that myself, the body, was the proper identity. To clear my ideas on this topic I felt in my pocket for my snuff-box, but, upon getting it, and endeavoring to apply a pinch of its grateful contents in the ordinary manner, I became immediately aware of my peculiar deficiency, and threw the box at once down to my head.
It took a pinch with great satisfaction, and smiled me an acknowledgement in return. Shortly afterward it made me a speech, which I could hear but indistinctly without ears. I gathered enough, however, to know that it was astonished at my wishing to remain alive under such circumstances. In the concluding sentences it quoted the noble words of Ariosto— Il pover hommy che non sera corty And have a combat tenty erry morty; thus comparing me to the hero who, in the heat of the combat, not perceiving that he was dead, continued to contest the battle with inextinguishable valor.
There was nothing now to prevent my getting down from my elevation, and I did so. What it was that Pompey saw so very peculiar in my appearance I have never yet been able to find out. The fellow opened his mouth from ear to ear, and shut his two eyes as if he were endeavoring to crack nuts between the lids.
Finally, throwing off his overcoat, he made one spring for the staircase and disappeared. Was that a rat I saw Brazilian Portuguese acknowledgement: Are these the picked bones of the little angel who has been cruelly devoured by the monster? Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the unhappy Signora Psyche Zenobia? My acquaintance with Ritzner commenced at the magnificent Chateau Jung, into which a train of droll adventures, not to be made public, threw me during the summer months of the year Here it was I obtained a place in his regard, and here, with somewhat more difficulty, a partial insight into his mental conformation.
In later days this insight grew more clear, as the intimacy which had at first permitted it became more close; and when, after three years separation, we met at Gn, I knew all that it was necessary to know of the character of the Baron Ritzner von Jung.
I remember the buzz of curiosity which his advent excited within the college precincts on the night of the twenty-fifth of June. I remember still more distinctly, Brazilian Portuguese advent: That he was unique appeared so undeniable, that it was deemed impertinent to inquire wherein the uniquity consisted. But, letting this matter pass for the present, I will merely observe that, from the first moment of his setting foot within the limits of the university, he began to exercise over the habits, manners, persons, purses, and propensities of the whole community which surrounded him, an influence the most extensive and despotic, yet at the same time the most indefinite and altogether unaccountable.
He was then of no particular age, by which I mean that it was impossible to form a guess respecting his age by any data personally afforded. He might have been fifteen or fifty, and was twenty-one years and seven months.
Chagas, Manuel Pinheiro [WorldCat Identities]
He was by no means a handsome man- perhaps the reverse. The contour of his face was somewhat angular and harsh. His forehead was lofty and very fair; his nose a snub; his eyes large, heavy, glassy, and meaningless. About the mouth there was more to be observed. The lips were gently protruded, and rested the one upon the other, after such a fashion that it is impossible to conceive any, even the most complex, combination of human features, conveying so entirely, and so singly, the idea of unmitigated gravity, solemnity and repose.
It will be perceived, no doubt, from what I have already said, that the Baron was one of those human anomalies now and then to be found, who make the science of mystification the study and the business of their lives. For this science a peculiar turn of mind gave him instinctively the cue, while his physical appearance afforded him unusual facilities for carrying his prospects into effect.
I firmly believe that no student at Gn, during that renowned epoch so quaintly termed the domination of the Baron Ritzner von Jung, ever rightly entered into the mystery which overshadowed his character. I truly think that no person at Brazilian Portuguese angular: This, too, when it was evident that the most egregious and unpardonable of all conceivable tricks, whimsicalities and buffooneries were brought about, if not directly by him, at least plainly through his intermediate agency or connivance.
The beauty, if I may so call it, of his art mystifique, lay in that consummate ability resulting from an almost intuitive knowledge of human nature, and a most wonderful self-possession, by means of which he never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he was occupied in bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and partly in consequence of the laudable efforts he was making for their prevention, and for the preservation of the good order and dignity of Alma Mater.
The deep, the poignant, the overwhelming mortification, which upon each such failure of his praise worthy endeavors, would suffuse every lineament of his countenance, left not the slightest room for doubt of his sincerity in the bosoms of even his most skeptical companions. The adroitness, too, was no less worthy of observation by which he contrived to shift the sense of the grotesque from the creator to the created- from his own person to the absurdities to which he had given rise. In no instance before that of which I speak, have I known the habitual mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres- an attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend appeared to live only for the severities of society; and not even his own household have for a moment associated other ideas than those of the rigid and august with the memory of the Baron Ritzner von Jung. During the epoch of his residence at Gn it really appeared that the demon of the dolce far niente lay like an incubus upon the university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and drinking and making merry.
The apartments of the students were converted into so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of them all more famous or more frequented than that of the Baron. Our carousals here were many, and boisterous, and long, and never unfruitful of events. The company consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron and myself.
Most of these were young men of wealth, of high connection, of great family pride, and all alive with an exaggerated sense of honor. They abounded in the most ultra German opinions respecting the duello. To these Quixotic notions some recent Parisian publications, backed by three or four desperate and fatal recounters at Gn, had given new vigor and impulse; and thus the conversation, during the greater part of the night, had run wild upon the all- engrossing topic of the times.
The Baron, who had been unusually silent and abstracted in the earlier portion of the evening, at length seemed to be aroused from his apathy, took a leading part in the discourse, and dwelt upon the benefits, and more especially upon the beauties, of the received code of etiquette in passages of arms with an ardor, an eloquence, an impressiveness, and an affectionateness of manner, which elicited the warmest enthusiasm from his hearers in general, and absolutely staggered even myself, who well knew him to be at heart a ridiculer of those very points for which he contended, and especially to hold the entire fanfaronade of duelling etiquette in the sovereign contempt which it deserves.
This gentleman, whom I shall call Hermann, was an original in every respect- except, perhaps, in the single particular that he was a very great fool. He contrived to bear, however, among a particular set at the university, a reputation for deep metaphysical thinking, and, I believe, for some logical talent. As a duellist he had acquired great renown, even at Gn.
I forget the precise number of victims who had fallen at his hands; but they were many. He was a man of courage undoubtedly. But it was upon his minute acquaintance with the etiquette of the duello, and the nicety of his sense of honor, that he most especially prided himself. These things were a hobby which he rode to the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout for the grotesque, his peculiarities had for a Brazilian Portuguese abounded: Of this, however, I was not aware; although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something of a whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that Hermann was its especial object.
At length he spoke; offering some objection to a point insisted upon by R. To these the Baron replied at length still maintaining his exaggerated tone of sentiment and concluding, in what I thought very bad taste, with a sarcasm and a sneer. The hobby of Hermann now took the bit in his teeth. This I could discern by the studied hair-splitting farrago of his rejoinder. His last words I distinctly remember. In a few respects they are even unworthy of serious refutation.
I would say more than this, sir, were it not for the fear of giving you offence here the speaker smiled blandly , I would say, sir, that your opinions are not the opinions to be expected from a gentleman. He became pale, then excessively red; then, dropping his pockethandkerchief, stooped to recover it, when I caught a glimpse of his countenance, while it could be seen by no one else at the table. It was radiant with the quizzical expression which was its natural character, but which I had never seen it assume except when we were alone together, and when he unbent himself freely.
In an instant afterward he stood erect, confronting Hermann; and so total an alteration of countenance in so short a period I certainly never saw before. For a moment I even fancied that I had misconceived him, and that he was in sober earnest. He appeared to be stifling with passion, and his face was cadaverously white.
For a short time he remained silent, apparently striving to master his emotion. That my opinions, however, are not the opinions to be expected from a gentleman, is an observation so directly offensive as to allow me but one line of conduct. Some courtesy, nevertheless, is due to the presence of this company, and to yourself, at this moment, as my guest. You will pardon me, therefore, if, upon this consideration, I deviate slightly from the general usage among gentlemen in similar cases of personal affront.
You will forgive me for the moderate tax I shall make upon your imagination, and endeavor to consider, for an instant, the reflection of your person in yonder mirror as the living Mynheer Hermann himself. This being done, there will be no difficulty whatever. I shall discharge this decanter of wine at your image in yonder mirror, and thus fulfil all the spirit, if not the exact letter, of resentment for your insult, while the necessity of physical violence to your real person will be obviated.
Collected Works of Poe, Volume IV (Webster's Brazilian Portuguese Thesaurus Edition)
The whole company at once started to their feet, and, with the exception of myself and Ritzner, took their departure. As Hermann went out, the Baron whispered me that I should follow him and make an offer of my services. To this I agreed; not knowing precisely what to make of so ridiculous a piece of business. The duellist accepted my aid with his stiff and ultra recherche air, and, taking my arm, led me to his apartment. After a tiresome harangue in his ordinary style, he took down from his book shelves a number of musty volumes on the subject of the duello, and entertained me for a long time with their contents; reading aloud, and commenting earnestly as he read.
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