Feb. 28, 2026

Edgar Allan Poe Horror & Mystery Stories: Murders in the Rue Morgue and Classic Tales of Terror

Edgar Allan Poe Horror & Mystery Stories: Murders in the Rue Morgue and Classic Tales of Terror
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Classic Edgar Allan Poe horror stories and mystery tales—a bingeable gothic anthology packed with macabre suspense, dark humor, revenge, and one of the most famous detective stories ever written. If you’re searching for Edgar Allan Poe short stories, classic horror, Victorian gothic, old-time spooky literature, or a murder mystery with a locked-room vibe, this compilation is built for you.


Inside this episode (in order):

Manuscript Found in a Bottle — a nightmare voyage into storm, fog, and fate as the sea turns uncanny and inescapable.
Hop-Frog — a brutal humiliation becomes a perfectly timed act of revenge horror.
Never Bet the Devil Your Head — Poe’s wicked dark comedy fable, where a smug wager ends in a final, grim punchline.
Murders in the Rue Morgue — Poe’s iconic detective mystery: a shocking Paris crime, impossible clues, and razor-sharp deduction.
The Man That Was Used Up — a satirical, unsettling tale of identity and reputation—what’s left when the “hero” comes apart?

Perfect for fans of classic scary stories, gothic horror audiobooks, mystery anthologies, and public domain literary chills. Lights low, volume up—let Poe do the rest.

🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

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📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!


🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT

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Hello, my spookies. Happy to see you back tonight. I

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want to share a sampling of some of my favorite

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Edgar Allan Poe stories. After all, his work is what

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originally set me on a path of seeking all things

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fearful and fun. So kick back and relax. Whether you've

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never heard these stories or you just want to trip

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down memory lane, I have you covered. We'll start with

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the underrated classic manuscript Found in a Bottle and keep

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going from there further into madness, murder, and the macabre.

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Now let's get started. I think there's a storm forming

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on the horizon uscript Found in a Bottle by Edgar

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Allan Poe. Of my country and of my family, I

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have little to say. Ill usage and length of years

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have driven me from the one and estranged me from

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the other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no

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common order, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me

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to methodize the stores which early study very diligently garnered up.

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Beyond all things, The works of the German moralists gave

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me great delight, not from any ill advised admiration of

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their eloquent madness, but from the ease with which my

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habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect their falsities.

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I have often been reproached with the aridity of my genius.

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A deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as

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a crime, and the pyrhism of my opinions has at

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all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for

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physical philosophy has I fear tinctured my mind with a

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very common error of this age. I mean the habit

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of referring occurrences even the least susceptible of such reference

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to the principles of that science. Upon the whole. No

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person could be less liable than myself to be led

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away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignis

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fatui of superstition. I have thought proper to premise thus

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much less the incredible tale I have to tell should

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be considered rather the raving of a crude imagination than

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the positive experience of a mind to which the reveries

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of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.

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After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in

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the year eighteen something or other from the port of

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Batavia in the rich and populous island of Java, on

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a voyage to the archipelago of the Sunda Islands. I

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went as passenger, having no other inducement than a kind

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of nervous restlessness which haunted me like a fiend. Our

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vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons copper,

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fastened and built at Bombay of Malabar Tik. She was

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freighted with cotton, wool and oil from the Lahadive Islands.

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We had also on board choir, jaggery, ghee, cocoa, nuts,

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and a few cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily done,

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and the vessel consequently crank. We got under way with

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a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood

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along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident

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to beguile the monotony of our course than the occasional

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meeting with some of the small grabs of the archipelago

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to which we were bound. One evening, leaning over Taffrail,

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I observed a very singular, isolated cloud to the northwest.

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It was remarkable as well for its color, as from

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its being the first we had seen since our depart

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archure from Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when

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it spread all at once to the eastward and westward,

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girding in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor,

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and looking like a long line of low beach. My

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notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusker appearance of

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the moon and the peculiar character of the sea. The

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latter was undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed

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more than usually transparent, although I could distinctly see the bottom.

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Yet heaving the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms.

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The air now became intolerably hot, and was loaded with

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spiral exhalations, similar to those arising from heated iron. As

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night came on, every breath of wind died away, and

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a more entire calm. It is impossible to conceive the

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flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the

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least perceptible motion, and a long hair held between the

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finger and thumb hung without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However,

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as the captain said, he could perceive no indication of danger,

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and as we were drifting in bodily to shore, he

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ordered the sails to be furled and the anchor let go.

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No watch was set, and the crew, consisting principally of malaise,

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stretched themselves deliberately upon deck, not without a full presentiment

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of evil. Indeed, every appearance warranted me an APPREHENSI a simoum.

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I told the captain my fears, but he paid no

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attention to what I said, and left me without deigning

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to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping,

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and about midnight I went up upon deck. As I

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placed my foot upon the upper step of the companion ladder,

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I was startled with a loud, humming noise, like that

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occasioned by the rapid revolution of a mill wheel, And

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before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the ship

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quivering to its center. In the next instant, a wilderness

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of foam hurled us upon our beam ends, and rushing

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over us fore and aft, swept the entire decks from

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stem to stern. The extreme fury of the blast proved

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in a great measure the salvation of the ship. Although

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completely water logged, yet as all her masts had gone

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by the board, she rose after a minute, heavily from

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the sea and staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of

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the tempest, finally righted. By what miracle I escaped destruction.

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It is impossible to say Stunned by the shock of

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the water, I found myself upon recovery, jammed in between

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the stern post and rudder. With great difficulty, I gained

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my feet, and, looking dizzily around, was at first struck

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with the idea of our being among breakers so terrific.

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Beyond the wildest imagination was the whirlpool of mountainous and

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foaming ocean within which we were engulfed. After a while

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I heard the voice of an old Swede who had

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shipped with us at the moment of our leaving port.

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I halloed to him with all my strength, and presently

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he came reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were

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the sole survivors of the accident. All on deck, with

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the exception of ourselves, had been swept overboard, and the

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captain and mates must have perished as they slept, for

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the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance, we could

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expect to do little for the security of the ship,

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and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary

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expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course parted

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like pack thread at the first breath of the hurricane,

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or we should have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with

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frightful velocity before the sea and the water made clear

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breeches over us. The framework of our stern was shattered excessively,

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and in almost every respect we had received considerable injury.

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But to our extreme joy, we found the pumps unchoked,

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and that we had made no great shifting of our ballast.

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The main fury of the Simoom had already blown over,

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and we apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind.

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But we looked forward to its total cessation with dismay, well,

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believing that in our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish

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in the tremendous swell which would ensue. But this very

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apprehension seemed by no means likely to be soon verified.

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For five entire days and nights, during which our only

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substance was a small quantity of jaggery procured with great

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difficulty from the forecastle, the hulk flew at a rate

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defying computation, before rapidly succeeding flaws of wind, which, without

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equaling the first violence of the Simoom, were still more

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terrific than any tempest I had before encountered. Our course

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for the first four days was with trifling variations southeast

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and by south, and we must have run down the

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coast of New Holland. On the fifth day, the cold

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became extreme. Although the wind had hauled round a point

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more to the northward, the sun arose with a sickly

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yellow luster and clambered a very few degrees above the horizon,

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emitting no decisive light. There were no clouds whatever apparent.

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Yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with

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a fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as

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we could guess, our attention was again arrested by the

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appearance of the sun. It gave out no light properly

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so called, but a dull and sullen glow, unaccompanied by

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any ray. Just before sinking within the turgid sea, its

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central fires suddenly went out, as if hurriedly extinguished by

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some unaccountable power. It was a dim, silver like rim

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alone as it rushed down the unfathomable ocean. We waited

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in vain for the arrival of the sixth day. That day,

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to me has not yet arrived to the Swede never

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did arrive. Thenceforward, we were enshrouded in pitchy darkness, so

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that we could not have seen an object. At twenty

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paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to envelop us,

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all relieved by the phosphoric sea brilliancy to which we

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had been accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that

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although the tempest continued to rage with unabated violence, there

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was no longer to be discovered the usual appearance of

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surf or foam which had hitherto attended us. All around

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was horror and thick gloom, and a black, sweltering desert

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of ebony. Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the spirit

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of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped

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up in silent wonder. We neglected all care of the

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ship as worse than useless, and securing ourselves as well

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as possible to the stump of the mizenmast looked out

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bitterly into the world of ocean. We had no means

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of calculating time, nor could we form any guess of

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our situation. We were, however, well aware of having made

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farther to the southward than any previous navigators, and felt

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extreme amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice.

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In the meantime, every moment threatened to be our last,

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Every mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed

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anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not

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instantly buried is a miracle. Companion spoke of the lightness

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of our cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities

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of our ship. But I could not help feeling the

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utter hopelessness of hope itself, and prepared myself gloomily for

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that death, which I thought nothing could differ beyond an hour.

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As with every knot of way the ship made, the

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swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling.

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At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond

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the albatross. At times became dizzy with the velocity of

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our descent into some watery hell, where the air grew

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stagnant and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.

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We were at the bottom of one of these abysses

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when a quick scream from my companion broke fearfully upon

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the night. See see, cried he shrieking in my ears,

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Almighty God, see see. As he spoke, I became aware

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of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed

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down the sides of the vast chasm where we lay,

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and threw a fitful brilliancy upon our deck. Casting my

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eyes upwards, I beheld a spectacle which froze the current

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of my blood. At a terrific height, directly above us,

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and upon the very verge of the precipitous descent, hovered

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a gigantic ship of nearly four thousand tons. Although upreared

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upon the summit of a wave of more than a

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hundred times her own altitude, her apparent sighs still exceeded

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that of any ship of the Line or East Indiaman

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in existence. Her huge hull was a deep, dingy black,

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unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship.

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A single row of brass cannon protruded from her open

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ports and dashed off from their polished surfaces the fires

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of innumerable battle lanterns, which swung to and fro about

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her rigging. But what mainly inspired us with horror and

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astonishment was that she bore up under a press of sail,

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in the very teeth of that supernatural sea and of

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that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her stupendous

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boughs were alone to be seen as she rose up,

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like a demon of the deep, slowly from the dim

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and horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror,

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she paused upon the giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation

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of her own sublimity, then trembled and tottered and came down.

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At this instant I know not what sudden self possession

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came over my spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could,

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I awaited fearlessly the ruin that was to overwhelm our

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own vessel was at length, ceasing from her struggles and

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sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of

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the descending mass struck her consequently in that portion of

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her frame which was already under water, and the inevitable

219
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:55.359
result was to hurl me in the irresistible violence upon

220
00:18:55.480 --> 00:18:59.960
the rigging of the stranger. As I fell, the ship

221
00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:05.240
hove in stays and went about, And to the confusion

222
00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:10.839
ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew.

223
00:19:10.880 --> 00:19:15.039
With little difficulty, I made my way unperceived to the

224
00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:20.200
main hatchway, which was partially open, and soon found an

225
00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:24.839
opportunity of secreting myself in the hold. Why I did

226
00:19:24.880 --> 00:19:30.119
so I can hardly tell. A nameless and indefinite sense

227
00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.559
of awe, which at first sight of the navigators of

228
00:19:33.640 --> 00:19:37.440
the ship had taken hold of my mind, was perhaps

229
00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:41.680
the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust

230
00:19:41.799 --> 00:19:45.200
myself with a race of people who had offered to

231
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:48.960
the cursory glance. I had taken so many points of

232
00:19:49.119 --> 00:19:55.000
vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought proper to

233
00:19:55.079 --> 00:19:59.519
contrive a hiding place in the hold. This I did

234
00:19:59.559 --> 00:20:03.000
by remar moving a small portion of the shifting boards

235
00:20:03.039 --> 00:20:06.240
in such a manner as to afford me a convenient

236
00:20:06.359 --> 00:20:11.759
retreat between the huge timbers of the ship. I had

237
00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:15.759
scarcely completed my work when a footstep in the hold

238
00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:19.440
forced me to make use of it. A man passed

239
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:24.279
by my place of concealment with a feeble and unsteady gait.

240
00:20:25.079 --> 00:20:28.400
I could not see his face, but had an opportunity

241
00:20:28.440 --> 00:20:32.880
of observing his general appearance. There was about it an

242
00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:38.000
evidence of great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath

243
00:20:38.039 --> 00:20:42.559
a load of years, and his entire frame quivered under

244
00:20:42.599 --> 00:20:48.480
the burthen. He muttered to himself in a low, broken tone,

245
00:20:49.200 --> 00:20:53.440
some words of a language which I could not understand,

246
00:20:54.000 --> 00:20:57.400
and groped in a corner among a pile of singular

247
00:20:57.519 --> 00:21:03.279
looking instruments and decayed hearts of navigation. His manner was

248
00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:08.039
a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood and

249
00:21:08.079 --> 00:21:12.680
the solemn dignity of a god. He at length went

250
00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:19.440
on deck, and I saw him no more. A feeling

251
00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:23.480
for which I have no name has taken possession of

252
00:21:23.519 --> 00:21:28.200
my soul, a sensation which will admit of no analysis,

253
00:21:28.519 --> 00:21:32.079
to which the lesson of by gone time are inadequate,

254
00:21:32.519 --> 00:21:36.599
and for which I fear futurity itself will offer me

255
00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:41.480
no key to a mind constituted like my own. The

256
00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:47.480
latter consideration is an evil I shall never I know

257
00:21:47.640 --> 00:21:51.759
that I shall never be satisfied with regard to the

258
00:21:51.880 --> 00:21:56.240
nature of my conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful that

259
00:21:56.319 --> 00:22:00.920
these conceptions are indefinite, since they have their own origin

260
00:22:01.240 --> 00:22:06.079
in sources so utterly novel. A new sense a new

261
00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:10.920
entity is added to my soul. It is long since

262
00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:15.079
I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and

263
00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:19.240
the rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to

264
00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:25.200
a focus incomprehensible men wrapped up in meditations of a

265
00:22:25.279 --> 00:22:29.480
kind which I cannot divine. They pass me by unnoticed.

266
00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.960
Concealment is utter folly on my part, for the people

267
00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:38.480
will not see. It was but just now that I

268
00:22:38.640 --> 00:22:42.920
passed directly before the eyes of the mate. It was

269
00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:46.480
no long while ago that I ventured into the captain's

270
00:22:46.599 --> 00:22:51.039
own private cabin and took thence the materials with which

271
00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:54.920
I write and have written. I shall, from time to

272
00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:59.720
time continue this journal. It is true that I may

273
00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:03.759
not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world,

274
00:23:04.200 --> 00:23:07.640
but I will not fail to make the endeavor. At

275
00:23:07.640 --> 00:23:11.640
the last moment, I will enclose the message in a

276
00:23:11.680 --> 00:23:18.079
bottle and cast it within the sea. An incident has

277
00:23:18.119 --> 00:23:22.839
occurred which has given me new room for meditation. Are

278
00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:28.960
such things the operations of ungoverned chance. I had ventured

279
00:23:29.079 --> 00:23:33.920
upon deck and thrown myself down without attracting any notice,

280
00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:38.359
among a pile of ratlin stuff and old sails in

281
00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:43.160
the bottom of the yawl. While musing upon the singularity

282
00:23:43.640 --> 00:23:48.079
of my fate, I unwittingly daubed with a tarbrush the

283
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:52.680
edges of a neatly folded studding sail, which lay near

284
00:23:52.759 --> 00:23:57.920
me on a barrel. The studding sail is now bent

285
00:23:58.079 --> 00:24:01.519
upon the ship, and the thoughtless touches of the brush

286
00:24:01.799 --> 00:24:08.480
are spread out into the word discovery. I have made

287
00:24:08.599 --> 00:24:13.559
many observations lately upon the structure of the vessel. Although

288
00:24:13.559 --> 00:24:17.599
well armed, she is not I think a ship of war.

289
00:24:19.400 --> 00:24:24.359
Her rigging, build and general equipment all negative a supposition

290
00:24:24.519 --> 00:24:28.880
of this kind. What she is not. I can easily

291
00:24:28.960 --> 00:24:34.680
perceive what she is. I fear it is impossible to say,

292
00:24:35.839 --> 00:24:39.160
I know not how it is. But in scrutinizing her

293
00:24:39.279 --> 00:24:44.640
strange model and singular cast of spars, her huge size

294
00:24:44.680 --> 00:24:50.599
and overgrown suits of canvas, her severely simple bow and

295
00:24:50.759 --> 00:24:56.599
antiquated stern, there will occasionally flash across my mind a

296
00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:01.839
sensation of familiar things. And there is always mixed up

297
00:25:01.880 --> 00:25:07.839
with such indistinct shadows of recollection, an unaccountable memory of

298
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:14.480
old foreign chronicles and ages long ago. I have been

299
00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:18.000
looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built

300
00:25:18.039 --> 00:25:22.359
of a material to which I am a stranger. There

301
00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:26.440
is a peculiar character about the wood which strikes me

302
00:25:26.559 --> 00:25:29.799
as rendering it unfit for the purpose to which it

303
00:25:29.799 --> 00:25:36.039
has been applied. I mean its extreme porousness. Considered independently

304
00:25:36.160 --> 00:25:40.119
of the worm eaten condition which is consequence of navigation

305
00:25:40.640 --> 00:25:45.960
in these seas, and apart from the rottenness attendant upon age,

306
00:25:46.880 --> 00:25:52.240
it will appear perhaps an observation somewhat over curious. But

307
00:25:52.400 --> 00:25:58.240
this wood has every characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish

308
00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:04.920
oak were distended or swelled by any unnatural means. In

309
00:26:05.039 --> 00:26:09.799
reading the above sentence, a curious opathem of an old,

310
00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:16.359
weather beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. It

311
00:26:16.440 --> 00:26:21.000
is as sure he was wont to say, when any

312
00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:26.480
doubt was entertained of his veracity, as sure as there

313
00:26:26.599 --> 00:26:29.279
is a sea where the ship itself will grow in

314
00:26:29.400 --> 00:26:34.559
bulk like the living body of the seamen. About an

315
00:26:34.640 --> 00:26:38.240
hour ago I made bold to thrust myself among a

316
00:26:38.319 --> 00:26:42.559
group of the crew. They paid me no manner of attention,

317
00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:46.279
and although I stood in the very midst of them,

318
00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:52.680
all seemed utterly unconscious of my presence, like the one

319
00:26:52.759 --> 00:26:56.440
I had at first seen in the hold. They all

320
00:26:56.480 --> 00:27:01.240
bore about them the marks of a hoary old age.

321
00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:06.160
Their knees trembled with infirmity, their shoulders were bent double

322
00:27:06.240 --> 00:27:12.039
with decreptitude. Their shriveled skins rattled in the wind. Their

323
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:18.960
voices were low, tremulous, and broken. Their eyes glistened with

324
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.720
the room of years, and their gray hairs streamed terribly

325
00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:28.160
in the tempest. Around them. On every part of the

326
00:27:28.240 --> 00:27:34.119
deck lay scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaint and

327
00:27:34.359 --> 00:27:40.920
obsolete construction. I mentioned some time ago the bending of

328
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:45.599
a studding sail. From that period, the ship, being thrown

329
00:27:45.720 --> 00:27:49.960
dead off the wind, was held her terrific course due south,

330
00:27:50.599 --> 00:27:54.559
with every rag of canvas packed upon her, from her

331
00:27:54.599 --> 00:27:59.400
trucks to her lower studding sail booms, and rolling every

332
00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:03.680
moment her top gallant yard arms into the most appalling

333
00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:07.279
hell of water, which it can enter into the mind

334
00:28:07.359 --> 00:28:11.359
of a man to imagine. I have just left the deck,

335
00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:15.839
where I find it impossible to maintain a footing. Although

336
00:28:15.880 --> 00:28:20.759
the crew seem to experience little inconvenience, it appears to

337
00:28:20.880 --> 00:28:24.759
me a miracle of miracles that our enormous bulk is

338
00:28:24.839 --> 00:28:29.880
not buried up once and forever. We are surely doomed

339
00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:35.079
to hover continually upon the brink of eternity without taking

340
00:28:35.119 --> 00:28:40.799
a final plunge into the abyss from billows a thousand

341
00:28:40.839 --> 00:28:44.480
times more stupendous than any I have ever seen. We

342
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:49.400
glide away with the facility of the arrowy seagull, and

343
00:28:49.480 --> 00:28:54.200
the colossal waters rear their heads above us, like demons

344
00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:59.279
of the deep, but like demons confined to simple threats

345
00:28:59.559 --> 00:29:04.640
and forbidden to destroy. I am led to attribute these

346
00:29:04.759 --> 00:29:09.079
frequent escapes to the only natural cause which can account

347
00:29:09.119 --> 00:29:13.039
for such effect. I must suppose the ship to be

348
00:29:13.240 --> 00:29:18.599
within the influence of some strong current or impetuous undertow.

349
00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:22.839
I have seen the captain face to face, and in

350
00:29:23.079 --> 00:29:27.519
his own cabin, but as I expected, he paid me

351
00:29:27.640 --> 00:29:31.599
no attention. Although in his appearance there is to a

352
00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:36.240
casual observer nothing which might bespeak him more or less

353
00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:42.960
than man, still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe

354
00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:48.559
mingled with the sensation of wonder with which I regarded him.

355
00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:52.640
In stature, he is nearly my own height, that is

356
00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:57.359
about five feet eight inches. He is of a well

357
00:29:57.440 --> 00:30:03.680
knit and compact frame of body, neither robust nor remarkably otherwise.

358
00:30:04.559 --> 00:30:08.559
But it is the singularity of the expression which reigns

359
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:13.680
upon the face. It is the intense, the wonderful, the

360
00:30:13.759 --> 00:30:18.720
thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme, which

361
00:30:18.759 --> 00:30:25.400
excites within my spirit a sense, a sentiment ineffable. His forehead,

362
00:30:25.480 --> 00:30:29.440
although little wrinkled, seemed to bear upon it the stamp

363
00:30:29.519 --> 00:30:33.480
of a myriad of years. His gray hairs are records

364
00:30:33.519 --> 00:30:37.119
of the past, and his grayer eyes are sybyls of

365
00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:42.079
the future. The cabin floor was thickly strewn with strange,

366
00:30:42.359 --> 00:30:48.119
iron clasped folios and moldering instruments of science, and obsolete,

367
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:53.240
long forgotten charts. His head was bowed upon his hands,

368
00:30:53.799 --> 00:30:57.640
and he poured with a fiery, unquiet eye over a

369
00:30:57.720 --> 00:31:01.880
paper which I took to be a commission, and which

370
00:31:02.400 --> 00:31:08.119
at all events bore the signature of a monarch. He

371
00:31:08.200 --> 00:31:12.119
muttered to himself, as did the first seamen, whom I

372
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:16.480
saw in the hold, some low, peevish syllables of a

373
00:31:16.559 --> 00:31:21.039
foreign tongue. And although the speaker was close at my elbow,

374
00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:24.240
yet his voice seemed to reach my ears from the

375
00:31:24.279 --> 00:31:27.880
distance of a mile. The ship and all in it

376
00:31:28.039 --> 00:31:32.440
are imbued with the spirit of eld. The crew glide

377
00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:36.839
to and fro, Like the ghosts of buried centuries. Their

378
00:31:36.920 --> 00:31:41.599
eyes have an eager and uneasy meaning. And when their

379
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:45.039
figures fall athwart my path in the wild glare of

380
00:31:45.119 --> 00:31:49.440
the battle lanterns, I feel as I have never felt before,

381
00:31:50.319 --> 00:31:54.680
although I have been all my life a dealer in antiquities,

382
00:31:55.200 --> 00:31:59.279
and imbibed the shadows of fallen columns at Balbeck and

383
00:31:59.400 --> 00:32:05.039
Tadmore and Persepolis, until my very soul has become a ruin.

384
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:10.160
When I look around me, I feel ashamed of my

385
00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:15.720
former apprehensions. If I trembled at the blast which hitherto

386
00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:19.799
attended us, shall I not stand aghast at a warring

387
00:32:19.880 --> 00:32:24.240
of the wind and ocean to convey any idea of

388
00:32:24.319 --> 00:32:29.000
which the words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective.

389
00:32:29.839 --> 00:32:32.880
All in the immediate vicinity of the ship is the

390
00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:36.680
blackness of eternal night and a chaos of foamless water.

391
00:32:37.799 --> 00:32:41.839
But about a league on either side of us may

392
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:48.759
be seen indistinctly, and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice,

393
00:32:49.480 --> 00:32:54.319
towering away into the desolate sky, and looking like the

394
00:32:54.359 --> 00:32:59.359
walls of the universe. As I imagined the ship proves

395
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:03.680
to be in a current, if that appellation can properly

396
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:08.000
be given to a tide which, howling and shrieking by

397
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:11.599
the white ice, thunders on to the southward with a

398
00:33:11.720 --> 00:33:17.480
velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract. To conceive

399
00:33:17.599 --> 00:33:22.960
the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly impossible.

400
00:33:23.640 --> 00:33:28.240
Yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful

401
00:33:28.359 --> 00:33:34.359
regions predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me

402
00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:38.759
the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that

403
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:44.079
we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge, some never

404
00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:51.839
to be imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction. Perhaps this

405
00:33:51.960 --> 00:33:56.240
current leads us to the Southern Pole itself. It must

406
00:33:56.319 --> 00:34:00.880
be confessed that a supposition apparently so wild, has every

407
00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:06.480
probability in its favor. The crew pace the deck with

408
00:34:06.640 --> 00:34:12.400
unquiet and tremulous step, But there is upon their countenances

409
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:16.079
an expression more of the eagerness of hope than of

410
00:34:16.119 --> 00:34:21.000
the apathy of despair. In the meantime, the wind is

411
00:34:21.119 --> 00:34:24.760
still in our poop, and as we carry a crowd

412
00:34:24.800 --> 00:34:29.320
of canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from

413
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:34.800
out the sea. Oh, horror, upon horror, The ice open

414
00:34:34.960 --> 00:34:38.000
suddenly to the right and to the left, and we

415
00:34:38.079 --> 00:34:44.519
are whirling dizzily in immense concentric circles, round and round

416
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:48.719
the borders of a gigantic amphitheater, the summit of whose

417
00:34:48.840 --> 00:34:53.719
walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. But

418
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:57.400
little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny.

419
00:34:58.199 --> 00:35:03.360
The circles rapidly grows small. We are plunging madly within

420
00:35:03.440 --> 00:35:07.199
the grasp of the whirlpool, and amid a roaring and

421
00:35:07.360 --> 00:35:11.639
bellowing and shrieking of ocean and of tempest, the ship

422
00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:29.960
is quivering, Oh God, and going down hop frog By

423
00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:36.079
Edgar Allan Poe. I never knew anyone so keenly alive

424
00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:40.440
to a joke as the King was. He seemed to

425
00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:44.039
live only for joking. To tell a good story of

426
00:35:44.079 --> 00:35:46.920
the joke kind, and to tell it well, was the

427
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.320
surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his

428
00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:55.880
seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokesters.

429
00:35:56.840 --> 00:36:00.719
They all took after the King too, in being large, corpulent,

430
00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:06.039
oily men, as well as imitable jokers. Whether people grow

431
00:36:06.159 --> 00:36:09.480
fat by joking, or whether there is something in fat

432
00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:13.519
itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been

433
00:36:13.599 --> 00:36:16.920
quite able to determine, but certain it is that a

434
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:22.599
lean joker is a rava avis in terrace about the refinements,

435
00:36:22.719 --> 00:36:26.440
or as he called them, the ghost of wit, the

436
00:36:26.559 --> 00:36:31.280
King troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration

437
00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:34.599
for breadth in a jest, and would often put up

438
00:36:34.599 --> 00:36:38.679
with length for the sake of it. Over niceties wearied him.

439
00:36:39.119 --> 00:36:43.239
He would have preferred rablais gargantua to a zadig of Voltaire,

440
00:36:44.039 --> 00:36:48.039
and upon the whole, practical jokes suited his taste far

441
00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:52.239
better than verbal ones. At the date of my narrative,

442
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:57.280
professing jesters had not altogether gone out of fashion at court.

443
00:36:57.760 --> 00:37:02.719
Several of the great continental powers still retained their fools,

444
00:37:03.159 --> 00:37:06.840
who wore motley with caps and bells, and who were

445
00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:11.159
expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms at a

446
00:37:11.199 --> 00:37:16.079
moment's notice. In consideration of the crumbs that fell from

447
00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:20.320
the royal table, our king, as a matter of course,

448
00:37:20.760 --> 00:37:24.639
retained his fool. The fact is he required something in

449
00:37:24.679 --> 00:37:28.519
the way of folly, if only to counterbalance the heavy

450
00:37:28.599 --> 00:37:32.199
wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers

451
00:37:32.800 --> 00:37:37.960
not to mention himself his fool or professional jester was

452
00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.679
not only a fool, however, his value was trebled in

453
00:37:41.719 --> 00:37:44.480
the eyes of the king by the fact of his

454
00:37:44.679 --> 00:37:49.000
being also a dwarf and a cripple. Dwarfs were as

455
00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:52.039
common at court in those days as fools, and many

456
00:37:52.119 --> 00:37:55.159
monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days.

457
00:37:55.719 --> 00:37:59.400
Days are rather longer at court than elsewhere without both

458
00:37:59.440 --> 00:38:02.599
a jester to laugh with and a dwarf to laugh at.

459
00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:06.679
But as I have already observed, your jesters in ninety

460
00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:11.199
nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round and unwieldy,

461
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.000
so that it was no small source of self gratulation

462
00:38:15.159 --> 00:38:18.280
with our King that in hop Frog this was the

463
00:38:18.320 --> 00:38:23.239
fool's name. He possessed a triplicate treasure in one person.

464
00:38:24.280 --> 00:38:27.079
I believe the name hop Frog was not that given

465
00:38:27.119 --> 00:38:30.239
to the dwarf by his sponsors at baptism, but was

466
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:34.679
conferred upon him by general consent of the several ministers

467
00:38:35.079 --> 00:38:38.000
on account of his inability to walk as other men do.

468
00:38:38.920 --> 00:38:42.079
In fact, hop Frog could only get along by a

469
00:38:42.119 --> 00:38:47.199
sort of interjectional gait, something between a leap and a wriggle,

470
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.760
a movement that afforded illimitable amusement and of course consolation

471
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:57.199
to the King, for notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach

472
00:38:57.440 --> 00:39:01.280
and a constitutional swelling of the head, the King by

473
00:39:01.280 --> 00:39:06.280
his whole court was accounted a capital figure. But although

474
00:39:06.400 --> 00:39:09.920
hop Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move

475
00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:14.119
only with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor,

476
00:39:14.840 --> 00:39:18.800
the projudice's muscular power, which nature seemed to have bestowed

477
00:39:18.880 --> 00:39:22.440
upon his arms by way of compensation for deficiency in

478
00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:25.880
the lower limbs, enabled him to perform many feats of

479
00:39:25.960 --> 00:39:30.800
wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question, or

480
00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:35.360
anything else to climb. At such exercises, he certainly much

481
00:39:35.400 --> 00:39:39.880
more resembled a squirrel or a small monkey than a frog.

482
00:39:40.920 --> 00:39:43.719
I am not able to say with precision from what

483
00:39:43.880 --> 00:39:49.599
country hop Frog originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however,

484
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:53.639
that no person had ever heard of a vast distance

485
00:39:53.679 --> 00:39:56.599
from the court of our King. Hop Frog, and a

486
00:39:56.679 --> 00:40:00.760
young girl, very little less dwarfish than himself, although of

487
00:40:00.840 --> 00:40:05.880
exquisite proportions and a marvelous dancer, had been forcibly carried

488
00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:10.039
off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces, and sent

489
00:40:10.159 --> 00:40:13.239
as presents to the King by one of his ever

490
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:18.039
victorious generals. Under these circumstances, it is not to be

491
00:40:18.159 --> 00:40:21.760
wondered at that a close intimacy arose between the two

492
00:40:21.880 --> 00:40:27.079
little captives. Indeed, they soon became sworn friends. Hop Frog,

493
00:40:27.159 --> 00:40:30.719
who although he made a great deal of sport, was

494
00:40:30.760 --> 00:40:33.960
by no means popular, had it not in his power

495
00:40:34.039 --> 00:40:37.679
to render Tripetta many services. But she, on account of

496
00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:42.000
her grace and exquisite beauty, although a dwarf, was universally

497
00:40:42.039 --> 00:40:46.519
admired and petted. So she possessed much influence and never

498
00:40:46.639 --> 00:40:50.280
failed to use it whenever she could for the benefit

499
00:40:50.800 --> 00:40:55.039
of hop Frog on some grand state occasion. I forgot

500
00:40:55.079 --> 00:40:59.079
what the King determined to have a masquerade, And whenever

501
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:02.079
a masquerade or or anything of that kind occurred at

502
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:05.719
our court, then the talents of both hop Frog and

503
00:41:05.840 --> 00:41:09.679
Tripetta were sure to be called in to play. Hop

504
00:41:09.719 --> 00:41:12.679
Frog in a special was so inventive in the way

505
00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:17.719
of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and arranging costumes

506
00:41:17.719 --> 00:41:20.920
for masked balls, that nothing could be done. It seems

507
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:25.920
without his assistance. The Knight appointed for the Fei had arrived,

508
00:41:26.599 --> 00:41:30.239
a gorgeous hall had been fitted up under Tripetta's eye,

509
00:41:30.599 --> 00:41:33.960
with every kind of device which could possibly give eclat

510
00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:37.159
to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever

511
00:41:37.280 --> 00:41:41.679
of expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well

512
00:41:41.800 --> 00:41:44.639
be supposed that everybody had come to a decision on

513
00:41:44.719 --> 00:41:48.239
such points. Many had made up their minds as to

514
00:41:48.280 --> 00:41:51.000
what roles they should assume a week or even a

515
00:41:51.039 --> 00:41:54.039
month in advance. And in fact there was not a

516
00:41:54.079 --> 00:41:57.639
particle of indecision anywhere except in the case of the

517
00:41:57.719 --> 00:42:02.679
King and his seven ministers. Why they hesitated I never

518
00:42:02.760 --> 00:42:05.719
could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke.

519
00:42:06.559 --> 00:42:09.840
More probably, they found it difficult, on account of being

520
00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:13.519
so fat, to make up their minds at all events.

521
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:16.679
Time flew and as a last resort they sent for

522
00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:21.800
Tripetta and hop Frog. When the two little friends obeyed

523
00:42:21.840 --> 00:42:24.559
the summons of the King, they found him sitting at

524
00:42:24.559 --> 00:42:27.880
his wine with seven members of his cabinet council. But

525
00:42:28.000 --> 00:42:31.039
the monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor.

526
00:42:31.880 --> 00:42:34.599
He knew that hop Frog was not fond of wine,

527
00:42:34.920 --> 00:42:38.400
for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness, and

528
00:42:38.519 --> 00:42:42.639
madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his

529
00:42:42.760 --> 00:42:46.679
practical jokes and took pleasure in forcing hop Frog to drink.

530
00:42:47.079 --> 00:42:53.039
And as the King called it to be merry, come here,

531
00:42:53.239 --> 00:42:57.480
hop Frog, said he, as the jester and his friend

532
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:01.199
entered the room. Swallow this bumper to the health of

533
00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:06.719
your absent friends. Here, hop Frog sighed, And then let

534
00:43:06.840 --> 00:43:12.360
us have the benefit of your invention. We want characters, characters,

535
00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:16.800
man something novel out of the way. We are wearied

536
00:43:16.880 --> 00:43:22.960
with this everlasting sameness. Come drink the wine will brighten

537
00:43:23.039 --> 00:43:28.039
your wits. Hop Frog endeavored, as usual to get up

538
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:31.000
a jest in reply to these advances from the king,

539
00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:34.800
but the effort was too much. It happened to be

540
00:43:34.920 --> 00:43:38.119
the poor dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to

541
00:43:38.199 --> 00:43:43.639
his absent friends forced the tears to his eyes. Many

542
00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:47.599
large bitter drops fell into the goblet as he took

543
00:43:47.639 --> 00:43:52.519
it humbly from the hand of the tyrant. A ha ha,

544
00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:57.639
roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the beaker.

545
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:01.719
See what a glass of good wants can do? Why

546
00:44:01.800 --> 00:44:07.760
your eyes are shining already, poor fellow his large eyes

547
00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:12.039
gleamed rather than shone, for the effect of wine on

548
00:44:12.199 --> 00:44:17.760
his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He

549
00:44:17.800 --> 00:44:21.639
placed the goblet nervously on the table and looked round

550
00:44:21.760 --> 00:44:26.400
upon the company with a half insane stare. They all

551
00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:30.679
seemed highly amused at the success of the King's joke.

552
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:36.320
And now to business, said the Prime Minister, a very

553
00:44:36.440 --> 00:44:43.039
fat man, Yes, said the king. Come lend us your assistance. Characters,

554
00:44:43.480 --> 00:44:48.280
my fine fellow, we stand in need of characters, all

555
00:44:48.360 --> 00:44:53.039
of us. Haa. And as this was seriously meant for

556
00:44:53.119 --> 00:44:57.880
a joke, his laugh was chorused by the seven hop

557
00:44:57.920 --> 00:45:04.360
frog also laughed, although feebly and somewhat vacantly. Come, Come,

558
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:10.760
said the king, impatiently. Have you nothing to suggest? I

559
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:16.199
am endeavoring to think of something novel, replied the dwarf abstractedly,

560
00:45:16.719 --> 00:45:21.880
for he was quite bewildered by the wine. Endeavoring, cried

561
00:45:21.920 --> 00:45:27.000
the tyrant fiercely. What do you mean by that? Ah?

562
00:45:27.199 --> 00:45:31.400
I perceive you are sulky and want more wine? Here,

563
00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:36.400
drink this, And he poured out another gobletful and offered

564
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:40.280
it to the cripple, who merely gazed at it, gasping

565
00:45:40.360 --> 00:45:45.920
for breath, drink, I say, shouted the monster or by

566
00:45:45.960 --> 00:45:51.239
the fiends. The dwarf hesitated, The king grew purple with rage,

567
00:45:52.119 --> 00:45:57.440
the courtiers smirked. Tripetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to

568
00:45:57.480 --> 00:46:00.960
the monarch's seat, and, falling on her knee ease before him,

569
00:46:01.639 --> 00:46:06.320
implored him to spare her friend. The tyrant regarded her

570
00:46:06.440 --> 00:46:11.000
for some moments in evident wonder at her audacity. He

571
00:46:11.119 --> 00:46:13.679
seemed quite at a loss what to do or say,

572
00:46:14.840 --> 00:46:20.280
how most becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without

573
00:46:20.360 --> 00:46:24.400
uttering a syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and

574
00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:28.079
threw the contents of the brimming goblet in her face.

575
00:46:29.480 --> 00:46:32.320
The poor girl got up the best she could, and,

576
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.000
not daring even to sigh, resumed her position at the

577
00:46:37.039 --> 00:46:40.760
foot of the table. There was a dead silence for

578
00:46:40.840 --> 00:46:44.199
about half a minute, during which the falling of a

579
00:46:44.320 --> 00:46:48.679
leaf or of a feather might have been heard. It

580
00:46:48.760 --> 00:46:53.360
was interrupted by a low, but harsh and protracted grating sound,

581
00:46:53.880 --> 00:46:56.719
which seemed to come at once from every corner of

582
00:46:56.760 --> 00:47:01.360
the room. What what are you making that noise? For,

583
00:47:02.199 --> 00:47:07.119
demanded the king, turning furiously to the dwarf. The latter

584
00:47:07.239 --> 00:47:11.679
seemed to have recovered in great measure from his intoxication, and,

585
00:47:11.719 --> 00:47:18.599
looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant's face, merely ejaculated. Ah, I,

586
00:47:19.559 --> 00:47:22.920
how could it have been me? The sound appeared to

587
00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:27.599
come from without, observed one of the courtiers. I fancy

588
00:47:27.639 --> 00:47:30.239
it was the parrot at the window, wetting his bill

589
00:47:30.360 --> 00:47:35.559
upon his cage wires. True, replied the monarch, as if

590
00:47:35.639 --> 00:47:39.320
much relieved by the suggestion. But on the honor of

591
00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:41.920
a night, I could have sworn that it was the

592
00:47:41.960 --> 00:47:47.239
gritting of this vagabond's teeth. Hereupon the dwarf laughed. The

593
00:47:47.320 --> 00:47:51.199
king was too confirmed a joker to object to anyone's laughing,

594
00:47:51.800 --> 00:47:58.320
and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very repulsive teeth. Moreover,

595
00:47:58.679 --> 00:48:02.320
he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as much wine

596
00:48:02.840 --> 00:48:08.119
as desired. The monarch was pacified, and, having drained another

597
00:48:08.159 --> 00:48:12.519
bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, hop Frog entered

598
00:48:12.559 --> 00:48:16.280
at once and with spirit into the plans for the masquerade.

599
00:48:17.599 --> 00:48:20.840
I cannot tell what was the association of the idea,

600
00:48:21.599 --> 00:48:25.480
observed he very tranquility, and as if he had never

601
00:48:25.559 --> 00:48:29.800
tasted wine in his life. But just after your majesty

602
00:48:29.840 --> 00:48:32.800
had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face.

603
00:48:33.360 --> 00:48:36.400
Just after your majesty had done this, and while the

604
00:48:36.480 --> 00:48:40.559
parrot was making that odd noise outside the window, there

605
00:48:40.639 --> 00:48:44.559
came into my mind a capital diversion, one of my

606
00:48:44.679 --> 00:48:49.599
own country frolics, often enacted among us at our masquerades.

607
00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:55.119
But here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however, it

608
00:48:55.199 --> 00:48:59.039
requires a company of eight persons, and here we are,

609
00:48:59.679 --> 00:49:03.559
cried the King, laughing at his acute discovery of the coincidence,

610
00:49:04.280 --> 00:49:08.360
eight to a fraction. I and my seven ministers come.

611
00:49:08.800 --> 00:49:13.360
What is the diversion? We call it? Replied the cripple

612
00:49:14.239 --> 00:49:19.360
the eight chained orangutangs. And it really is excellent sport.

613
00:49:19.440 --> 00:49:23.719
If well enacted, we will enact it, remarked the King,

614
00:49:24.159 --> 00:49:28.400
drawing himself up and lowering his eyelids. The beauty of

615
00:49:28.440 --> 00:49:32.440
the game, continued, hop Frog lies in the fright. It

616
00:49:32.519 --> 00:49:38.360
occasions among the women, Capital roared in chorus. The monarch

617
00:49:38.519 --> 00:49:43.679
and his ministry, I will equip you as orangutangs preceded

618
00:49:43.719 --> 00:49:47.519
the dwarf. Leave all that to me. The resemblance shall

619
00:49:47.559 --> 00:49:51.320
be so striking that the company of masqueraders will take

620
00:49:51.360 --> 00:49:54.599
you for real beasts, and of course, they will be

621
00:49:54.639 --> 00:50:01.119
as much terrified as astonished. Oh, this is exquisite, exclaimed

622
00:50:01.119 --> 00:50:04.519
the King hop Frog. I will make a man of you.

623
00:50:05.800 --> 00:50:09.000
The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion.

624
00:50:09.360 --> 00:50:12.400
By their jangling you are supposed to have escaped in

625
00:50:12.639 --> 00:50:17.119
mass from your keepers. Your majesty cannot conceive the effect

626
00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:22.880
produced at a masquerade by eight chained orangutangs imagined to

627
00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:26.199
be real ones by most of the company, and rushing

628
00:50:26.239 --> 00:50:30.440
in with savage cries among the crowd of delicately and

629
00:50:30.599 --> 00:50:36.360
gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable, it

630
00:50:36.480 --> 00:50:40.159
must be said. The King and the council arose hurriedly,

631
00:50:40.519 --> 00:50:43.559
as it was growing late, to put in execution the

632
00:50:43.639 --> 00:50:48.320
scheme of hop Frog. His mode of equipping the party

633
00:50:48.360 --> 00:50:53.039
as orangutangs, was very simple, but effective enough for his purposes.

634
00:50:53.679 --> 00:50:57.400
The animals in question had, at the epoch of my story,

635
00:50:58.079 --> 00:51:00.480
very rarely been seen in any part part of the

636
00:51:00.519 --> 00:51:04.599
civilized world, And as the imitations made by the dwarf

637
00:51:04.639 --> 00:51:10.079
were sufficiently beast like and more than sufficiently hideous, their

638
00:51:10.159 --> 00:51:15.159
truthfulness to nature was thus thought to be secured. The

639
00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:19.079
King and his ministers were first encased in tight fitting

640
00:51:19.119 --> 00:51:23.800
stockinet shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar.

641
00:51:24.480 --> 00:51:27.199
At this stage of the process, some one of the

642
00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:31.960
party suggested feathers, but the suggestion was at once overruled

643
00:51:31.960 --> 00:51:35.760
by the Dwarf, who soon convinced the eight by ocular

644
00:51:35.840 --> 00:51:39.440
demonstration that the hair of such a brute as the

645
00:51:39.480 --> 00:51:44.960
orangutang was much more efficiently represented by flu. A thick

646
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:48.840
coating of the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating

647
00:51:48.880 --> 00:51:53.440
of tar. A long chain was now procured. First it

648
00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:56.480
was passed around the waist of the king and tied

649
00:51:56.920 --> 00:52:00.559
then about another of the party, and also tied then

650
00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:05.039
about all successively in the same manner. When this chaining

651
00:52:05.159 --> 00:52:08.519
arrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart

652
00:52:08.599 --> 00:52:12.360
from each other as possible, they formed a circle, and

653
00:52:12.519 --> 00:52:16.599
to make things appear natural, hop Frog passed the residue

654
00:52:16.639 --> 00:52:20.719
of the chain in two diameters at right angles across

655
00:52:20.760 --> 00:52:24.440
the circle, after the fashion adopted at the present day

656
00:52:25.079 --> 00:52:30.400
by those who captured chimpanzees or other large apes. In Borneo,

657
00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:34.000
the grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take

658
00:52:34.039 --> 00:52:38.559
place was a circular room, very lofty in receiving the

659
00:52:38.639 --> 00:52:42.239
light of the sun only through a single window at top.

660
00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:46.599
At night, the season for which the apartment was especially designed,

661
00:52:46.960 --> 00:52:51.679
it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending by

662
00:52:51.719 --> 00:52:54.880
a chain from the center of the skylight, and lowered

663
00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:58.880
or elevated by means of a counterbalance as usual, but

664
00:52:59.519 --> 00:53:03.559
in order not to look unsightly, this latter passed outside

665
00:53:03.599 --> 00:53:07.559
the cupola and over the roof. The arrangements of the

666
00:53:07.679 --> 00:53:11.639
room had been left to Tripetta's superintendence, but in some

667
00:53:11.719 --> 00:53:15.760
particulars it seems she had been guided by the calmer

668
00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:19.760
judgment of her friend the Dwarf, at his suggestion. It

669
00:53:19.920 --> 00:53:24.320
was that on this occasion the chandelier was removed its

670
00:53:24.360 --> 00:53:28.039
waxen drippings, which, in whether so warm it was quite

671
00:53:28.119 --> 00:53:32.440
impossible to prevent, would have been seriously detrimental to the

672
00:53:32.559 --> 00:53:36.199
rich dresses of the guests, who, on account of the

673
00:53:36.239 --> 00:53:40.119
crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected

674
00:53:40.119 --> 00:53:43.000
to keep from out its center, that is to say,

675
00:53:43.119 --> 00:53:47.679
from under the chandelier. Additional sconces were set in various

676
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:50.360
parts of the hall out of the war, and a

677
00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:54.199
flambeaux emitting sweet odor was placed in the right hand

678
00:53:54.280 --> 00:53:57.960
of each of the carriadids. That stood against the wall,

679
00:53:58.440 --> 00:54:04.920
some fifty or six altogether. The eight Orangutangs, taking hop

680
00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.679
Frog's advice, waited patiently until midnight, when the room was

681
00:54:09.719 --> 00:54:15.000
thoroughly filled with masqueraders, before making their appearance. No sooner

682
00:54:15.039 --> 00:54:18.639
had the clock ceased striking, however, than they rushed, or

683
00:54:18.760 --> 00:54:23.000
rather rolled in all together, for the impediments of their

684
00:54:23.119 --> 00:54:26.239
chains caused most of the party to fall and all

685
00:54:26.360 --> 00:54:30.480
to stumble as they entered. The excitement among the masqueraders

686
00:54:30.519 --> 00:54:34.239
was prodigious and filled the heart of the king with glee.

687
00:54:35.360 --> 00:54:37.840
As had been anticipated, there were not a few of

688
00:54:37.880 --> 00:54:41.559
the guests who supposed the ferocious looking creatures to be

689
00:54:41.559 --> 00:54:46.320
beasts of some kind in reality, if not precisely Orangutang's.

690
00:54:46.960 --> 00:54:50.079
Many of the women swooned with affright, and had not

691
00:54:50.159 --> 00:54:53.719
the king taken the precaution to exclude all weapons from

692
00:54:53.760 --> 00:54:57.719
the saloon, his party might soon have expiated their frolic

693
00:54:57.800 --> 00:55:01.599
in their blood. As it was, a general rush was

694
00:55:01.679 --> 00:55:04.880
made for the doors, but the king had ordered them

695
00:55:04.920 --> 00:55:08.360
to be locked immediately upon his entrance, and at the

696
00:55:08.440 --> 00:55:14.159
dwarf's suggestion, the keys had been deposited with him. While

697
00:55:14.239 --> 00:55:17.760
the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive

698
00:55:17.880 --> 00:55:21.320
only to his own safety, for in fact there was

699
00:55:21.480 --> 00:55:24.559
much real danger from the pressure of the excited crowd.

700
00:55:25.079 --> 00:55:28.880
The chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung, and which

701
00:55:28.920 --> 00:55:31.920
had been drawn up on its removal, might have been

702
00:55:31.960 --> 00:55:38.400
seen very gradually to descend until its hooked extremity came

703
00:55:38.480 --> 00:55:43.119
within three feet of the floor. Soon after this, the

704
00:55:43.239 --> 00:55:46.360
king and his seven friends, having reeled about the hall

705
00:55:46.480 --> 00:55:50.159
in all directions, found themselves at length in its center,

706
00:55:50.320 --> 00:55:55.960
and of course in immediate contact with the chain. While

707
00:55:56.039 --> 00:55:59.599
they were thus situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly

708
00:55:59.639 --> 00:56:02.360
at their heels, inciting them to keep up the commotion,

709
00:56:02.800 --> 00:56:05.400
took hold of their own chain at the intersection of

710
00:56:05.440 --> 00:56:09.239
the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically and at

711
00:56:09.280 --> 00:56:13.719
right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted

712
00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:17.119
the hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend,

713
00:56:17.679 --> 00:56:22.079
and in an instant by some unseen agency, the chandelier

714
00:56:22.199 --> 00:56:25.199
chain was drawn so far upward as to take the

715
00:56:25.239 --> 00:56:29.679
hook out of reach, and as an inevitable consequence, to

716
00:56:29.800 --> 00:56:35.159
drag the orangutangs together in close connection and face to face.

717
00:56:36.079 --> 00:56:39.920
The masqueraders, by this time had recovered in some measure

718
00:56:40.239 --> 00:56:43.760
from their alarm, and beginning to regard the whole matter

719
00:56:43.880 --> 00:56:47.639
as a well contrived pleasantry, set up a loud shout

720
00:56:47.639 --> 00:56:51.320
of laughter at the predicament of the apes. Leave them

721
00:56:51.400 --> 00:56:55.719
to me, now, screamed hop Frog, his shrill voice making

722
00:56:55.719 --> 00:56:59.840
itself easily heard through all the din Leave them to me.

723
00:57:00.320 --> 00:57:03.159
I fancy I know them. If I can only get

724
00:57:03.199 --> 00:57:05.880
a good look at them, I can soon tell who

725
00:57:05.920 --> 00:57:09.880
they are. Here. Scrambling over the heads of the crowd,

726
00:57:10.400 --> 00:57:13.639
he managed to get to the wall when seizing a

727
00:57:13.679 --> 00:57:16.960
flambeaux from one of the caryatids. He returned as he

728
00:57:17.039 --> 00:57:20.119
went to the center of the room, leaping with the

729
00:57:20.119 --> 00:57:23.920
agility of a monkey upon the king's head, and thence

730
00:57:24.039 --> 00:57:27.519
clambered a few feet up the chain, holding down the

731
00:57:27.599 --> 00:57:32.159
torch to examine the group of orangutangs and still screaming,

732
00:57:32.840 --> 00:57:37.000
I shall soon find out who they are. And now,

733
00:57:37.719 --> 00:57:42.320
While the whole assembly the apes included, were convulsed with laughter,

734
00:57:43.440 --> 00:57:47.840
the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle. When the chain

735
00:57:47.960 --> 00:57:51.719
flew violently up for about thirty feet, dragging with it

736
00:57:51.800 --> 00:57:56.159
the dismayed and struggling orangutanes, and leaving them suspended in

737
00:57:56.239 --> 00:57:59.599
mid air between the skylight and the floor. Hop Frog,

738
00:57:59.679 --> 00:58:03.199
clinging to the chain as it rose, still maintained his

739
00:58:03.320 --> 00:58:07.599
relative position in respect to the eight maskers, and still,

740
00:58:07.679 --> 00:58:11.119
as if nothing were the matter, continued to thrust his

741
00:58:11.320 --> 00:58:15.679
torch toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were.

742
00:58:16.519 --> 00:58:20.320
So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent

743
00:58:20.880 --> 00:58:24.159
that a dead silence of about a minute's duration ensued.

744
00:58:24.760 --> 00:58:28.360
It was broken by such a low, harsh, grating sound

745
00:58:28.840 --> 00:58:31.840
as had before attracted the attention of the King and

746
00:58:31.920 --> 00:58:35.119
his counselors when the former threw the wine in the

747
00:58:35.159 --> 00:58:39.719
face of Tripetta. But on the present occasion there could

748
00:58:39.760 --> 00:58:42.960
be no question as to whence the sound issued. It

749
00:58:43.119 --> 00:58:47.480
came from the fanglike teeth of the dwarf, who ground

750
00:58:47.599 --> 00:58:50.360
them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth

751
00:58:50.519 --> 00:58:54.840
and glared with an expression of maniacal rage into the

752
00:58:54.920 --> 00:59:00.960
upturned countenances of the King and his seven companions. Aha,

753
00:59:01.760 --> 00:59:05.760
said at length, the infuriated jester, Aha, I begin to

754
00:59:05.840 --> 00:59:10.639
see who these people are now here pretending to scrutinize

755
00:59:10.679 --> 00:59:13.920
the king more closely he held the flambeaux to the

756
00:59:13.920 --> 00:59:18.280
flaxen coat, which enveloped him, and which instantly burst into

757
00:59:18.320 --> 00:59:22.239
a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a minute,

758
00:59:22.360 --> 00:59:27.480
the whole eight orangutangs were blazing fiercely amid the shrieks

759
00:59:27.519 --> 00:59:32.079
of the multitude, who gazed at them from below, horror stricken,

760
00:59:32.360 --> 00:59:36.039
and without the power to remember them the slightest assistance.

761
00:59:37.199 --> 00:59:41.719
At length, the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the

762
00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:44.760
jester to climb higher up the chain to be out

763
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:48.360
of their reach, And as he made this movement, the

764
00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:53.920
crowd again sank for a brief instant into silence. The

765
00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:58.800
dwarf seized his opportunity and once more spoke, I now

766
00:59:58.880 --> 01:00:03.400
see you distinct, he said, what manner of people these

767
01:00:03.480 --> 01:00:06.920
maskers are? They are a great king and his seven

768
01:00:07.039 --> 01:00:11.119
privy councilors, a king who does not scruple to strike

769
01:00:11.320 --> 01:00:14.320
a defenseless girl, and his seven counselors who have bet

770
01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:18.199
him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply

771
01:00:18.320 --> 01:00:25.280
hop frog the jester, and this is my last jest.

772
01:00:25.719 --> 01:00:29.320
Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and

773
01:00:29.360 --> 01:00:33.119
the tar to which it adhered, the dwarf had scarcely

774
01:00:33.239 --> 01:00:36.239
made an end of his brief speech. Before the work

775
01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:42.320
of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their

776
01:00:42.440 --> 01:00:48.800
chains a fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple

777
01:00:49.039 --> 01:00:52.840
hurled his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling,

778
01:00:53.800 --> 01:00:59.320
and disappeared through the skylight. It is supposed that Trippetta

779
01:00:59.639 --> 01:01:02.320
station and on the roof of the saloon, had been

780
01:01:02.360 --> 01:01:07.519
the accomplice of her friend in this fiery revenge, and

781
01:01:07.599 --> 01:01:13.599
that together they affected their escape to their own country.

782
01:01:14.679 --> 01:01:28.760
For neither was seen again. Never bet the devil your head.

783
01:01:29.639 --> 01:01:36.039
A tale with a moral by Edgar Allan Poe contal

784
01:01:36.199 --> 01:01:41.360
ke las constumbres de un attour, says Don Thomas de

785
01:01:41.480 --> 01:01:48.239
las Torres in the preface to his amatory poems siempreras

786
01:01:48.679 --> 01:01:55.760
ecastas iporto mupoco ke nocion iglumente severas sos obras, meaning

787
01:01:56.320 --> 01:01:59.960
in plain English that provided the morals of an author

788
01:02:00.239 --> 01:02:04.400
are pure personally, it signifies nothing. What are the morals

789
01:02:04.840 --> 01:02:09.239
of his books? We presume that Don Thomas is now

790
01:02:09.280 --> 01:02:13.559
in purgatory for the assertion. It would be a clever

791
01:02:13.719 --> 01:02:17.480
thing too, in the way of poetical justice to keep

792
01:02:17.559 --> 01:02:21.320
him there until his amatory poems get out of print

793
01:02:21.840 --> 01:02:26.519
or are laid definitely upon the shelf through lack of readers.

794
01:02:26.559 --> 01:02:30.400
Every fiction should have a moral, and what is more,

795
01:02:30.440 --> 01:02:34.960
to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every fiction has.

796
01:02:36.559 --> 01:02:41.280
Philip Melenchthon some time ago wrote a commentary upon the

797
01:02:41.320 --> 01:02:46.400
Batrocomiakia and proved that the poet's object was to excite

798
01:02:46.440 --> 01:02:51.360
a distaste for sedition. Pierre Lacine, going a step farther,

799
01:02:51.920 --> 01:02:54.880
shows that the intention was to recommend to young men

800
01:02:55.039 --> 01:03:00.960
temperance in eating and drinking. Just so too, Jacobus Hugo

801
01:03:01.039 --> 01:03:06.079
has satisfied himself that Eunice Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin,

802
01:03:06.400 --> 01:03:12.159
by Antinius, Martin Luther, by Latofoggi Protestants in general, and

803
01:03:12.320 --> 01:03:17.320
by the Harpies. The Dutch our more modern Scholassies are

804
01:03:17.400 --> 01:03:23.800
equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a hidden meaning in the Antivillians,

805
01:03:24.199 --> 01:03:27.880
a parable of the Powaton new views in cock Robin

806
01:03:28.079 --> 01:03:32.519
and Transcendentalism in hop O my Thumb. In short, it

807
01:03:32.559 --> 01:03:35.000
has been shown that no man can sit down to

808
01:03:35.039 --> 01:03:40.960
write without a very profound design. Thus to authors. In general,

809
01:03:41.079 --> 01:03:44.800
much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have

810
01:03:44.920 --> 01:03:47.920
no care of his moral. It is there, that is

811
01:03:47.960 --> 01:03:51.239
to say, it is somewhere, and the moral and the

812
01:03:51.239 --> 01:03:56.440
critics can take care of themselves. When the proper time arrives,

813
01:03:56.480 --> 01:03:59.719
all that the gentleman intended and all that he did not,

814
01:04:00.840 --> 01:04:04.079
will be brought to light in the dial or the

815
01:04:04.199 --> 01:04:07.400
down easter, together with all that he ought to have intended,

816
01:04:07.760 --> 01:04:10.639
and the rest that he clearly meant to intend, so

817
01:04:10.840 --> 01:04:13.880
that it will all come very straight in the end.

818
01:04:15.360 --> 01:04:18.599
There is no just ground therefore for the charge brought

819
01:04:18.639 --> 01:04:22.280
against me by certain ignoramuses that I have never written

820
01:04:22.320 --> 01:04:26.159
a moral tale, or in more precise words, a tale

821
01:04:26.559 --> 01:04:30.400
with a moral. They are not the critics predestined to

822
01:04:30.400 --> 01:04:34.719
bring me out and develop my morals. That is the secret.

823
01:04:35.400 --> 01:04:38.880
By and by the North American quarterly humdrum will make

824
01:04:38.960 --> 01:04:43.039
them ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way

825
01:04:43.039 --> 01:04:47.239
of saying execution, by way of mitigating the accusations against me,

826
01:04:48.079 --> 01:04:52.159
I offer the sad history appended, a history about whose

827
01:04:52.280 --> 01:04:56.519
obvious moral there can be no question whatever, Since he

828
01:04:56.599 --> 01:04:59.639
who runs may read it in the large capitals which

829
01:04:59.679 --> 01:05:03.320
form the title of the tale. I should have credit

830
01:05:03.400 --> 01:05:06.519
for this arrangement, a far wiser one than that of

831
01:05:06.800 --> 01:05:10.480
la Fontaine and others, who reserved the impression to be

832
01:05:10.559 --> 01:05:13.840
conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in

833
01:05:14.159 --> 01:05:18.360
at the fag end of their fables. In functi injuria

834
01:05:18.840 --> 01:05:23.280
nay aficientur was a law of the Twelve tables, and

835
01:05:23.360 --> 01:05:28.079
de morties nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction, even

836
01:05:28.119 --> 01:05:31.079
if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer.

837
01:05:31.960 --> 01:05:35.880
It is not my design therefore, to vituperate my deceased

838
01:05:35.920 --> 01:05:39.519
friend Toby. Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is true,

839
01:05:39.639 --> 01:05:42.760
and a dog's death it was that he died. But

840
01:05:42.880 --> 01:05:45.920
he himself was not to blame for his vices. He

841
01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:48.840
grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She

842
01:05:48.960 --> 01:05:51.280
did her best in the way of flogging him while

843
01:05:51.320 --> 01:05:54.800
an infant, For duties to her well regulated mind were

844
01:05:54.840 --> 01:05:59.000
always pleasures and babies, like tough steaks or the modern

845
01:05:59.039 --> 01:06:03.960
Greek olive tree, or invariably the better for beating. But

846
01:06:04.159 --> 01:06:07.719
poor woman she had the misfortune to be left handed,

847
01:06:07.880 --> 01:06:11.840
and a child flogged left handedly had better be left unflogged,

848
01:06:12.599 --> 01:06:15.679
the world revolves from right to left. It will not

849
01:06:15.800 --> 01:06:18.440
do to whip a baby from left to right. If

850
01:06:18.480 --> 01:06:22.039
each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out,

851
01:06:22.480 --> 01:06:25.599
it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks

852
01:06:25.599 --> 01:06:29.599
its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at

853
01:06:29.639 --> 01:06:33.440
Toby's chastisements, and even by the way in which he kicked,

854
01:06:33.639 --> 01:06:36.760
I could perceive that he was getting worse and worse

855
01:06:36.840 --> 01:06:40.480
every day. At last, I saw through the tears in

856
01:06:40.559 --> 01:06:43.280
my eyes that there was no hope of the villain

857
01:06:43.320 --> 01:06:46.280
at all. And one day, when he had been cuffed

858
01:06:46.320 --> 01:06:48.719
until he grew so black in the face that one

859
01:06:48.800 --> 01:06:51.559
might have mistaken him for a little African, and no

860
01:06:51.679 --> 01:06:54.679
effect have been produced beyond that of making him wriggle

861
01:06:54.760 --> 01:06:57.480
himself into a fit. I could stand it no longer,

862
01:06:57.880 --> 01:07:02.239
but went down upon my knees, forthwith and uplifting my voice,

863
01:07:02.679 --> 01:07:07.480
made prophecy of his ruin the fact that his precocity

864
01:07:07.599 --> 01:07:10.800
in vice was awful. At months of age, he used

865
01:07:10.800 --> 01:07:13.920
to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate.

866
01:07:14.400 --> 01:07:17.480
At six months I caught him gnawing a pack of cards.

867
01:07:17.760 --> 01:07:20.280
At seven months he was in the constant habit of

868
01:07:20.320 --> 01:07:24.079
catching and kissing the female babies. At eight months he

869
01:07:24.159 --> 01:07:27.639
peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance pledge.

870
01:07:28.159 --> 01:07:32.119
Thus he went on increasing in iniquity month after month,

871
01:07:32.239 --> 01:07:35.480
until at the close of the first year he not

872
01:07:35.559 --> 01:07:39.960
only insisted upon wearing mustaches, but had contracted a propensity

873
01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:44.760
for cursing and swearing, and for backing his assertions by bets.

874
01:07:45.599 --> 01:07:49.480
Through this latter most ungentlemanly practiced the ruin which I

875
01:07:49.519 --> 01:07:53.440
had predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The

876
01:07:53.519 --> 01:07:57.599
fashion had grown with his growth, and strengthened with his strength,

877
01:07:57.920 --> 01:08:00.159
so that when he came to be a man, he

878
01:08:00.199 --> 01:08:03.880
could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with a

879
01:08:03.920 --> 01:08:09.000
proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers. No,

880
01:08:09.800 --> 01:08:11.679
I will do my friend the justice to say that

881
01:08:11.760 --> 01:08:14.760
he would as soon have laid eggs with him. The

882
01:08:14.840 --> 01:08:19.279
thing was a mere formula, nothing more. His expressions on

883
01:08:19.359 --> 01:08:23.640
this head had no meaning attached to them. Whatever they were, simply,

884
01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:28.520
if not altogether, innocent expletives, imaginative phrases wherewith to round

885
01:08:28.560 --> 01:08:32.079
off a sentence. When he said, I'll bet you so

886
01:08:32.239 --> 01:08:35.119
and so. Nobody ever thought of taking him up. But

887
01:08:35.199 --> 01:08:37.640
still I could not help thinking it my duty to

888
01:08:37.680 --> 01:08:41.439
put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and

889
01:08:41.520 --> 01:08:44.319
so I told him it was a vulgar one. This

890
01:08:44.520 --> 01:08:48.640
I begged him to believe. I was discounteranced by society.

891
01:08:49.359 --> 01:08:52.520
Here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden

892
01:08:52.560 --> 01:08:56.119
by act of Congress. Here I had not the slightest

893
01:08:56.119 --> 01:09:01.239
intention of telling a lie. I remonstrated, but to no purpose.

894
01:09:01.600 --> 01:09:07.000
I demonstrated in vain. I entreated, he smiled, I implored,

895
01:09:07.880 --> 01:09:13.239
he laughed. I preached, he sneered. I threatened, he swore.

896
01:09:13.960 --> 01:09:17.359
I kicked him, He called for the police. I pulled

897
01:09:17.359 --> 01:09:20.920
his nose. He blew it, and offered to bet the

898
01:09:21.039 --> 01:09:23.880
devil his head. That I would not venture to try

899
01:09:23.880 --> 01:09:29.640
that experiment again. Poverty was another vice which the peculiar

900
01:09:29.680 --> 01:09:33.039
physical deficiency of Dammit's mother had entailed upon her son.

901
01:09:34.039 --> 01:09:37.560
He was detestably poor, and this was the reason, no

902
01:09:37.720 --> 01:09:43.319
doubt that his expletive expressions about betting seldom took a

903
01:09:43.359 --> 01:09:46.920
pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that

904
01:09:47.000 --> 01:09:49.439
I ever heard him make use of such a figure

905
01:09:49.439 --> 01:09:52.399
of speech as I'll bet you a dollar. It was

906
01:09:52.520 --> 01:09:55.840
usually I'll bet you what you please, or I'll bet

907
01:09:55.920 --> 01:09:58.680
you what you dare, or i'll bet you a trifle,

908
01:09:59.199 --> 01:10:03.960
or else more scgnificantly still, I'll bet the devil my head.

909
01:10:05.319 --> 01:10:08.800
This latter form seemed to please him best, perhaps because

910
01:10:08.800 --> 01:10:12.000
it involved the least risk. For damn, it had become

911
01:10:12.119 --> 01:10:16.760
excessively parsimonious. Had anyone taken him up, his head was small,

912
01:10:17.039 --> 01:10:20.079
and thus his loss would have been small too. But

913
01:10:20.119 --> 01:10:22.560
these are my own reflections, and I am by no

914
01:10:22.720 --> 01:10:25.960
means sure that I am right in attributing them to him.

915
01:10:26.319 --> 01:10:29.680
At all events, the phrase in question grew daily in favor,

916
01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:33.880
notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a man betting his brains

917
01:10:34.000 --> 01:10:37.000
like bank notes. But this was a point which my

918
01:10:37.079 --> 01:10:41.000
friend's perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend.

919
01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:44.760
In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager

920
01:10:44.960 --> 01:10:48.159
and gave himself up to I'll bet the devil my head,

921
01:10:48.560 --> 01:10:52.720
with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of devotion that displeased not

922
01:10:52.880 --> 01:10:56.840
less than it surprised me. I am always displeased by

923
01:10:56.880 --> 01:11:00.560
circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a man

924
01:11:00.640 --> 01:11:03.960
to think, and so injure his health. The truth is

925
01:11:04.279 --> 01:11:07.680
there was something in the air with which mister Dammitt

926
01:11:07.760 --> 01:11:11.800
was wont to give utterance to his offensive expression, something

927
01:11:11.840 --> 01:11:15.159
in his manner of annunciation, which at first interested and

928
01:11:15.199 --> 01:11:20.039
afterwards made me very uneasy, Something which, for want of

929
01:11:20.079 --> 01:11:23.239
a more definite term, at present I must be permitted

930
01:11:23.279 --> 01:11:28.760
to call queer, but which mister Coleridge would have called mystical,

931
01:11:29.520 --> 01:11:36.640
mister Cant pantheistical, mister Carlyle twisticle, and mister Emerson hyperquisitistical.

932
01:11:37.600 --> 01:11:40.520
I began to not like it at all. Mister Dammit's

933
01:11:40.560 --> 01:11:43.479
soul was in a perilous state. I resolved to bring

934
01:11:43.520 --> 01:11:47.199
all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed

935
01:11:47.239 --> 01:11:49.680
to serve him as Saint Patrick in the Irish Chronicle

936
01:11:50.159 --> 01:11:52.960
is said to have served the toad, that is to say,

937
01:11:53.479 --> 01:11:57.239
awaken him to a sense of his situation. I addressed

938
01:11:57.239 --> 01:12:01.439
myself to the task forthwith. Once more, I betook myself

939
01:12:01.479 --> 01:12:05.399
to remonstrance again. I collected my energies for a final

940
01:12:05.439 --> 01:12:09.960
attempt at expostulation. When I had made an end of

941
01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.279
my lecture, mister Damit indulged himself in some very equivocal behavior.

942
01:12:14.920 --> 01:12:17.880
For some moments he remained silent, merely looking at me

943
01:12:17.960 --> 01:12:21.720
inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head

944
01:12:21.760 --> 01:12:24.800
to one side and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent.

945
01:12:25.720 --> 01:12:28.399
Then he spread out the palms of his hands and

946
01:12:28.520 --> 01:12:32.479
shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with the right eye.

947
01:12:33.119 --> 01:12:37.199
Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he

948
01:12:37.279 --> 01:12:40.520
shut them both up very tight. Then he opened them

949
01:12:40.520 --> 01:12:43.520
both so very wide that I became seriously alarmed for

950
01:12:43.560 --> 01:12:48.119
the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his nose, he

951
01:12:48.159 --> 01:12:51.119
thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest

952
01:12:51.159 --> 01:12:56.079
of his fingers. Finally setting his arms akimbo, he condescended

953
01:12:56.119 --> 01:12:59.720
to reply, I can call to mind only the heads

954
01:12:59.720 --> 01:13:02.760
of his discourse. He would be obliged to me if

955
01:13:02.760 --> 01:13:06.000
I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice.

956
01:13:06.319 --> 01:13:09.720
He despised all my insinuations. He was old enough to

957
01:13:09.720 --> 01:13:13.479
take care of himself. Did I still think him baby? Dammit?

958
01:13:14.079 --> 01:13:16.840
Did I mean to say anything against his character? Did

959
01:13:16.840 --> 01:13:20.479
I intend to insult him? Was I a fool? Was

960
01:13:20.520 --> 01:13:23.720
my maternal parent aware in a word of my absence

961
01:13:23.720 --> 01:13:27.680
from the domiciliary residence. He would put this latter question

962
01:13:27.800 --> 01:13:30.359
to me as to a man of veracity, and he

963
01:13:30.399 --> 01:13:34.000
would bind himself to abide by my reply. Once more,

964
01:13:34.039 --> 01:13:36.600
he would demand explicitly, if my mother knew that I

965
01:13:36.720 --> 01:13:40.479
was out my confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he

966
01:13:40.520 --> 01:13:43.159
would be willing to bet the devil his head that

967
01:13:43.239 --> 01:13:47.439
she did not. Mister Dammit did not pause for my rejounder.

968
01:13:48.159 --> 01:13:52.199
Turning upon his heel, he left my presence with undignified precipitation.

969
01:13:53.439 --> 01:13:55.720
It was well for him that he did so. My

970
01:13:55.880 --> 01:13:59.439
feelings had been wounded, even my anger had been aroused.

971
01:13:59.560 --> 01:14:02.640
For one I would have taken him upon his insulting wager.

972
01:14:02.800 --> 01:14:05.439
I would have won for the arch enemy, mister Dammit's

973
01:14:05.439 --> 01:14:09.880
little head. For the fact is, my mama was very

974
01:14:09.920 --> 01:14:14.359
well aware of my merely temporary absence from home. But

975
01:14:14.880 --> 01:14:19.800
cooda shefa mideh, heaven gives relief. As the musclemen say

976
01:14:20.159 --> 01:14:23.680
when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance

977
01:14:23.720 --> 01:14:25.960
of my duty that I had been insulted, and I

978
01:14:26.039 --> 01:14:29.920
bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me, however,

979
01:14:30.199 --> 01:14:32.319
that I had done all that could be required of

980
01:14:32.359 --> 01:14:36.279
me in the case of this miserable individual, and I

981
01:14:36.319 --> 01:14:39.079
resolved to trouble him no longer with my counsel, but

982
01:14:39.199 --> 01:14:43.119
to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although

983
01:14:43.119 --> 01:14:46.199
I forbore to intrude with my advice, I could not

984
01:14:46.319 --> 01:14:49.880
bring myself to give up his society altogether. I even

985
01:14:49.920 --> 01:14:52.520
went so far as to humor some of his less

986
01:14:52.600 --> 01:14:56.720
reprehensible propensities. And there were times when I found myself

987
01:14:56.800 --> 01:15:01.039
lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do must, with tears

988
01:15:01.079 --> 01:15:04.319
in my eyes. So profoundly did it grieve me to

989
01:15:04.359 --> 01:15:09.239
hear his evil talk. One fine day, having strolled out

990
01:15:09.279 --> 01:15:11.840
altogether arm in arm our, Root led us in the

991
01:15:11.840 --> 01:15:15.279
direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we

992
01:15:15.359 --> 01:15:19.119
resolved to cross it. It was roofed over by way

993
01:15:19.159 --> 01:15:22.000
of protection from the weather, and the archway, having but

994
01:15:22.119 --> 01:15:26.119
few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we entered

995
01:15:26.119 --> 01:15:29.479
the passage, the contrast between the external glare and the

996
01:15:29.520 --> 01:15:33.880
interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits, but so upon

997
01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:36.800
those of the unhappy Damit, who offered to bet the

998
01:15:36.840 --> 01:15:40.239
devil's head that I was hipped. He seemed to be

999
01:15:40.319 --> 01:15:44.920
an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively, so much

1000
01:15:44.960 --> 01:15:48.439
so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy suspicion.

1001
01:15:49.159 --> 01:15:52.800
It is not impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals.

1002
01:15:53.399 --> 01:15:56.319
I am not well enough versed, however, in the diagnosis

1003
01:15:56.359 --> 01:15:59.239
of this disease to speak with decision upon the point

1004
01:15:59.720 --> 01:16:01.960
and I, and happily there were none of my friends

1005
01:16:02.000 --> 01:16:06.640
of the dial present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because

1006
01:16:06.800 --> 01:16:10.800
of a certain species of austere Merry Andrewism, which seemed

1007
01:16:10.800 --> 01:16:13.279
to beset my poor friend and caused him to make

1008
01:16:13.359 --> 01:16:17.119
quite a tom fool of himself. Nothing would serve him

1009
01:16:17.279 --> 01:16:20.800
but wriggling and skipping about under and over everything that

1010
01:16:20.840 --> 01:16:24.720
came in his way, now shouting out and now lisping

1011
01:16:24.760 --> 01:16:28.279
out all manner of odd little and big words, yet

1012
01:16:28.319 --> 01:16:31.239
preserving the gravest face in the world. All the time.

1013
01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:34.079
I really could not make up my mind whether to

1014
01:16:34.159 --> 01:16:38.319
kick or to pity him. At length, having passed nearly

1015
01:16:38.359 --> 01:16:41.560
across the bridge, we approached the termination of the footway,

1016
01:16:42.079 --> 01:16:45.319
when our progress was impeded by a turnstile of some height.

1017
01:16:46.159 --> 01:16:49.560
Through this I made my way, quietly, pushing it around

1018
01:16:49.600 --> 01:16:52.960
as usual but this turn would not serve the turn

1019
01:16:53.000 --> 01:16:57.279
of mister Dammit. He insisted upon leaping the style and

1020
01:16:57.439 --> 01:16:59.640
said he could cut a pigeon wing over it in

1021
01:16:59.640 --> 01:17:04.520
the air. Now this conscientiously speaking, I did not think

1022
01:17:04.560 --> 01:17:07.920
he could do. The best pigeon winger over all kinds

1023
01:17:07.960 --> 01:17:11.399
of style was my friend, mister Carlyle, and as I

1024
01:17:11.439 --> 01:17:13.840
knew he could not do it, I would not believe

1025
01:17:13.880 --> 01:17:17.039
that it could be done by Toby Dammit. I therefore

1026
01:17:17.079 --> 01:17:19.560
told him, in so many words that he was a

1027
01:17:19.600 --> 01:17:23.920
braggadocio and could not do what he said. For this

1028
01:17:24.239 --> 01:17:27.840
I had reason to be sorry afterwards, for he straightway

1029
01:17:28.079 --> 01:17:31.399
offered to bet the devil his head that he could.

1030
01:17:32.560 --> 01:17:36.119
I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with

1031
01:17:36.239 --> 01:17:41.279
some remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard close at

1032
01:17:41.279 --> 01:17:45.520
my elbow a slight cough which sounded very much like

1033
01:17:45.560 --> 01:17:50.680
the ejaculation ahem. I started and looked about me in surprise.

1034
01:17:51.279 --> 01:17:53.640
My glance at length fell into a nook of the

1035
01:17:53.640 --> 01:17:56.479
framework of the bridge, and upon the figure of a

1036
01:17:56.520 --> 01:18:01.600
little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be

1037
01:18:01.680 --> 01:18:06.399
more revered than his whole appearance, for he not only

1038
01:18:06.479 --> 01:18:09.239
had a full suit of black, but his shirt was

1039
01:18:09.319 --> 01:18:13.680
perfectly clean, and the collar turned very neatly down over

1040
01:18:13.720 --> 01:18:17.039
a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front

1041
01:18:17.079 --> 01:18:21.279
like a girl's. His hands were clasped pensively together over

1042
01:18:21.319 --> 01:18:24.720
his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up

1043
01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:29.520
into the top of his head. Upon observing him more closely,

1044
01:18:29.600 --> 01:18:32.680
I perceived that he wore a black silk apron over

1045
01:18:32.760 --> 01:18:36.039
his small clothes, and this was a thing which I

1046
01:18:36.079 --> 01:18:40.479
thought very odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however,

1047
01:18:40.880 --> 01:18:44.279
upon so singular a circumstance, he interrupted me with a

1048
01:18:44.319 --> 01:18:50.279
second ahem. To this observation, I was not immediately prepared

1049
01:18:50.319 --> 01:18:54.319
to reply. The fact is, remarks of this laconic nature

1050
01:18:54.399 --> 01:18:58.760
are nearly unanswerable. I have known a quarterly review nonplussed

1051
01:18:58.800 --> 01:19:02.520
by the word five. I am not ashamed to say, therefore,

1052
01:19:02.520 --> 01:19:06.479
that I turned to mister Dammit for assistance. Damn it,

1053
01:19:06.760 --> 01:19:09.720
said I, what are you about? Don't you hear the

1054
01:19:09.800 --> 01:19:13.640
gentleman says a hem? I looked sternly at my friend

1055
01:19:13.720 --> 01:19:16.560
while I thus addressed him, For to say the truth,

1056
01:19:16.720 --> 01:19:20.960
I felt particularly puzzled. And when a man is particularly puzzled.

1057
01:19:20.960 --> 01:19:24.159
He must knit his brows and look savage, or else

1058
01:19:24.199 --> 01:19:27.920
he is pretty sure to look like a fool. Damn it,

1059
01:19:28.359 --> 01:19:31.640
observed I, although this sounded very much like an oath

1060
01:19:32.159 --> 01:19:35.319
than which nothing was farther from my thoughts. Damn it,

1061
01:19:35.680 --> 01:19:39.760
I suggested. The gentleman says, a hem, I do not

1062
01:19:39.840 --> 01:19:42.600
attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity.

1063
01:19:43.239 --> 01:19:45.800
I did not think it profound myself. But I have

1064
01:19:45.920 --> 01:19:48.560
noticed that the effect of our speeches is not always

1065
01:19:48.560 --> 01:19:52.039
proportionate with their importance in our own eyes. And if

1066
01:19:52.079 --> 01:19:54.880
I had shot mister d through and through with a

1067
01:19:54.920 --> 01:19:58.279
Paxian bomb, or knocked him in the head with the

1068
01:19:58.319 --> 01:20:01.399
poets and poetry of America, he could hardly have been

1069
01:20:01.439 --> 01:20:06.079
more disconfitted than when I addressed him with those simple words,

1070
01:20:06.840 --> 01:20:09.760
damn it, What are you about? Don't you hear? The

1071
01:20:09.920 --> 01:20:15.680
gentleman says, ahem, you don't say, gasped he at length,

1072
01:20:16.199 --> 01:20:19.359
after turning more colors than a pirate runs up one

1073
01:20:19.439 --> 01:20:21.920
after the other when chased by a man of war.

1074
01:20:22.720 --> 01:20:26.640
Are you quite sure? He said that? Well? At all events,

1075
01:20:26.680 --> 01:20:28.920
I am in for it now, and may as well

1076
01:20:28.960 --> 01:20:33.600
put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes then ahem.

1077
01:20:34.159 --> 01:20:37.960
At this, the little old gentleman seemed pleased. God only

1078
01:20:38.039 --> 01:20:40.840
knows why. He left his station at the nook of

1079
01:20:40.880 --> 01:20:44.640
the bridge, limped forward with a gracious air, took Dammit

1080
01:20:44.760 --> 01:20:48.520
by the hand, and shook it cordially, looking all the

1081
01:20:48.560 --> 01:20:50.720
while straight up in his face, with an air of

1082
01:20:50.720 --> 01:20:54.439
the most unadulterated benignitye which it is possible for the

1083
01:20:54.479 --> 01:20:58.159
mind of a man to imagine. I am quite sure

1084
01:20:58.199 --> 01:21:00.600
you will win it, damn it, said he, with the

1085
01:21:00.640 --> 01:21:04.239
frankest of all smiles. But we are obligated to have

1086
01:21:04.279 --> 01:21:08.640
a trial, you know, for the sake of mere form. Ahem,

1087
01:21:09.199 --> 01:21:12.199
replied my friend, taking his coat with a deep sigh,

1088
01:21:12.520 --> 01:21:15.760
tying a pocket handkerchief around his waist, and producing an

1089
01:21:15.800 --> 01:21:19.800
unaccountable alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes

1090
01:21:20.000 --> 01:21:23.840
and bringing down the corners of his mouth. Ahem and

1091
01:21:23.880 --> 01:21:27.279
a heem, said he again, after a pause, and not

1092
01:21:27.359 --> 01:21:30.800
another word more than a hem. Did I ever know

1093
01:21:30.920 --> 01:21:35.319
him to say after that? Aha, thought I, without expressing

1094
01:21:35.359 --> 01:21:39.279
myself aloud. This is quite a remarkable silence on the

1095
01:21:39.279 --> 01:21:42.840
part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt a consequence

1096
01:21:42.880 --> 01:21:47.800
of his verbosity. Upon a previous occasion, one extreme induces another.

1097
01:21:48.439 --> 01:21:51.359
I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions

1098
01:21:51.520 --> 01:21:54.600
which he propounded to me so fluently on the day

1099
01:21:54.640 --> 01:21:58.159
when I gave him my last lecture. At all events,

1100
01:21:58.399 --> 01:22:03.319
he is cured of the transcendental ahem, here, replied Toby,

1101
01:22:03.800 --> 01:22:06.159
just as if he had been reading my thoughts and

1102
01:22:06.239 --> 01:22:09.479
looking like a very old sheep in a reverie. The

1103
01:22:09.520 --> 01:22:11.800
old gentleman now took him by the arm and led

1104
01:22:11.840 --> 01:22:14.479
him more into the shade of the bridge, a few

1105
01:22:14.520 --> 01:22:18.359
paces back from the turnstile. My good fellow said he,

1106
01:22:18.880 --> 01:22:21.119
I make it a point of conscience to allow you

1107
01:22:21.199 --> 01:22:24.760
this much. Run wait here till I take my place

1108
01:22:24.800 --> 01:22:27.239
by the stile, so that I may see whether you

1109
01:22:27.279 --> 01:22:30.880
go over it handsomely and transcendentally, and don't omit any

1110
01:22:30.920 --> 01:22:34.239
flourishes of the pigeon wing a mere form, you know,

1111
01:22:35.159 --> 01:22:40.319
I will say one, two, three, and away. Mind you

1112
01:22:40.359 --> 01:22:44.079
start at the word away. Here. He took his position

1113
01:22:44.159 --> 01:22:47.239
by the style, paused a moment as if in profound reflection,

1114
01:22:48.039 --> 01:22:52.560
then looked up and I thought, smiled very slightly, then

1115
01:22:52.640 --> 01:22:55.600
tightened the strings of his apron then took a long

1116
01:22:55.680 --> 01:22:58.520
look at damn it, and finally gave the word as

1117
01:22:58.520 --> 01:23:07.399
agreed upon, one, two, three, and away punctually. At the

1118
01:23:07.439 --> 01:23:10.680
word away, my poor friend set off in a strong gallop.

1119
01:23:11.039 --> 01:23:14.279
The style was not very high like mister Lord's, nor

1120
01:23:14.399 --> 01:23:17.800
yet very low like the mister Lord's reviewers. But upon

1121
01:23:17.880 --> 01:23:19.880
the whole I made sure that he would clear it.

1122
01:23:20.600 --> 01:23:23.840
And then what if he did not? Ah, that was

1123
01:23:23.880 --> 01:23:27.199
the question, What if he did not? What right said?

1124
01:23:27.239 --> 01:23:30.159
I had the old gentleman to make any other gentleman

1125
01:23:30.279 --> 01:23:33.680
jump the little old dot and carry one? Who is he?

1126
01:23:34.199 --> 01:23:36.439
If he asks me to jump, I won't do it.

1127
01:23:36.800 --> 01:23:39.239
That's flat, And I don't care who the devil is.

1128
01:23:40.039 --> 01:23:42.960
The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in

1129
01:23:42.960 --> 01:23:45.640
in a very ridiculous manner, and there was a most

1130
01:23:45.720 --> 01:23:49.199
uncomfortable echo about it at all times, an echo which

1131
01:23:49.239 --> 01:23:53.119
I never before so particularly observed, as when I uttered

1132
01:23:53.119 --> 01:23:57.239
the last four words of my remark. But what I said,

1133
01:23:57.359 --> 01:24:00.520
or what I thought, or what I heard occupy only

1134
01:24:00.560 --> 01:24:03.880
an instant. In less than five seconds from his starting,

1135
01:24:03.920 --> 01:24:07.359
my poor Toby had taken the leap. I saw him

1136
01:24:07.399 --> 01:24:10.960
run nimbly and spring grandly from the floor of the bridge,

1137
01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:13.720
cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs. As he

1138
01:24:13.760 --> 01:24:17.119
went up. I saw him high in the air, pigeon

1139
01:24:17.119 --> 01:24:20.039
winging it to admiration, just over the top of the stile,

1140
01:24:20.760 --> 01:24:23.680
and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing

1141
01:24:23.760 --> 01:24:26.880
that he did not continue to go over. But the

1142
01:24:26.960 --> 01:24:30.119
whole leap was the affair of a moment, and before

1143
01:24:30.159 --> 01:24:33.439
I had a chance to make any profound reflections, down

1144
01:24:33.560 --> 01:24:36.439
came mister Dammit, on the flat of his back, on

1145
01:24:36.479 --> 01:24:39.680
the same side of the stile from which he had started.

1146
01:24:40.640 --> 01:24:43.239
At the same instant, I saw the old gentleman limping

1147
01:24:43.279 --> 01:24:45.920
off at the top of his speed, having caught and

1148
01:24:45.960 --> 01:24:49.000
wrapped up in his apron something that fell heavily into

1149
01:24:49.039 --> 01:24:51.760
it from the darkness of the arch just over the turnstile.

1150
01:24:52.600 --> 01:24:55.560
At all this I was much astonished, but I had

1151
01:24:55.560 --> 01:24:59.840
no leisure to think, for mister Dammit lay particularly still,

1152
01:25:00.359 --> 01:25:03.039
and I concluded that his feelings had been hurt, and

1153
01:25:03.079 --> 01:25:06.640
that he stood in need of my assistance. I hurried

1154
01:25:06.720 --> 01:25:09.000
up to him and found that he had received what

1155
01:25:09.159 --> 01:25:13.720
might be termed a serious injury. The truth is he

1156
01:25:13.760 --> 01:25:18.119
had been deprived of his head, which after close search

1157
01:25:19.079 --> 01:25:22.640
I could not find anywhere, So I determined to take

1158
01:25:22.720 --> 01:25:27.520
him home and send for the Homeopathesists. In the meantime,

1159
01:25:27.600 --> 01:25:30.439
a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent

1160
01:25:30.479 --> 01:25:34.439
window of the bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me.

1161
01:25:34.520 --> 01:25:37.880
At once, about five feet just above the top of

1162
01:25:37.920 --> 01:25:41.680
the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the footpath, so

1163
01:25:41.840 --> 01:25:47.479
as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar,

1164
01:25:48.159 --> 01:25:51.640
lying with its breath horizontally and forming one of a

1165
01:25:51.720 --> 01:25:55.239
series that served to strengthen the structure throughout its extent.

1166
01:25:56.079 --> 01:25:58.800
With the edge of this brace, it appeared evident that

1167
01:25:58.880 --> 01:26:02.760
the neck of my unf fortunate friend had come precisely

1168
01:26:03.359 --> 01:26:08.479
in contact. He did not long survive his terrible loss.

1169
01:26:09.199 --> 01:26:12.920
The homeopathists did not give him little enough physic and

1170
01:26:13.039 --> 01:26:16.039
what little they did give him he hesitated to take.

1171
01:26:16.960 --> 01:26:21.520
So in the end he grew worse, and at length died,

1172
01:26:22.359 --> 01:26:26.479
a lesson to all riotous livers. I bedewed his grave

1173
01:26:26.560 --> 01:26:30.359
with my tears, worked a bar sinister on his family's escutcheon,

1174
01:26:30.439 --> 01:26:33.840
and for the general expenses of his funeral, sent in

1175
01:26:34.000 --> 01:26:39.199
my very moderate bill to the Transcendentalists. The scoundrels refused

1176
01:26:39.239 --> 01:26:41.840
to pay it, so I had mister dammit dug up

1177
01:26:41.840 --> 01:26:54.600
at once and sold him for dog's meat. The Murders

1178
01:26:54.640 --> 01:27:03.359
in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe, Part one, Paris.

1179
01:27:03.960 --> 01:27:07.600
In Paris, it was in the summer of eighteen forty

1180
01:27:08.560 --> 01:27:12.640
there I first met that strange and interesting young fellow,

1181
01:27:13.199 --> 01:27:17.439
August Dupin. Dupin was the last member of a well

1182
01:27:17.520 --> 01:27:22.279
known family, a family which had once been rich and famous.

1183
01:27:23.199 --> 01:27:27.800
He himself, however, was far from rich. He cared little

1184
01:27:27.840 --> 01:27:31.520
about money. He had enough to buy the most necessary

1185
01:27:31.680 --> 01:27:35.720
things of life and a few books. He did not

1186
01:27:35.880 --> 01:27:42.279
trouble himself about the rest, just books. With books, he

1187
01:27:42.359 --> 01:27:46.760
was happy. We first met when we were both trying

1188
01:27:46.880 --> 01:27:50.119
to find the same book, as it was a book

1189
01:27:50.159 --> 01:27:54.279
which few had ever heard of. This chance brought us

1190
01:27:54.319 --> 01:27:58.359
together in an old book store. Later we met again

1191
01:27:58.439 --> 01:28:03.279
in the same store, then again in another bookstore. Soon

1192
01:28:03.439 --> 01:28:07.479
we began to talk. I was deeply interested in the

1193
01:28:07.560 --> 01:28:11.439
family history he told me. I was surprised at how

1194
01:28:11.560 --> 01:28:16.079
much and how widely he had read. More important, the

1195
01:28:16.119 --> 01:28:19.239
force of his busy mind was like a bright light

1196
01:28:19.720 --> 01:28:23.239
in my soul. I felt that the friendship of such

1197
01:28:23.239 --> 01:28:27.479
a man would be for me riches without price. I

1198
01:28:27.720 --> 01:28:31.560
therefore told him of my feelings toward him, and he

1199
01:28:31.640 --> 01:28:35.760
agreed to come and live with me. He would have,

1200
01:28:35.880 --> 01:28:39.560
I thought, the joy of using my many fine books,

1201
01:28:40.079 --> 01:28:42.199
and I would have the pleasure of having some one

1202
01:28:42.279 --> 01:28:47.319
with me, for I was not happy alone. We passed

1203
01:28:47.359 --> 01:28:51.479
the days reading, writing, and talking. But Dupin was a

1204
01:28:51.560 --> 01:28:54.880
lover of the night, and at night, often with only

1205
01:28:54.920 --> 01:28:57.000
the light of the stars to show us the way,

1206
01:28:57.680 --> 01:29:03.079
we walked the streets of Paris, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet,

1207
01:29:04.000 --> 01:29:09.239
always thinking. I soon noticed a special reasoning power. He

1208
01:29:09.359 --> 01:29:14.840
had an unusual reasoning power. Using it gave him great pleasure.

1209
01:29:15.640 --> 01:29:18.560
He told me once, with a soft and quiet laugh,

1210
01:29:19.000 --> 01:29:22.800
that most men have windows over their hearts. Through these

1211
01:29:22.960 --> 01:29:27.600
he could see into their souls. Then he surprised me

1212
01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:31.479
by telling what he knew about my own soul, and

1213
01:29:31.600 --> 01:29:34.720
I found that he knew things about me that I

1214
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:39.560
had thought only I could possibly know. His manner at

1215
01:29:39.600 --> 01:29:44.159
these moments was cold and distant, his eyes looked empty

1216
01:29:44.520 --> 01:29:48.720
and far away, and his voice became high and nervous.

1217
01:29:49.680 --> 01:29:52.760
At such times it seemed to me that I saw

1218
01:29:52.800 --> 01:29:58.479
not just Dupin, but two Dupins, one who coldly put

1219
01:29:58.560 --> 01:30:03.359
things together, and other who just as coldly took them apart.

1220
01:30:04.279 --> 01:30:07.760
One night, we were walking down one of Paris's long

1221
01:30:07.920 --> 01:30:12.880
and dirty streets. Both of us were busy with our thoughts.

1222
01:30:12.920 --> 01:30:17.920
Neither had spoken for perhaps fifteen minutes. It seemed as

1223
01:30:17.920 --> 01:30:20.520
if we had each forgotten that the other was there

1224
01:30:20.960 --> 01:30:25.279
at his side. I soon learned that Dupin had not

1225
01:30:25.520 --> 01:30:31.760
forgotten me. However, suddenly he said, you're right. He is

1226
01:30:31.840 --> 01:30:35.439
a very little fellow, that's true, and he would be

1227
01:30:35.600 --> 01:30:41.079
more successful if he acted in lighter, less serious plays. Yes,

1228
01:30:41.119 --> 01:30:45.199
there can be no doubt of that, I said. At first,

1229
01:30:45.279 --> 01:30:49.079
I saw nothing strange in this. Dupin had agreed with

1230
01:30:49.159 --> 01:30:53.279
me with my own thoughts. This, of course, seemed to

1231
01:30:53.359 --> 01:30:58.319
be quite natural. For a few seconds. I continued walking

1232
01:30:58.840 --> 01:31:04.520
and thinking. But suddenly I realized that Dupin had agreed

1233
01:31:04.560 --> 01:31:08.039
with something which was only a thought. I had not

1234
01:31:08.239 --> 01:31:12.960
spoken a single word. I stopped walking and turned to

1235
01:31:13.039 --> 01:31:19.199
my friend Dupin. I said, Dupin, this is beyond my understanding.

1236
01:31:19.800 --> 01:31:23.039
How could you know what I was thinking of? Here?

1237
01:31:23.159 --> 01:31:26.640
I stopped in order to test him, to learn if

1238
01:31:26.680 --> 01:31:31.720
he really did know my unspoken thoughts. How did I

1239
01:31:31.800 --> 01:31:35.640
know you were thinking of Chantilly? Why do you stop?

1240
01:31:36.239 --> 01:31:39.000
You were thinking that Chantilly is too small for the

1241
01:31:39.039 --> 01:31:43.239
plays in which he acts. That is indeed what I

1242
01:31:43.399 --> 01:31:47.800
was thinking. But tell me, in Heaven's name, the method,

1243
01:31:48.279 --> 01:31:51.439
if method, there is by which you have been able

1244
01:31:51.520 --> 01:31:55.520
to see into my soul in this manner. It was

1245
01:31:55.560 --> 01:31:59.880
the fruit seller. Fruit seller, I know no fruit seller.

1246
01:32:00.800 --> 01:32:03.359
I mean the man who ran into you as we

1247
01:32:03.560 --> 01:32:07.119
entered this street. It may have been ten or fifteen

1248
01:32:07.159 --> 01:32:12.319
minutes ago, perhaps less. Yes, yes, that's true. I remember

1249
01:32:12.359 --> 01:32:16.119
now a fruit seller carrying a large basket of apples

1250
01:32:16.119 --> 01:32:19.399
on his head, almost threw me down. But I don't

1251
01:32:19.520 --> 01:32:23.079
understand why the fruit seller should make me think of Chantilly,

1252
01:32:23.479 --> 01:32:28.880
or if he did, how you can know that I

1253
01:32:28.920 --> 01:32:34.680
will explain. Listen closely. Now let us follow your thoughts

1254
01:32:34.720 --> 01:32:39.039
from the fruit seller to the play actor Shantilly. Those

1255
01:32:39.159 --> 01:32:43.039
thoughts must have gone like this, from the fruit seller

1256
01:32:43.119 --> 01:32:47.720
to the cobblestones, from the cobblestones to the stereotomy, and

1257
01:32:47.800 --> 01:32:51.439
from the stereotomy to the Epicurius, to Orion, and then

1258
01:32:52.039 --> 01:32:57.079
to Shantilly. As we turned into this street, the fruit seller,

1259
01:32:57.159 --> 01:33:00.680
walking very quickly past us, ran out against you and

1260
01:33:00.760 --> 01:33:03.960
made you step up on some cobblestones which had not

1261
01:33:04.039 --> 01:33:07.479
been put down evenly, and I could see that the

1262
01:33:07.520 --> 01:33:11.159
stones had hurt your foot. You spoke a few angry

1263
01:33:11.199 --> 01:33:15.800
words to yourself and continued walking, but you kept looking

1264
01:33:15.880 --> 01:33:20.159
down down at the cobblestones in the street, so I

1265
01:33:20.239 --> 01:33:24.359
knew you were still thinking of stones. Then we came

1266
01:33:24.479 --> 01:33:27.680
to a small street where they are putting down street stones,

1267
01:33:27.960 --> 01:33:30.960
which they have cut in a new and very special way.

1268
01:33:31.439 --> 01:33:35.399
Here your face became brighter, and I saw your lips move.

1269
01:33:36.079 --> 01:33:39.239
I could not doubt that you were saying the word stereotomy,

1270
01:33:39.960 --> 01:33:43.359
the name of this new way of cutting stones. It

1271
01:33:43.479 --> 01:33:46.840
is a strange word, isn't it. But you will remember

1272
01:33:46.880 --> 01:33:50.000
that we read about it in the newspaper only yesterday.

1273
01:33:51.000 --> 01:33:54.119
I thought that word stereotomy must make you think of

1274
01:33:54.159 --> 01:33:58.600
that old Greek writer named Epicurius, who wrote of something

1275
01:33:58.680 --> 01:34:02.760
he called atoms. He believed that the world and everything

1276
01:34:02.800 --> 01:34:07.199
in the heavens above are made of these atoms. Not

1277
01:34:07.399 --> 01:34:10.880
long ago, you and I were talking about Epicurius and

1278
01:34:11.000 --> 01:34:15.600
his ideas, his atoms, ideas which Epicurius wrote about more

1279
01:34:15.640 --> 01:34:19.560
than two thousand years ago. We were talking about how

1280
01:34:19.640 --> 01:34:23.279
much those old ideas are like today's ideas about the

1281
01:34:23.319 --> 01:34:27.039
earth and the stars and the sky. I felt sure

1282
01:34:27.079 --> 01:34:29.880
that you would look up to the sky. You did

1283
01:34:29.920 --> 01:34:32.640
look up. Now. I was certain that I had been

1284
01:34:32.680 --> 01:34:36.079
following your thoughts, as they had in fact come into

1285
01:34:36.119 --> 01:34:39.920
your mind. I too looked up and saw that the

1286
01:34:39.920 --> 01:34:43.640
group of stars we call Orian is very bright and

1287
01:34:43.720 --> 01:34:47.279
clear tonight. I knew you would notice this and think

1288
01:34:47.319 --> 01:34:53.199
about the name Orian. Now follow my thoughts carefully. Only

1289
01:34:53.319 --> 01:34:56.520
yesterday in the newspaper there was an article about the

1290
01:34:56.560 --> 01:35:01.359
actor Chantilly, an article which was not friendly to Chantilly,

1291
01:35:01.800 --> 01:35:05.000
not friendly at all. We noticed that the writer of

1292
01:35:05.039 --> 01:35:08.039
the article had used some words taken from a book

1293
01:35:08.079 --> 01:35:12.640
we both had read. These words were about O'Ryan. So

1294
01:35:12.760 --> 01:35:15.439
I knew you would put together the two ideas of

1295
01:35:15.640 --> 01:35:20.920
Orian and Shantilly. I saw you smile, remembering that article

1296
01:35:21.000 --> 01:35:23.600
and the hard words in it. Then I saw you

1297
01:35:23.720 --> 01:35:27.399
stand straighter, as tall as you could make yourself. I

1298
01:35:27.520 --> 01:35:31.199
was sure you were thinking of Chantilly's size, and especially

1299
01:35:31.319 --> 01:35:35.279
his height. He is small, he is short, and so

1300
01:35:35.439 --> 01:35:38.720
I spoke saying that he is indeed a very little fellow,

1301
01:35:38.840 --> 01:35:42.279
this Chantilly, and he would be more successful if he

1302
01:35:42.359 --> 01:35:47.680
acted in lighter, less serious plays. I will not say

1303
01:35:47.720 --> 01:35:51.680
that I was surprised. I was more than surprised. I

1304
01:35:51.920 --> 01:35:56.760
was astonished. Dupin was right, as right as he could be.

1305
01:35:57.640 --> 01:36:02.000
Those were, in fact my thoughts, my unspoken thoughts, as

1306
01:36:02.039 --> 01:36:06.640
my mind moved from one thought to the next. But

1307
01:36:06.760 --> 01:36:11.279
if I was astonished by this, I would soon be

1308
01:36:11.479 --> 01:36:19.279
more than astonished. One morning, this strangely interesting man showed

1309
01:36:19.279 --> 01:36:24.439
me once again his unusual reasoning power. We heard that

1310
01:36:24.520 --> 01:36:29.000
an old woman had been killed by unknown persons. The

1311
01:36:29.119 --> 01:36:33.560
killer or the killers had cut her head off and

1312
01:36:33.880 --> 01:36:40.000
escaped into the night. Who was this killer, this murderer?

1313
01:36:41.119 --> 01:36:44.760
The police had no answer. They had looked everywhere and

1314
01:36:44.840 --> 01:36:48.520
found nothing that helped them. They did not know what

1315
01:36:48.680 --> 01:36:55.119
to do next, and so they did nothing. But not Dupin.

1316
01:36:56.000 --> 01:37:04.760
He knew what to do. Part two. It was in Paris,

1317
01:37:04.800 --> 01:37:08.640
in the summer of eighteen forty that I met August Dupin.

1318
01:37:09.479 --> 01:37:13.119
He was an unusually interesting young man with a busy,

1319
01:37:13.159 --> 01:37:18.159
forceful mind. This mind could, it seemed, look right through

1320
01:37:18.199 --> 01:37:24.119
a man's body, into his soul and uncover his deepest thoughts.

1321
01:37:25.079 --> 01:37:28.640
Sometimes he seemed to be not one but two people,

1322
01:37:29.479 --> 01:37:33.159
one who could coldly put things together, and another who

1323
01:37:33.359 --> 01:37:36.960
just as coldly took them apart. One morning, in the

1324
01:37:37.000 --> 01:37:40.279
heat of the summer, Dupin showed me once again his

1325
01:37:40.439 --> 01:37:45.079
special reasoning power. We read in the newspaper about a

1326
01:37:45.199 --> 01:37:50.119
terrible killing. An old woman and her daughter living alone

1327
01:37:50.159 --> 01:37:53.199
in an old house in the room Morgue, had been

1328
01:37:53.319 --> 01:37:59.239
killed in the middle of the night. Paris, July seventh,

1329
01:37:59.279 --> 01:38:02.479
eighteen four. In the early morning to day, the people

1330
01:38:02.479 --> 01:38:05.159
in the western part of the city were awakened from

1331
01:38:05.159 --> 01:38:08.720
their sleep by cries of terror, which came, it seemed,

1332
01:38:08.920 --> 01:38:11.800
from a house in the street called the Rue Morgue.

1333
01:38:12.439 --> 01:38:15.239
The only persons living in the house were an old woman,

1334
01:38:15.800 --> 01:38:20.439
missus Lespagna, and her daughter. Several neighbors and a policeman

1335
01:38:20.600 --> 01:38:23.680
ran toward the house, but by the time they reached it,

1336
01:38:23.760 --> 01:38:28.279
the cries had stopped. When no one answered their calls,

1337
01:38:28.520 --> 01:38:32.039
they forced the door open. As they rushed in, they

1338
01:38:32.079 --> 01:38:36.520
heard voices, two voices they seemed to come from above.

1339
01:38:37.439 --> 01:38:41.039
The group hurried from room to room, but they found

1340
01:38:41.079 --> 01:38:44.920
nothing until they reached the fourth floor. There they found

1341
01:38:44.960 --> 01:38:49.960
a door that was firmly closed, locked with the key inside.

1342
01:38:50.640 --> 01:38:54.359
Quickly they forced the door open, and they saw spread

1343
01:38:54.399 --> 01:38:59.239
before them a bloody, sickening scene, a scene of horror

1344
01:39:00.319 --> 01:39:04.319
The room was in the wildest possible order. Broken chairs

1345
01:39:04.359 --> 01:39:07.800
and tables were lying all around the room. There was

1346
01:39:07.840 --> 01:39:11.239
only one bed, and from it everything had been taken

1347
01:39:11.279 --> 01:39:14.399
and thrown into the middle of the floor. There was

1348
01:39:14.479 --> 01:39:18.760
blood everywhere on the floor, on the bed, on the walls.

1349
01:39:19.159 --> 01:39:22.640
A sharp knife covered with blood was lying on the floor.

1350
01:39:23.880 --> 01:39:27.479
In front of the fireplace. There was some long gray hair,

1351
01:39:27.840 --> 01:39:31.039
also bloody. It seemed to have been pulled from a

1352
01:39:31.119 --> 01:39:35.079
human head. On the floor were four pieces of gold,

1353
01:39:35.119 --> 01:39:38.880
an ear ring, several objects made of silver, and two

1354
01:39:38.960 --> 01:39:44.279
bags containing a large amount of money in gold. Clothes

1355
01:39:44.319 --> 01:39:47.279
had been thrown around the room. A box was found

1356
01:39:47.359 --> 01:39:50.319
under the bed covers. It was open and held only

1357
01:39:50.359 --> 01:39:54.600
a few old letters and papers. There was no one there,

1358
01:39:54.960 --> 01:39:58.479
or so it seemed. Above the fireplace they found the

1359
01:39:58.479 --> 01:40:01.199
dead body of the daughter. It had been put up

1360
01:40:01.239 --> 01:40:03.920
into the opening where the smoke escapes to the sky.

1361
01:40:05.000 --> 01:40:09.079
The body was still warm. There was blood on the

1362
01:40:09.119 --> 01:40:12.479
face and on the neck. There were dark, deep marks

1363
01:40:12.680 --> 01:40:16.479
which seemed to have been made by strong fingers. These

1364
01:40:16.520 --> 01:40:20.720
marks surely show how the daughter was killed. After hunting

1365
01:40:20.800 --> 01:40:24.119
in every part of the house without finding anything more,

1366
01:40:24.600 --> 01:40:28.159
the group went outside behind the building they found the

1367
01:40:28.199 --> 01:40:32.079
body of the old woman. Her neck was almost cut through,

1368
01:40:32.720 --> 01:40:35.600
and when they tried to lift her up, her head

1369
01:40:36.039 --> 01:40:41.760
fell off. The next day the newspaper offered to its

1370
01:40:41.800 --> 01:40:47.560
readers these new facts, the murders in the Room Morgue, Paris,

1371
01:40:47.680 --> 01:40:51.880
July eighth, eighteen forty. The police have talked with many

1372
01:40:51.960 --> 01:40:55.359
people about the terrible killings in the old house on

1373
01:40:55.439 --> 01:40:58.560
the Room Morgue, but nothing has been learned to answer

1374
01:40:58.560 --> 01:41:03.760
the question of who the killers were. Pauline Duborg, a washwoman,

1375
01:41:04.159 --> 01:41:06.520
says she has known both of the dead women for

1376
01:41:06.560 --> 01:41:09.640
more than three years and has washed their clothes during

1377
01:41:09.680 --> 01:41:12.840
that period. The old lady and her daughter seemed to

1378
01:41:12.880 --> 01:41:16.640
love each other dearly. They always paid her well. She

1379
01:41:16.760 --> 01:41:19.359
did not know where their money came from. She said

1380
01:41:19.880 --> 01:41:22.680
she never met anyone in the house. Only the two

1381
01:41:22.760 --> 01:41:27.720
women lived on the fourth floor. Pierre Moreau, a shopkeeper,

1382
01:41:28.159 --> 01:41:31.600
says missus Laspangna had bought food at his shop for

1383
01:41:31.680 --> 01:41:34.720
nearly four years. She owned the house and had lived

1384
01:41:34.720 --> 01:41:37.600
in it for more than six years. People said they

1385
01:41:37.680 --> 01:41:41.079
had money. He never saw anyone enter the door except

1386
01:41:41.159 --> 01:41:44.640
the old lady and her daughter, and a doctor eight

1387
01:41:44.800 --> 01:41:50.760
or ten times, perhaps many other persons. Neighbors said the

1388
01:41:50.800 --> 01:41:54.279
same thing. Almost no one ever went into the house,

1389
01:41:54.560 --> 01:41:58.239
and missus Laspangna and her daughter were not often seen.

1390
01:42:00.920 --> 01:42:04.199
A banker says that missus Laspagna had put money in

1391
01:42:04.279 --> 01:42:09.439
his bank beginning eight years before. Three days before her death,

1392
01:42:09.680 --> 01:42:11.800
she took out of the bank a large amount of

1393
01:42:11.840 --> 01:42:15.520
money in gold. A man from the bank carried it

1394
01:42:15.560 --> 01:42:21.039
for her to her house. Isidore Mussey, a policeman, says

1395
01:42:21.079 --> 01:42:23.720
that he was with the group that first entered the house.

1396
01:42:24.319 --> 01:42:27.039
While he was going up the stairs, he heard two voices,

1397
01:42:27.840 --> 01:42:32.840
one low and soft and one hard, high and very strange,

1398
01:42:33.720 --> 01:42:37.640
the voice of someone who was certainly not French, the

1399
01:42:37.760 --> 01:42:42.680
voice of a foreigner Spanish. Perhaps it was not a

1400
01:42:42.720 --> 01:42:46.760
woman's voice. He could not understand what it said. But

1401
01:42:46.880 --> 01:42:51.920
the low voice, the softer voice said in French, my God.

1402
01:42:52.920 --> 01:42:56.479
Alfonso Garcia, who is Spanish and lives on the rooe.

1403
01:42:56.520 --> 01:42:59.479
Morgue says he entered the house but did not go

1404
01:42:59.600 --> 01:43:03.520
up the staatee. He is nervous and he was afraid

1405
01:43:03.560 --> 01:43:07.319
he might be ill. He heard the voices. He believes

1406
01:43:07.359 --> 01:43:10.520
the high voice was not that of a Frenchman. Perhaps

1407
01:43:10.520 --> 01:43:13.840
it was English. But he doesn't understand English, so he

1408
01:43:13.920 --> 01:43:18.920
is not sure. William Byrd, another foreigner, an Englishman, says

1409
01:43:19.000 --> 01:43:21.319
he was one of the persons who entered the house.

1410
01:43:21.880 --> 01:43:25.079
He has lived in Paris for two years. He heard

1411
01:43:25.119 --> 01:43:27.920
the voices. The low voice was that of a Frenchman.

1412
01:43:28.279 --> 01:43:31.479
He was sure because he heard it say in French,

1413
01:43:31.880 --> 01:43:35.920
my God. The high voice was very loud. He is

1414
01:43:36.000 --> 01:43:38.479
sure it was not the voice of an Englishman, nor

1415
01:43:38.560 --> 01:43:41.359
the voice of a Frenchman. It seemed to be that

1416
01:43:41.439 --> 01:43:44.600
of an Italian. It might have been a woman's voice.

1417
01:43:45.119 --> 01:43:50.680
He does not understand Italian. Mister Alberto Montani, an Italian,

1418
01:43:51.000 --> 01:43:53.239
was passing the house at the time of the cries.

1419
01:43:53.880 --> 01:43:57.239
He says that they lasted for about two minutes. They

1420
01:43:57.279 --> 01:44:03.840
were screams, long and loud, terrible, fearful sounds. Montani, who

1421
01:44:03.880 --> 01:44:07.359
speaks Spanish but not French, says that he also heard

1422
01:44:07.359 --> 01:44:11.079
two voices. He thought both voices were French, but he

1423
01:44:11.119 --> 01:44:15.000
could not understand any of the words spoken. The persons

1424
01:44:15.000 --> 01:44:17.720
who first entered the house all agreed that the door

1425
01:44:17.800 --> 01:44:20.159
of the room where the daughter's body was found was

1426
01:44:20.239 --> 01:44:24.199
locked on the inside. When they reached the door, everything

1427
01:44:24.279 --> 01:44:27.960
was quiet. When they forced the door open. They saw

1428
01:44:28.039 --> 01:44:31.600
no one. The windows were closed and firmly locked on

1429
01:44:31.640 --> 01:44:34.720
the inside. There are no steps that some one could

1430
01:44:34.760 --> 01:44:37.880
have gone down while they were going up. They say

1431
01:44:37.920 --> 01:44:40.600
that the openings over the fireplace are too small for

1432
01:44:40.680 --> 01:44:44.439
anyone to have escaped through them. It took four or

1433
01:44:44.560 --> 01:44:47.359
five people to pull the daughter's body out of the

1434
01:44:47.399 --> 01:44:51.319
opening over the fireplace. A careful search was made through

1435
01:44:51.319 --> 01:44:54.359
the whole house. It was four or five minutes from

1436
01:44:54.359 --> 01:44:57.039
the time they heard the voices to the moment they

1437
01:44:57.079 --> 01:45:01.760
forced open the door of the room. All Dumas, a doctor,

1438
01:45:01.880 --> 01:45:04.199
says that he was called to see the body soon

1439
01:45:04.279 --> 01:45:08.520
after they were found. They were in horrible condition, badly

1440
01:45:08.600 --> 01:45:12.159
marked and broken. Such results could not have come from

1441
01:45:12.199 --> 01:45:16.399
a woman's hands, only from those of a very powerful man.

1442
01:45:17.159 --> 01:45:20.239
A daughter had been killed by strong hands around her neck.

1443
01:45:21.000 --> 01:45:24.680
The police have learned nothing more than this. A killing

1444
01:45:24.760 --> 01:45:28.119
as strange as this has never before happened in Paris.

1445
01:45:28.720 --> 01:45:31.479
Police do not know where to begin to look for

1446
01:45:31.600 --> 01:45:36.520
the answer. When we had finished reading the newspaper's account

1447
01:45:36.600 --> 01:45:40.840
of the murders, neither Dupine nor myself said anything for

1448
01:45:40.920 --> 01:45:45.399
a while. But I could see in his eyes that cold,

1449
01:45:45.600 --> 01:45:50.800
empty look, which told me that his mind was working busily.

1450
01:45:52.079 --> 01:45:54.479
When he asked me what I thought of all of this,

1451
01:45:56.560 --> 01:46:00.800
I could only agree with all of Paris, I told

1452
01:46:00.880 --> 01:46:05.359
him I considered it a very difficult problem, a mystery

1453
01:46:06.000 --> 01:46:10.880
to which it was not possible to find an answer. No, no,

1454
01:46:11.279 --> 01:46:16.199
said Dupin, No, I think you are wrong. A mystery

1455
01:46:16.319 --> 01:46:20.159
it is, yes, but there must be an answer. Let

1456
01:46:20.239 --> 01:46:22.880
us go to the house and see what we can see.

1457
01:46:23.399 --> 01:46:31.279
There must be an answer, there must Part three. It

1458
01:46:31.359 --> 01:46:34.239
was in Paris that I met August Dupin. He was

1459
01:46:34.279 --> 01:46:38.680
an unusually interesting young man with a busy, forceful mind.

1460
01:46:39.239 --> 01:46:42.680
This mind could, it seemed, look right through a man's

1461
01:46:42.720 --> 01:46:47.199
body into his deepest soul. One hot summer morning, we

1462
01:46:47.279 --> 01:46:50.760
read in the newspapers about a terrible killing. The dead

1463
01:46:50.800 --> 01:46:54.399
persons were an old woman and her unmarried daughter, who

1464
01:46:54.479 --> 01:46:57.399
lived alone on the fourth floor of an old house

1465
01:46:57.840 --> 01:47:01.640
on the street called the room More. Some one had

1466
01:47:01.680 --> 01:47:05.199
taken the daughter's neck in his powerful fingers and pressed

1467
01:47:05.239 --> 01:47:09.840
his fearful strength until her life was gone. Her mother's

1468
01:47:09.840 --> 01:47:13.439
body was found outside behind the house, with the head

1469
01:47:13.840 --> 01:47:17.720
nearly cut off. The knife with which she was killed

1470
01:47:18.239 --> 01:47:23.039
was found, however, in the room on the floor. Several

1471
01:47:23.079 --> 01:47:26.119
neighbors ran to the house when they heard the women's

1472
01:47:26.199 --> 01:47:29.800
cries of fear. As they ran up to the fourth floor,

1473
01:47:29.880 --> 01:47:32.960
they heard two other voices. But when they reached the

1474
01:47:33.039 --> 01:47:36.399
room and broke down the door, they found no living

1475
01:47:36.479 --> 01:47:40.239
person in the room. Like the door, the two windows

1476
01:47:40.239 --> 01:47:45.279
were firmly closed, locked on the inside. There was no

1477
01:47:45.359 --> 01:47:47.680
other way that the killer could have got in or

1478
01:47:47.800 --> 01:47:50.920
out of the room. The Paris police did not know

1479
01:47:50.960 --> 01:47:53.760
where to begin to look for the answer. I told

1480
01:47:53.840 --> 01:47:56.000
Dupin that it seemed to me that it was not

1481
01:47:56.199 --> 01:48:00.880
possible to learn the answer to the mystery of these killings. No, no,

1482
01:48:01.119 --> 01:48:05.119
said Dupin, No, I think you are wrong. A mystery

1483
01:48:05.159 --> 01:48:09.319
it is, yes, but there must be an answer. We

1484
01:48:09.399 --> 01:48:12.119
must not judge what is possible just by what we

1485
01:48:12.159 --> 01:48:15.159
have read in the newspapers. The Paris police work hard

1486
01:48:15.159 --> 01:48:18.319
and often get good results, but there is no real

1487
01:48:18.399 --> 01:48:22.079
method in what they do. When something more than simple

1488
01:48:22.159 --> 01:48:26.239
hard work is needed, When a little real method is needed,

1489
01:48:26.600 --> 01:48:31.319
the police fail. Sometimes they stand too near the problem. Often,

1490
01:48:31.439 --> 01:48:34.800
if a person looks at something very closely, he can

1491
01:48:34.840 --> 01:48:37.800
see a few things more clearly, but the shape of

1492
01:48:37.840 --> 01:48:43.119
the whole thing escapes him. There must be an answer.

1493
01:48:43.600 --> 01:48:46.760
There must let us go to the house and see

1494
01:48:46.800 --> 01:48:49.520
what we can see. I know the head of the police,

1495
01:48:49.680 --> 01:48:52.119
and he will allow us to do so, and this

1496
01:48:52.239 --> 01:48:56.359
will be interesting and give us some pleasure. I thought

1497
01:48:56.359 --> 01:48:59.640
it strange that Dupin should believe we would get pleasure

1498
01:48:59.680 --> 01:49:03.600
out of this, but I said nothing. It was late

1499
01:49:03.600 --> 01:49:05.640
in the afternoon when we reached the house on the

1500
01:49:05.720 --> 01:49:09.399
room Morgue. It was easily found, for there were still

1501
01:49:09.439 --> 01:49:14.279
many persons, in fact, a crowd standing there looking at it.

1502
01:49:15.039 --> 01:49:18.239
Before going in, we walked all around it, and Dupin

1503
01:49:18.399 --> 01:49:22.439
carefully looked at the neighboring houses as well as this one.

1504
01:49:22.479 --> 01:49:25.960
I could not understand the reason for such great care.

1505
01:49:27.119 --> 01:49:29.079
We came again to the front of the house and

1506
01:49:29.119 --> 01:49:32.039
went in. We went up the stairs into the room

1507
01:49:32.079 --> 01:49:36.039
where the daughter's body had been found. Both bodies were there.

1508
01:49:36.560 --> 01:49:38.920
The police had left the room as they had found it.

1509
01:49:39.479 --> 01:49:42.319
I saw nothing beyond what the newspaper had told us.

1510
01:49:43.000 --> 01:49:46.520
Dupin looked with great care at everything, at the bodies,

1511
01:49:46.960 --> 01:49:51.399
at the walls, the fireplace, the windows. Then we went home.

1512
01:49:52.680 --> 01:49:56.000
Dupin said nothing. I could see the cold look in

1513
01:49:56.039 --> 01:49:59.239
his eyes, which told me that his mind was working

1514
01:49:59.680 --> 01:50:05.560
wor king busily quickly. I asked no questions. Dupin said

1515
01:50:05.560 --> 01:50:08.720
nothing until the next morning, when he came into my

1516
01:50:08.840 --> 01:50:12.000
room and asked me suddenly if I had not noticed

1517
01:50:12.039 --> 01:50:15.479
something especially strange about what we saw at the house

1518
01:50:15.520 --> 01:50:19.439
on the room Rgue, I replied, nothing more than we

1519
01:50:19.520 --> 01:50:23.560
both read in the newspaper. Tell me, my friend, how

1520
01:50:23.600 --> 01:50:28.239
shall we explain the horrible force, the unusual strength used

1521
01:50:28.239 --> 01:50:32.000
in these murders, and whose were the voices that were heard?

1522
01:50:32.800 --> 01:50:35.560
No one was found except the dead women, yet there

1523
01:50:35.640 --> 01:50:38.960
was no way for anyone to escape. And the wild

1524
01:50:39.039 --> 01:50:42.239
condition of the room, the body which was found head

1525
01:50:42.359 --> 01:50:46.039
down above the fireplace, the terrible broken appearance of the

1526
01:50:46.079 --> 01:50:49.439
body of the old lady when its head cut off,

1527
01:50:50.640 --> 01:50:53.880
these are all so far from what might be expected

1528
01:50:54.199 --> 01:50:58.399
that the police are standing still. They don't know where

1529
01:50:58.399 --> 01:51:03.840
to begin. These things are unusual, indeed, but they are

1530
01:51:03.840 --> 01:51:08.720
not deep mysteries. We should not ask what has happened,

1531
01:51:09.119 --> 01:51:14.000
but what has happened that has never happened before. In fact,

1532
01:51:14.399 --> 01:51:17.560
the very things that the police think cannot possibly be

1533
01:51:17.640 --> 01:51:22.720
explained are the things which will lead me to the answer. Indeed,

1534
01:51:23.039 --> 01:51:25.560
I believe they have already led me to the answer.

1535
01:51:27.079 --> 01:51:29.479
I was so surprised, I could not say a word.

1536
01:51:29.880 --> 01:51:33.640
Dupin looked quickly at the door. I am now waiting

1537
01:51:33.680 --> 01:51:36.399
for a person who will know something about these murders,

1538
01:51:36.680 --> 01:51:40.920
these wild killings. I do not think he did them himself,

1539
01:51:40.960 --> 01:51:43.840
but I think he will know the killer. I hope

1540
01:51:43.880 --> 01:51:46.520
I am right about this. If I am, then I

1541
01:51:46.600 --> 01:51:50.520
expect to find the whole answer to day. I expect

1542
01:51:50.560 --> 01:51:54.119
the man here in this room at any moment. It

1543
01:51:54.239 --> 01:51:57.399
is true that he may not come, but he probably will.

1544
01:51:58.600 --> 01:52:02.000
But who is this person? How did you find him?

1545
01:52:02.760 --> 01:52:05.600
I'll tell you. While we wait for this man we

1546
01:52:05.680 --> 01:52:08.520
do not know, for I have never met him. While

1547
01:52:08.560 --> 01:52:10.960
we wait, I will tell you how my thoughts went.

1548
01:52:12.159 --> 01:52:15.439
Dupin began to talk, but it did not seem that

1549
01:52:15.520 --> 01:52:18.039
he was trying to explain to me what he had thought.

1550
01:52:18.600 --> 01:52:22.319
It seemed that he was talking to himself. He looked

1551
01:52:22.359 --> 01:52:26.159
not at me, but at the wall. It has been

1552
01:52:26.279 --> 01:52:29.600
fully proved that the voices heard by the neighbors were

1553
01:52:29.640 --> 01:52:33.000
not the voices of the women who were killed. Some

1554
01:52:33.039 --> 01:52:36.199
one else was in the room. It is therefore certain

1555
01:52:36.680 --> 01:52:39.800
that the old woman did not first kill her daughter

1556
01:52:39.960 --> 01:52:43.399
then kill herself. She would not have been strong enough

1557
01:52:43.439 --> 01:52:46.239
to put her daughter's body where it was found, and

1558
01:52:46.359 --> 01:52:49.159
the manner of the old lady's death shows that she

1559
01:52:49.239 --> 01:52:53.199
could not have caused it herself. A person can kill

1560
01:52:53.319 --> 01:52:57.039
himself with a knife, yes, but he surely cannot cut

1561
01:52:57.039 --> 01:53:00.239
his own head almost off, then drop the knife on

1562
01:53:00.279 --> 01:53:03.880
the floor and jump out the window. It was murder, then,

1563
01:53:04.640 --> 01:53:09.279
done by some third person or persons, And the voices

1564
01:53:09.359 --> 01:53:13.000
heard were the voices of these persons. Let us now

1565
01:53:13.039 --> 01:53:17.039
think carefully about the things people said about those voices.

1566
01:53:17.800 --> 01:53:21.600
Did you notice anything especially strange in what was told

1567
01:53:21.680 --> 01:53:26.479
about them? Well, yes, everybody agreed that the low voice

1568
01:53:26.520 --> 01:53:29.000
was the voice of a Frenchman, but they could not

1569
01:53:29.119 --> 01:53:33.119
agree about the high voice. Ah, And that was what

1570
01:53:33.199 --> 01:53:36.439
they said, Yes, but that was not what was so

1571
01:53:36.720 --> 01:53:40.640
strange about what they said. You say, you have noticed

1572
01:53:40.680 --> 01:53:44.000
nothing that makes their stories very different from what might

1573
01:53:44.039 --> 01:53:49.159
have been expected. Yet there was something. All these persons,

1574
01:53:49.239 --> 01:53:52.560
as you say, agreed about the low voice, but not

1575
01:53:52.760 --> 01:53:56.520
about the high, hard voice. The strange thing here is

1576
01:53:56.560 --> 01:53:59.640
that when an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, and a

1577
01:53:59.680 --> 01:54:02.479
French who tried to tell what the voice was like,

1578
01:54:03.359 --> 01:54:07.279
each one said it sounded like the voice of a foreigner.

1579
01:54:08.359 --> 01:54:12.680
How strangely unusual that voice really must have been. Here

1580
01:54:12.760 --> 01:54:16.600
are four men from four big countries, and not one

1581
01:54:16.680 --> 01:54:19.920
of them could understand what the voice said. Each one

1582
01:54:20.000 --> 01:54:23.279
gave it a different name. Now I know that there

1583
01:54:23.359 --> 01:54:26.760
are other countries in the world. You will say that

1584
01:54:26.880 --> 01:54:29.159
perhaps it was the voice of someone from one of

1585
01:54:29.199 --> 01:54:34.039
those other lands, Russia perhaps, But remember, not one of

1586
01:54:34.079 --> 01:54:38.880
these people heard anything that sounded like a separate word. Here,

1587
01:54:38.960 --> 01:54:44.000
Dupin turned and looked into my eyes. This is what

1588
01:54:44.039 --> 01:54:47.680
we have learned from the newspaper. I don't know what

1589
01:54:47.800 --> 01:54:50.279
I have led you to think, but I believe that

1590
01:54:50.399 --> 01:54:53.159
in this much of the story there are enough facts

1591
01:54:53.199 --> 01:54:56.000
to lead us in the one and only direction to

1592
01:54:56.039 --> 01:55:01.560
the right answer. What this answer is, I will not say,

1593
01:55:02.159 --> 01:55:05.800
not yet, but I want you to keep in mind

1594
01:55:06.000 --> 01:55:08.439
that this much was enough to tell me what I

1595
01:55:08.520 --> 01:55:11.319
must look for. When we were in that house on

1596
01:55:11.359 --> 01:55:19.640
the Room Morgue and I found it part four murderers

1597
01:55:19.680 --> 01:55:21.960
had come to the old house on the street called

1598
01:55:22.000 --> 01:55:25.760
the Room Morgue. Murderers had come and gone and left

1599
01:55:25.800 --> 01:55:29.239
behind dead bodies of an old woman and her daughter.

1600
01:55:29.840 --> 01:55:32.800
The daughter's body was in the bedroom on the fourth floor.

1601
01:55:33.319 --> 01:55:37.359
The old woman was lying outside behind the house, her

1602
01:55:37.439 --> 01:55:41.279
head almost cut off, but the knife which killed her

1603
01:55:41.760 --> 01:55:44.920
was up in the bedroom on the floor. The door

1604
01:55:45.000 --> 01:55:49.560
and the windows were all firmly closed locked on the inside.

1605
01:55:50.119 --> 01:55:53.199
There was no way for anyone to go in or out.

1606
01:55:54.000 --> 01:55:57.600
Voices had been heard. One voice was speaking in French.

1607
01:55:58.000 --> 01:56:00.560
The other voice had not spoken even one word that

1608
01:56:00.640 --> 01:56:03.840
anyone could understand, But there was no one in the

1609
01:56:03.920 --> 01:56:08.159
room when the police arrived. This much we had learned

1610
01:56:08.159 --> 01:56:12.800
from the newspapers. My friend Dupin and I interested by it.

1611
01:56:12.880 --> 01:56:15.359
We had gone to look at the house and the bodies.

1612
01:56:15.840 --> 01:56:18.760
Dupin was now explaining to me what he had learned there.

1613
01:56:20.439 --> 01:56:24.039
That is what we learned from the newspapers. Please remember it,

1614
01:56:24.119 --> 01:56:26.319
for that much was enough to tell me what I

1615
01:56:26.399 --> 01:56:28.479
must look for when we were in that house, on

1616
01:56:28.560 --> 01:56:32.600
the room Morgue and I found it. Let us now

1617
01:56:32.640 --> 01:56:36.079
take ourselves again, in our thoughts, to the room where

1618
01:56:36.079 --> 01:56:39.800
the murders were done. What shall we first look for

1619
01:56:40.520 --> 01:56:44.279
the way the murderers escaped? All right, we agree? I

1620
01:56:44.319 --> 01:56:46.479
am sure that we do not have to look for

1621
01:56:46.560 --> 01:56:49.840
anything outside of nature, for anything not having a real

1622
01:56:49.960 --> 01:56:54.279
form a body. The killers were not spirits, They were

1623
01:56:54.319 --> 01:56:58.439
real they could not go through walls, then how did

1624
01:56:58.520 --> 01:57:01.680
they escape? There is only one way to reason on

1625
01:57:01.760 --> 01:57:04.319
that subject, and it must lead us to the answer.

1626
01:57:05.199 --> 01:57:08.199
Let us look one at a time at the possible

1627
01:57:08.239 --> 01:57:11.680
ways to escape. It is clear that the killers were

1628
01:57:11.720 --> 01:57:14.239
in the room where the daughter was found. From this

1629
01:57:14.439 --> 01:57:19.119
room they must have escaped. How at first I saw

1630
01:57:19.199 --> 01:57:22.319
no way out. It had been necessary for the neighbors

1631
01:57:22.319 --> 01:57:24.720
to break down the door in order to enter the room.

1632
01:57:25.439 --> 01:57:29.840
There was no other door. The opening above the fireplace

1633
01:57:29.920 --> 01:57:32.520
is not big enough near the top for even a

1634
01:57:32.600 --> 01:57:36.760
small animal. The murderers therefore must have escaped through one

1635
01:57:36.800 --> 01:57:41.000
of the windows. This may not seem possible. We must

1636
01:57:41.039 --> 01:57:44.960
prove that it is possible. There are two main windows

1637
01:57:44.960 --> 01:57:48.000
in the room. Both of them, you will remember, are

1638
01:57:48.039 --> 01:57:51.439
made of two parts. To open the window, one must

1639
01:57:51.520 --> 01:57:54.600
lift up the bottom half. One of these windows is

1640
01:57:54.760 --> 01:57:57.720
easily seen. The lower part of the other is out

1641
01:57:57.720 --> 01:58:01.159
of sight behind the big bed. I looked carefully at

1642
01:58:01.199 --> 01:58:05.720
the first of these windows. It was firmly closed, fastened

1643
01:58:06.159 --> 01:58:10.279
like the door on the inside. To keep the window closed,

1644
01:58:10.439 --> 01:58:13.279
to fasten it, some one had to put a strong

1645
01:58:13.399 --> 01:58:16.000
iron nail into the wood at the side of the window.

1646
01:58:16.279 --> 01:58:18.920
In such a way that the window could not be raised.

1647
01:58:19.640 --> 01:58:22.800
At least, it seemed that the nail held the window closed.

1648
01:58:23.640 --> 01:58:27.279
The nail was easy to see there it was, And

1649
01:58:27.359 --> 01:58:31.000
the people who discovered the killings used their great strength

1650
01:58:31.000 --> 01:58:34.079
and could not raise the window. I too, tried to

1651
01:58:34.159 --> 01:58:37.119
raise the window and could not. I went to the

1652
01:58:37.199 --> 01:58:40.079
second window and looked behind the bed at the lower

1653
01:58:40.159 --> 01:58:43.000
half of the window. There was a nail here, too,

1654
01:58:43.399 --> 01:58:46.760
which held the window closed without moving the bed. I

1655
01:58:46.840 --> 01:58:50.439
tried to open this window also, and again I could

1656
01:58:50.479 --> 01:58:54.319
not do so. I did not stop looking for an answer, however,

1657
01:58:54.880 --> 01:58:57.800
because I knew that what did not seem possible must

1658
01:58:57.840 --> 01:59:02.319
be proved to be possible. The killers, or perhaps I

1659
01:59:02.319 --> 01:59:05.119
should say the killer, for I am certain there was

1660
01:59:05.159 --> 01:59:09.119
only one. The killer escaped through one of these windows.

1661
01:59:09.680 --> 01:59:13.640
Of this I felt certain. After the murderer had left

1662
01:59:13.680 --> 01:59:16.720
the bedroom, he could have closed the window from the outside,

1663
01:59:17.000 --> 01:59:21.119
but he could not have fastened it again on the inside.

1664
01:59:21.279 --> 01:59:24.399
Yet anyone could see the nails which held the windows

1665
01:59:24.720 --> 01:59:29.079
tightly closed. This was the fact that stopped the police.

1666
01:59:29.720 --> 01:59:36.279
How could the murderer put the nail back in its place? Perhaps? Perhaps, uh,

1667
01:59:37.279 --> 01:59:40.920
perhaps if you pulled out the nail. Yes, that is

1668
01:59:41.079 --> 01:59:45.039
just what I thought. Two things seemed clear. First, there

1669
01:59:45.079 --> 01:59:47.960
had to be something wrong with the idea that the

1670
01:59:48.039 --> 01:59:51.439
nails were holding the windows closed. I didn't know what

1671
01:59:51.600 --> 01:59:56.159
was wrong. Something was. Second, if it was not the

1672
01:59:56.279 --> 01:59:59.880
nails which were holding the windows closed, then something else

1673
02:00:00.159 --> 02:00:04.359
was holding them closed, something hard to see, something hidden.

1674
02:00:05.359 --> 02:00:08.159
I went back to the first window. With great effort,

1675
02:00:08.159 --> 02:00:11.199
I pulled out the nail. Then I again tried to

1676
02:00:11.279 --> 02:00:16.000
raise the window. It was still firmly closed. This did

1677
02:00:16.039 --> 02:00:19.319
not surprise me. There had been a hidden lock, I

1678
02:00:19.359 --> 02:00:23.560
thought inside the window. I felt the window carefully with

1679
02:00:23.640 --> 02:00:28.079
my fingers. Indeed, I found a button which, when I

1680
02:00:28.199 --> 02:00:32.880
pressed it opened an inner lock. With almost no effort,

1681
02:00:33.520 --> 02:00:38.239
I raised the window. Now I knew that the killer

1682
02:00:38.359 --> 02:00:42.479
could close the window from outside and the window would

1683
02:00:42.520 --> 02:00:48.600
lock itself. But there was still the nail. Carefully, I

1684
02:00:48.680 --> 02:00:50.800
put the nail back into the hole from which I

1685
02:00:50.840 --> 02:00:54.279
had taken it. Then I pressed the button and tried

1686
02:00:54.279 --> 02:00:58.840
to raise the window. I could not. The nail also

1687
02:00:59.119 --> 02:01:03.680
was holding the window window closed. Then the murderer could

1688
02:01:03.680 --> 02:01:07.960
not possibly have gone out the window. He could not

1689
02:01:08.159 --> 02:01:13.119
have gone out that window. Therefore, he must have escaped

1690
02:01:13.159 --> 02:01:17.039
through the other window. The other window was also held

1691
02:01:17.079 --> 02:01:20.359
closed by a nail, but I knew I must be right.

1692
02:01:21.000 --> 02:01:23.520
Although no one else had looked carefully at the window

1693
02:01:23.680 --> 02:01:26.800
behind the bed, I went to it and tried to

1694
02:01:26.840 --> 02:01:30.119
see whether the two windows were in some way different.

1695
02:01:30.960 --> 02:01:33.359
The nail and the second window looked the same as

1696
02:01:33.359 --> 02:01:36.079
the one I had just seen. I moved the bed

1697
02:01:36.159 --> 02:01:39.399
so that I could look closely. Yes, there was a

1698
02:01:39.399 --> 02:01:42.680
button here too. I was so sure I was right that,

1699
02:01:42.760 --> 02:01:45.880
without touching the nail, I pressed the button and tried

1700
02:01:45.880 --> 02:01:50.000
to raise the window up. It went. As the window

1701
02:01:50.039 --> 02:01:52.479
went up, it carried with it the top part of

1702
02:01:52.479 --> 02:01:55.880
the nail, the head. When I closed the window, the

1703
02:01:55.920 --> 02:01:58.760
head of the nail was again in its place. It

1704
02:01:58.800 --> 02:02:01.800
looked just as it had looked before. I took the

1705
02:02:01.840 --> 02:02:04.319
head of the nail in my fingers, and it easily

1706
02:02:04.359 --> 02:02:07.479
came away from the window. I saw that the nail

1707
02:02:07.479 --> 02:02:10.439
had been broken, But when I put the nail head

1708
02:02:10.479 --> 02:02:15.359
back in its place, the nail again looked whole. What

1709
02:02:15.560 --> 02:02:19.399
seemed to be not possible, we have proved to be possible.

1710
02:02:19.960 --> 02:02:24.159
The murderer indeed escaped through that window. I could now

1711
02:02:24.199 --> 02:02:27.399
see in my mind what had happened. It was a

1712
02:02:27.439 --> 02:02:31.000
hot summer night when the murderer first arrived. He found

1713
02:02:31.000 --> 02:02:35.159
that window open open to let some fresh night air

1714
02:02:35.319 --> 02:02:39.239
come in. Through the open window. The murderer went in

1715
02:02:39.680 --> 02:02:43.239
and came out again. As he came out, he closed

1716
02:02:43.239 --> 02:02:47.560
the window, perhaps with a purpose to do so, perhaps

1717
02:02:47.560 --> 02:02:52.079
by chance, the special lock inside the window held the

1718
02:02:52.119 --> 02:02:56.520
window firmly closed. The nail only seemed to be holding

1719
02:02:56.560 --> 02:03:01.520
it closed, And that which was possible looked not possible.

1720
02:03:02.800 --> 02:03:06.119
Dupin had been talking, not to me, it seemed, but

1721
02:03:06.239 --> 02:03:10.000
to himself. His cold eyes seemed to see only what

1722
02:03:10.159 --> 02:03:13.760
was in his own mind. Now he stopped and looked

1723
02:03:13.760 --> 02:03:17.399
straight at me. His eyes were now hard and bright,

1724
02:03:18.159 --> 02:03:22.079
and I understood that using his unusual reasoning power to

1725
02:03:22.159 --> 02:03:25.840
find the answer to those bloody murders was giving Dupin

1726
02:03:26.000 --> 02:03:29.880
great pleasure. At first I could think only of this.

1727
02:03:30.880 --> 02:03:35.479
Then I said, Dupin, the windows are on the fourth floor,

1728
02:03:35.880 --> 02:03:40.279
far above the ground. Even an open window. Yes, that

1729
02:03:40.640 --> 02:03:44.279
is an interesting question. How did the murderer go from

1730
02:03:44.279 --> 02:03:47.640
the window down to the ground. Once I was quite

1731
02:03:47.680 --> 02:03:50.920
certain that the murderer had in fact gone through that window,

1732
02:03:51.520 --> 02:03:54.399
the rest was not so hard to know, and the

1733
02:03:54.479 --> 02:03:57.840
answer to This question told me still more about who

1734
02:03:57.960 --> 02:04:01.880
the murderer was. When you and I first came to

1735
02:04:01.920 --> 02:04:05.239
the house on the Room Moor, we walked around the house.

1736
02:04:06.039 --> 02:04:09.399
At that time I noted a long, thin metal pole

1737
02:04:09.840 --> 02:04:12.880
which went from the top of the building to the ground.

1738
02:04:13.600 --> 02:04:18.199
A lightning rod put there to carry down to the

1739
02:04:18.239 --> 02:04:21.720
ground a charge of electricity that might come out of

1740
02:04:21.760 --> 02:04:26.159
the clouds during a bad summer storm. Here, I thought,

1741
02:04:26.680 --> 02:04:29.039
is a way for someone to go up or down

1742
02:04:29.119 --> 02:04:33.239
the wall and then go in or out the window.

1743
02:04:34.199 --> 02:04:38.439
He would have to be very strong. Although certain animals

1744
02:04:38.520 --> 02:04:42.359
could easily go up the pole, not every man could

1745
02:04:42.359 --> 02:04:46.920
do it, only a man with very special strength and

1746
02:04:47.119 --> 02:04:52.239
special training. This told me more about what the murderer

1747
02:04:52.920 --> 02:05:01.279
was like, but I still had the question who Part

1748
02:05:01.479 --> 02:05:08.479
five That unusual Frenchman August Dupine was still explaining to

1749
02:05:08.520 --> 02:05:11.560
me how he found the answer to the question of

1750
02:05:11.640 --> 02:05:13.920
who murdered the two women in the house on the

1751
02:05:14.000 --> 02:05:17.960
Room Morgue. We now knew that it was indeed possible

1752
02:05:18.159 --> 02:05:20.479
for the killer to go in and again out of

1753
02:05:20.520 --> 02:05:23.840
one of the windows and still leave them both firmly

1754
02:05:23.920 --> 02:05:28.239
closed locked on the inside. And I agreed with Dupin

1755
02:05:28.319 --> 02:05:32.239
when he said that only someone with very special strength

1756
02:05:32.279 --> 02:05:35.199
and training could have gone up the lightning rod on

1757
02:05:35.239 --> 02:05:37.960
the side of the house and thus entered the window.

1758
02:05:38.920 --> 02:05:42.319
But who the murderer was we still did not know.

1759
02:05:43.680 --> 02:05:48.000
Let us look again, said Dupin, at that room on

1760
02:05:48.079 --> 02:05:51.399
the fourth floor. Let us now go back in our

1761
02:05:51.520 --> 02:05:56.600
minds to the room we saw yesterday. Consider its appearance.

1762
02:05:57.479 --> 02:06:01.039
Clothes had been thrown around the room, yet it seemed

1763
02:06:01.079 --> 02:06:04.920
that none had been taken. The old woman and her

1764
02:06:05.039 --> 02:06:08.560
daughter almost never left the house. They had little use

1765
02:06:08.600 --> 02:06:11.800
for many of the clothes. Those that were found in

1766
02:06:11.840 --> 02:06:15.159
the room were as good as any they had. If

1767
02:06:15.199 --> 02:06:18.560
the killer took some, why didn't he take the best

1768
02:06:18.800 --> 02:06:22.079
or take all? And why would he take a few

1769
02:06:22.159 --> 02:06:27.000
clothes and leave all the money? Nearly the whole amount

1770
02:06:27.079 --> 02:06:30.960
brought from the bank was found in bags on the floor.

1771
02:06:32.199 --> 02:06:35.520
I want you, therefore, to forget the idea in the

1772
02:06:35.560 --> 02:06:39.000
minds of the police, the idea that a desire for

1773
02:06:39.119 --> 02:06:43.279
money was what they call the motive, the reason for

1774
02:06:43.359 --> 02:06:47.680
the murders. This idea rose in their minds when they

1775
02:06:47.720 --> 02:06:50.359
heard how the money was brought to the house three

1776
02:06:50.439 --> 02:06:53.720
days before the killings. But this is only what we

1777
02:06:53.800 --> 02:06:58.399
call a coincidence, two things happening at the same time,

1778
02:06:58.720 --> 02:07:02.640
but only by chance, and not because of some cause,

1779
02:07:03.079 --> 02:07:08.319
some cause that brought them together. Coincidences happen to all

1780
02:07:08.359 --> 02:07:11.880
of us every day of our lives. If the gold

1781
02:07:12.199 --> 02:07:15.279
was the reason for the murders, the killer must have

1782
02:07:15.399 --> 02:07:19.960
been quite a fool to forget and leave it there. No,

1783
02:07:20.840 --> 02:07:23.640
I don't think the desire for money was the reason

1784
02:07:23.680 --> 02:07:26.920
for the killings. I think that there was no reason

1785
02:07:26.960 --> 02:07:34.199
for these killings, except perhaps fear. Now, let us look

1786
02:07:34.239 --> 02:07:38.560
at the murders themselves. A girl is killed by powerful

1787
02:07:38.680 --> 02:07:42.159
hands around her neck. Then the body is placed in

1788
02:07:42.199 --> 02:07:46.880
the opening over the fireplace, head down. No murders we

1789
02:07:47.000 --> 02:07:50.520
usually hear about are like this. There's something here that

1790
02:07:50.600 --> 02:07:54.880
does not fit our ideas of human actions, even when

1791
02:07:54.880 --> 02:07:58.800
we think of men of the most terrible kind. Think

1792
02:07:58.920 --> 02:08:02.680
also of the great strength which was necessary to put

1793
02:08:02.720 --> 02:08:06.000
the body where it was found. The strength of several

1794
02:08:06.039 --> 02:08:09.640
men was needed to pull it down. There are other

1795
02:08:09.800 --> 02:08:14.239
signs of this fearful strength. In front of the fireplace,

1796
02:08:14.560 --> 02:08:18.439
some gray human hair was lying, thick pieces of it

1797
02:08:18.840 --> 02:08:22.119
pulled from the head of the old woman. You saw

1798
02:08:22.159 --> 02:08:24.720
the hair on the floor yourself, and you saw the

1799
02:08:24.760 --> 02:08:29.079
blood and skin with it. You know and I know

1800
02:08:29.640 --> 02:08:33.319
that great force is necessary to pull out even twenty

1801
02:08:33.439 --> 02:08:37.199
or thirty hairs at a time. A much greater force

1802
02:08:37.399 --> 02:08:41.800
was needed to pull out hundreds of hairs at one time. Also,

1803
02:08:41.920 --> 02:08:45.199
the head of the old lady was cut almost completely

1804
02:08:45.239 --> 02:08:50.279
from the body. Why to kill a woman with a knife,

1805
02:08:50.640 --> 02:08:54.520
it is not necessary to cut her head off? If

1806
02:08:54.600 --> 02:08:58.319
now added to all these things we added also the

1807
02:08:58.359 --> 02:09:02.279
condition of the room. We have put together the following ideas.

1808
02:09:03.159 --> 02:09:08.319
Strength more than human, wildness less than human, a murder

1809
02:09:08.479 --> 02:09:13.560
without reason, a horror beyond human understanding, and a voice

1810
02:09:13.600 --> 02:09:18.560
which made no sound that men could understand. What result, then,

1811
02:09:18.800 --> 02:09:22.079
have you come to? What have I helped you to see?

1812
02:09:23.680 --> 02:09:26.600
A cold feeling went up and down my back as

1813
02:09:26.680 --> 02:09:32.239
Dupin asked me the question, A man someone who has

1814
02:09:32.239 --> 02:09:37.399
lost his mind? I said, A madman? A madman? Only

1815
02:09:37.439 --> 02:09:41.239
a madman could have done these murders. I think not.

1816
02:09:42.239 --> 02:09:45.359
In some ways your idea is a good one. But

1817
02:09:45.560 --> 02:09:49.600
madmen are from one country or another. Their cries may

1818
02:09:49.640 --> 02:09:52.640
be terrible, but they are made of words, and some

1819
02:09:52.680 --> 02:09:57.239
of the words can be understood. Here, look look at

1820
02:09:57.279 --> 02:09:59.840
this hair. I took it from the fingers of the

1821
02:10:00.000 --> 02:10:03.800
old woman. The hair of a madman is not like this.

1822
02:10:05.079 --> 02:10:09.119
Tell me what you think it is, Dupin, this hair

1823
02:10:09.239 --> 02:10:13.880
is This hair is not human. I did not say

1824
02:10:13.920 --> 02:10:18.319
that it is. But before we decide this matter, look

1825
02:10:18.359 --> 02:10:20.920
at the picture I had made here on this piece

1826
02:10:20.920 --> 02:10:23.840
of paper. It is a picture of the marks on

1827
02:10:23.920 --> 02:10:27.520
the daughter's neck. The doctors said these marks were made

1828
02:10:27.600 --> 02:10:31.199
by fingers. Let me spread the paper on the table

1829
02:10:31.239 --> 02:10:34.960
before us. Try to put your fingers all at the

1830
02:10:35.000 --> 02:10:38.199
same time on the picture, so that your hand and

1831
02:10:38.239 --> 02:10:40.800
its fingers will fit the picture of the marks on

1832
02:10:40.880 --> 02:10:46.319
the daughter's neck. I cannot no. But perhaps we are

1833
02:10:46.359 --> 02:10:49.640
not doing this in the right way. The paper is

1834
02:10:49.680 --> 02:10:53.119
spread out on the table, the human neck is round.

1835
02:10:53.840 --> 02:10:56.079
Here is a piece of wood about as big as

1836
02:10:56.119 --> 02:10:59.840
the daughter's neck. Put the paper around it, and try again.

1837
02:11:00.600 --> 02:11:04.479
Go on, try. I tried to put my fingers around

1838
02:11:04.479 --> 02:11:07.079
the piece of wood as if it were the girl's neck.

1839
02:11:07.680 --> 02:11:10.439
But still my hand was not large enough to equal

1840
02:11:10.439 --> 02:11:14.640
the marks left by the killer. Dupin. These marks were

1841
02:11:14.800 --> 02:11:20.199
made by no human hand. No, they were not. I

1842
02:11:20.239 --> 02:11:22.800
am almost certain that they were made by the hand

1843
02:11:23.279 --> 02:11:27.359
of an orangutan, one of those manlike animals that live

1844
02:11:27.439 --> 02:11:32.039
in the wild forests. The great size, the strength, the

1845
02:11:32.119 --> 02:11:36.600
wildness of these animals are well known. Now look in

1846
02:11:36.680 --> 02:11:41.319
this book by Cuvier, read look at the picture. I

1847
02:11:41.399 --> 02:11:44.239
did so, and at once I knew that Dupin was

1848
02:11:44.319 --> 02:11:48.439
right in everything he said, the color of the hair,

1849
02:11:49.079 --> 02:11:54.000
the size of the hand, the terrible strength, the wildness

1850
02:11:54.039 --> 02:11:57.720
of the killings, those sounds which were a voice but

1851
02:11:57.800 --> 02:12:03.560
were not words. Every thing fit nicely in its place. No,

1852
02:12:04.319 --> 02:12:09.800
not everything, Dupin I said, there were two voices. Whose

1853
02:12:09.920 --> 02:12:15.640
was the second voice? The second voice? Yes, Remember, we

1854
02:12:15.800 --> 02:12:19.159
decided that only someone with a very special kind of

1855
02:12:19.199 --> 02:12:22.159
strength could have gone up the lightning rod, up the

1856
02:12:22.199 --> 02:12:24.960
side of the house to the window on the fourth floor.

1857
02:12:24.960 --> 02:12:28.359
Perhaps an animal, perhaps a strong man from a circus,

1858
02:12:28.800 --> 02:12:32.039
perhaps a sailor. We know now that one of the

1859
02:12:32.119 --> 02:12:36.079
voices was the voice of an animal, an orangutan. The

1860
02:12:36.119 --> 02:12:39.680
other was the voice of a man. This voice spoke

1861
02:12:39.840 --> 02:12:45.000
only two words. They were my God, spoken in French.

1862
02:12:46.239 --> 02:12:49.279
Upon those two words I have placed my hopes of

1863
02:12:49.359 --> 02:12:53.880
finding a full answer to this horrible question. The words

1864
02:12:53.920 --> 02:12:57.479
were an expression of horror. This means that a Frenchman

1865
02:12:58.119 --> 02:13:02.640
knew about these murders. It is possible. Indeed, it is

1866
02:13:02.840 --> 02:13:07.039
probable that the Frenchman himself did not help the orangutan

1867
02:13:07.279 --> 02:13:10.840
to kill. Perhaps the animal escaped from him and he

1868
02:13:10.960 --> 02:13:13.840
followed it to the house on the Rooe Morgue. He

1869
02:13:13.840 --> 02:13:16.560
could not have caught it again. It must still be

1870
02:13:16.720 --> 02:13:21.920
free somewhere in Paris. I will not continue with these guesses,

1871
02:13:22.159 --> 02:13:25.720
for I cannot call them more than that. If I

1872
02:13:25.760 --> 02:13:29.520
am right, and if the Frenchman did not himself help

1873
02:13:29.600 --> 02:13:34.359
with the killings, I expect him to come here. Read this.

1874
02:13:35.039 --> 02:13:38.479
I paid to have this put in the newspaper. I

1875
02:13:38.560 --> 02:13:43.159
took the newspaper and read the following. Caught early in

1876
02:13:43.199 --> 02:13:45.960
the morning of the seventh of this month, a very

1877
02:13:46.039 --> 02:13:49.520
large orangutan. The owner, who is known to be a sailor,

1878
02:13:50.000 --> 02:13:52.920
may have the animal again if he can prove it

1879
02:13:52.960 --> 02:13:58.199
is his. But Dupin, how can you know that the

1880
02:13:58.239 --> 02:14:01.760
man is a sailor. I do not know it. I

1881
02:14:01.760 --> 02:14:04.439
am not sure of it. I think the man is

1882
02:14:04.479 --> 02:14:07.279
a sailor. A sailor could go up that pole on

1883
02:14:07.319 --> 02:14:11.760
the side of the house. Sailors travel to strange, faraway

1884
02:14:11.800 --> 02:14:16.199
places where such things as orangutans can be got. If

1885
02:14:16.239 --> 02:14:20.479
I am right, think for a moment, the sailor will

1886
02:14:20.520 --> 02:14:24.479
say to himself, the animal is valuable, why shouldn't I

1887
02:14:24.560 --> 02:14:27.119
go and get it. The police do not know the

1888
02:14:27.199 --> 02:14:31.079
animal killed two women, and clearly somebody knows I am

1889
02:14:31.119 --> 02:14:34.159
in Paris. If I do not go get the animal,

1890
02:14:34.680 --> 02:14:37.800
they will ask why. I don't want anyone to start

1891
02:14:37.840 --> 02:14:41.279
asking questions about the animal, so I will go and

1892
02:14:41.319 --> 02:14:43.960
get the orangutan and keep it where no one will

1893
02:14:44.000 --> 02:14:49.680
see it until this trouble has passed. This, I believe,

1894
02:14:50.159 --> 02:14:54.159
is how the sailor will think. But listen, I hear

1895
02:14:54.199 --> 02:14:58.800
a man's step on the stairs. Dupin had left the

1896
02:14:58.800 --> 02:15:01.720
front door of the house oh open, and the visitor

1897
02:15:01.840 --> 02:15:06.279
entered without using the bell. He came several steps up

1898
02:15:06.279 --> 02:15:12.039
the stairs, then stopped. We heard him go down again.

1899
02:15:13.399 --> 02:15:16.880
Dupin was moving toward the door when we heard the

1900
02:15:16.920 --> 02:15:22.720
stranger coming up. He did not turn back a second time,

1901
02:15:23.600 --> 02:15:29.079
but came straight to the door of our room. In

1902
02:15:29.159 --> 02:15:36.640
a strong, warm, friendly voice, Dupin said, come in, my friend,

1903
02:15:36.840 --> 02:15:45.800
come in. Slowly, the door opened and in came a sailor.

1904
02:15:48.399 --> 02:15:53.800
Part six my friend. Dupin was now certain that the

1905
02:15:53.920 --> 02:15:57.000
murders in the room Morgue had been done by a

1906
02:15:57.079 --> 02:16:01.439
wild animal of the jungle, the man like animal known

1907
02:16:01.560 --> 02:16:05.399
as an orangutan. The animal had escaped from its owner,

1908
02:16:05.520 --> 02:16:10.000
he thought, and the owner was probably a sailor. He

1909
02:16:10.039 --> 02:16:12.720
had put a notice in the newspaper that the man

1910
02:16:12.760 --> 02:16:15.640
who owned the orangutan could have it again if he

1911
02:16:15.680 --> 02:16:19.199
came to our house to get it. Now, as the

1912
02:16:19.239 --> 02:16:22.720
owner came to our door, we were both wondering if

1913
02:16:22.760 --> 02:16:27.800
that man would, as dupan guest, be a sailor. Yes,

1914
02:16:28.279 --> 02:16:31.720
the man who entered was indeed a sailor. He was

1915
02:16:31.760 --> 02:16:35.959
a large man and strong. He carried a big, heavy

1916
02:16:36.040 --> 02:16:40.040
piece of wood, but no gun. He said to us

1917
02:16:40.079 --> 02:16:45.680
in French. Good evening, Sit down, my friend. I suppose

1918
02:16:45.719 --> 02:16:50.000
you've come to ask about the orangutan. A very fine animal.

1919
02:16:50.520 --> 02:16:53.680
I have no doubt that it is a very valuable animal.

1920
02:16:54.440 --> 02:16:57.360
How old do you think it may be? I have

1921
02:16:57.520 --> 02:17:00.239
no way of guessing how old he is, but it

1922
02:17:00.280 --> 02:17:03.879
can't be more than four or five years old. Have

1923
02:17:04.000 --> 02:17:07.319
you got it here? No? No, we have no place

1924
02:17:07.360 --> 02:17:09.680
for it here. You can get it in the morning.

1925
02:17:09.959 --> 02:17:15.000
Of course you can prove it's yours. Yes, yes, I can.

1926
02:17:16.440 --> 02:17:19.399
I wish I could keep it. I would like to

1927
02:17:19.440 --> 02:17:22.559
have it. I of course I will pay you for

1928
02:17:22.680 --> 02:17:28.000
finding and keeping the animal, anything, anything within reason. Well,

1929
02:17:28.079 --> 02:17:32.920
that is very fair. Indeed, let me think what shall

1930
02:17:32.959 --> 02:17:37.840
I ask for? I know, let this be my pay.

1931
02:17:39.000 --> 02:17:42.879
Tell me everything you know about the murders in the

1932
02:17:42.959 --> 02:17:48.440
room Morgue. As quietly as he had spoken, Dupin walked

1933
02:17:48.440 --> 02:17:52.239
to the door, locked it, and put the key in

1934
02:17:52.319 --> 02:17:56.559
his coat. At the same time, he took a gun

1935
02:17:56.600 --> 02:17:59.360
out of his coat and placed it on the table.

1936
02:18:00.959 --> 02:18:04.639
The sailor's face had become red. He jumped to his

1937
02:18:04.719 --> 02:18:07.840
feet and reached for his stick of wood, but in

1938
02:18:07.920 --> 02:18:12.440
the next moment he fell back into his chair, trembling.

1939
02:18:13.479 --> 02:18:18.959
His face became quite white, bloodless. He spoke not a word.

1940
02:18:19.879 --> 02:18:26.040
His eyes were closed. My friend, you must not be afraid.

1941
02:18:26.520 --> 02:18:29.120
We are not going to hurt you. I know very

1942
02:18:29.120 --> 02:18:32.559
well that you yourself are not the killer. But it

1943
02:18:32.639 --> 02:18:37.040
is true that you know something about him or about it.

1944
02:18:37.840 --> 02:18:40.200
From what I have already said. You must know that

1945
02:18:40.280 --> 02:18:43.559
I have ways of learning about the matter, ways you

1946
02:18:43.600 --> 02:18:47.159
could never have dreamed of. Now I know that you

1947
02:18:47.159 --> 02:18:50.959
yourself have done nothing wrong. You didn't even take any

1948
02:18:51.000 --> 02:18:53.799
of the money. You have no reason to be afraid

1949
02:18:53.799 --> 02:18:57.440
to talk and to tell the truth. It is a

1950
02:18:57.479 --> 02:19:00.319
matter of honor for you to tell all you know,

1951
02:19:01.159 --> 02:19:05.680
and you know who the killer is, So help me God.

1952
02:19:06.040 --> 02:19:08.639
I'll tell you all I know about this, all I know,

1953
02:19:08.879 --> 02:19:11.600
but I don't expect you to believe one half of

1954
02:19:11.600 --> 02:19:17.079
what I say. Not one half. Still, I didn't kill anyone,

1955
02:19:17.840 --> 02:19:21.719
and I'll tell the whole story if I die for it.

1956
02:19:21.719 --> 02:19:26.920
It was that animal, the orangutan. About a year ago,

1957
02:19:27.719 --> 02:19:30.840
our ship sailed to the far east to the island

1958
02:19:30.879 --> 02:19:35.520
of Borneo. I had never before seen Borneo. The forest

1959
02:19:36.120 --> 02:19:40.600
Zajangle was thick with trees and other plants, and hot

1960
02:19:40.639 --> 02:19:44.399
and wet and dark. But we went a friend and

1961
02:19:44.479 --> 02:19:49.159
I we went into that forest for pleasure. There we

1962
02:19:49.239 --> 02:19:54.000
saw this orangutan, a big animal, but we were two

1963
02:19:54.600 --> 02:19:57.319
and we caught it. We took it with us on

1964
02:19:57.360 --> 02:20:02.520
the ship. Soon, however, my friend died and the animal

1965
02:20:02.639 --> 02:20:06.600
was mine. But it was very strong and caused a

1966
02:20:06.600 --> 02:20:09.920
lot of trouble. In the end, I brought it back

1967
02:20:09.959 --> 02:20:12.799
to Paris with me. I kept it in my house,

1968
02:20:13.319 --> 02:20:17.200
in my own house, carefully locked up so the neighbors

1969
02:20:17.200 --> 02:20:20.159
could not know about it. The animal had cut one

1970
02:20:20.239 --> 02:20:24.799
foot badly while on the ship. I thought, I thought

1971
02:20:24.879 --> 02:20:27.159
that as soon as it got well, I would sell it.

1972
02:20:27.959 --> 02:20:31.000
I was certain that it was of great value, and

1973
02:20:31.079 --> 02:20:34.879
it was so much trouble to keep I wanted to

1974
02:20:34.959 --> 02:20:40.280
sell it soon. The night of the murders, very late,

1975
02:20:40.840 --> 02:20:43.319
I came home and found the animal in my bedroom.

1976
02:20:44.239 --> 02:20:47.959
It had got free. I don't know how. It held

1977
02:20:48.000 --> 02:20:50.879
a knife in its hands and was playing with it.

1978
02:20:51.760 --> 02:20:55.040
I was afraid. I didn't know what to do. When

1979
02:20:55.040 --> 02:20:57.159
it saw me, it jumped up, ran out of the

1980
02:20:57.239 --> 02:21:00.440
room and down the stairs. There it found an open

1981
02:21:00.479 --> 02:21:05.559
window and jumped into the street. I followed, never far behind,

1982
02:21:06.120 --> 02:21:10.040
although I had no hope of catching it again. The animal,

1983
02:21:10.079 --> 02:21:13.440
with the knife still in its hand, stopped often to

1984
02:21:13.520 --> 02:21:16.399
look back at me, But before I could come near

1985
02:21:16.520 --> 02:21:19.399
enough to even try to catch it, the animal always

1986
02:21:19.440 --> 02:21:23.600
started to run again. It seemed to be playing with me.

1987
02:21:25.000 --> 02:21:27.639
It was nearly morning, but the streets were still dark

1988
02:21:27.680 --> 02:21:30.760
and quiet. We passed the back of a house in

1989
02:21:30.799 --> 02:21:34.200
the room morgue. The animal looked up and saw a

1990
02:21:34.280 --> 02:21:36.600
light in the open window of a room high above.

1991
02:21:37.559 --> 02:21:41.120
It was the only lighted window in sight. The animal

1992
02:21:41.200 --> 02:21:44.799
saw the metal pole, went up it easily and quickly,

1993
02:21:45.440 --> 02:21:50.239
and jumped into the room. All this didn't take a minute.

1994
02:21:50.440 --> 02:21:52.639
I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what

1995
02:21:52.719 --> 02:21:56.319
I could do. I followed the animal. I too went

1996
02:21:56.399 --> 02:21:59.680
up the pole, as I am a sailor. That was

1997
02:21:59.719 --> 02:22:02.959
easy for me. But the open window was far from

1998
02:22:02.959 --> 02:22:05.559
the pole, and I was afraid to try to jump.

1999
02:22:06.079 --> 02:22:09.239
I could see into the room, however, through the other window,

2000
02:22:09.280 --> 02:22:12.760
which was closed. The two women were sitting there with

2001
02:22:12.840 --> 02:22:16.200
their backs to the windows. Who can guess why they

2002
02:22:16.200 --> 02:22:19.639
were not sleeping at that hour of night. A box

2003
02:22:19.760 --> 02:22:22.319
was in the middle of the floor. The papers which

2004
02:22:22.319 --> 02:22:24.719
had been in the box were laying around on the floor.

2005
02:22:25.479 --> 02:22:28.879
The women seemed to be studying some of these. They

2006
02:22:28.879 --> 02:22:31.879
did not see the animal, which was just standing there,

2007
02:22:31.959 --> 02:22:36.479
watching the knife still in one hand. But the old

2008
02:22:36.520 --> 02:22:39.239
woman heard it and turned her head and saw the

2009
02:22:39.280 --> 02:22:44.280
animal there knife in hand. And then then I heard

2010
02:22:44.319 --> 02:22:49.680
the first of those terrible cries. When the animal heard

2011
02:22:49.719 --> 02:22:52.360
the old woman cry, it caught her by the hair

2012
02:22:52.639 --> 02:22:56.719
and slowly moved the knife before her face. The daughter,

2013
02:22:57.239 --> 02:23:00.639
filled with terror, fell to the floor and remained there

2014
02:23:00.680 --> 02:23:05.360
without moving, her eyes closed. The old woman continued to

2015
02:23:05.399 --> 02:23:09.239
cry for help, screaming with fear. I think the animal

2016
02:23:09.319 --> 02:23:12.520
now was as afraid as the old woman was. With

2017
02:23:13.000 --> 02:23:16.680
terrible force, it pulled out a handful of hair, and

2018
02:23:16.719 --> 02:23:20.120
when the woman, covered with blood, tried to run from it,

2019
02:23:20.799 --> 02:23:23.000
the animal caught her again by the hair, and with

2020
02:23:23.120 --> 02:23:26.200
one move of its arm, it nearly cut her head

2021
02:23:26.239 --> 02:23:30.319
from her body, throwing down the body. The animal turned

2022
02:23:30.479 --> 02:23:33.799
and saw that the daughter was moving, watching it with horror.

2023
02:23:34.760 --> 02:23:37.040
With fire in its eyes, it rushed to the girl,

2024
02:23:37.520 --> 02:23:41.079
put its powerful fingers around her neck and pressed them

2025
02:23:41.200 --> 02:23:48.120
firmly until she died. When the girl stopped moving, the

2026
02:23:48.159 --> 02:23:50.600
animal dropped her body to the floor and looked up.

2027
02:23:51.360 --> 02:23:54.120
It saw my face in the window. It began to

2028
02:23:54.239 --> 02:23:57.840
run around the room quickly, without purpose. It jumped up

2029
02:23:57.879 --> 02:24:01.959
and down, breaking the chairs, pulling the to pieces. Suddenly

2030
02:24:01.959 --> 02:24:05.000
it stopped and took the body of the daughter, and,

2031
02:24:05.040 --> 02:24:08.719
as if to hide it, with terrible strength, it put

2032
02:24:08.760 --> 02:24:11.959
the body up above the fireplace, where it was found,

2033
02:24:12.920 --> 02:24:16.479
it threw the old woman out the window. All this

2034
02:24:16.680 --> 02:24:19.959
time I was hanging from the pole, filled with horror.

2035
02:24:21.040 --> 02:24:24.840
It seemed I had lost the power to move. But

2036
02:24:24.879 --> 02:24:27.319
when I saw the animal coming toward the window with

2037
02:24:27.360 --> 02:24:33.360
the old woman's body, my horror became fear. I went

2038
02:24:33.479 --> 02:24:37.280
quickly down. I almost fell down the pole and I ran.

2039
02:24:38.239 --> 02:24:43.719
I didn't look back. I ran. Oh, my god, my god.

2040
02:24:45.000 --> 02:24:47.600
The chief of the police was not happy that the

2041
02:24:47.639 --> 02:24:50.639
answer to the mystery of the killings had been found

2042
02:24:50.680 --> 02:24:53.840
by some one who was not a policeman. He said

2043
02:24:53.840 --> 02:24:58.280
that people should keep to their own business. Let him talk,

2044
02:24:58.920 --> 02:25:03.600
said Dupan. Let him talk. He'll feel better for it.

2045
02:25:04.159 --> 02:25:07.479
And he's a good fellow, but he makes things less

2046
02:25:07.520 --> 02:25:12.600
simple than they really are. Still, people call him skillful

2047
02:25:13.079 --> 02:25:16.959
and even wise. I think they say this because of

2048
02:25:17.000 --> 02:25:21.319
the way he explains carefully fully something which is not

2049
02:25:21.479 --> 02:25:26.799
here or there or anywhere, and says not possible about

2050
02:25:26.879 --> 02:25:39.799
something which is there before his eyes. The man that

2051
02:25:40.000 --> 02:25:43.840
was used up a tale of the late Bugaboo and

2052
02:25:44.000 --> 02:25:51.280
Kickaboo campaign by Edgar Allan Poe Paris, Paris, mahieu ed

2053
02:25:51.360 --> 02:25:55.319
vundez vous en u la morte de ma vill a

2054
02:25:55.520 --> 02:26:02.840
mis larratel automboul Cornier. I cannot just now remember when

2055
02:26:03.319 --> 02:26:06.920
or where I first made the acquaintance of that truly

2056
02:26:07.079 --> 02:26:13.000
fine looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

2057
02:26:14.000 --> 02:26:17.440
Some one did introduce me to the gentleman. I am

2058
02:26:17.479 --> 02:26:21.879
sure at some public meeting I know very well held

2059
02:26:21.920 --> 02:26:26.159
about something of great importance, no doubt, at some place

2060
02:26:26.280 --> 02:26:31.399
or other I feel convinced whose name I have unaccountably forgotten.

2061
02:26:32.600 --> 02:26:35.719
The truth is that the introduction was attended upon my

2062
02:26:35.920 --> 02:26:40.399
part with a degree of anxious embarrassment, which operated to

2063
02:26:40.440 --> 02:26:46.040
prevent any definite impressions of either time or space. I

2064
02:26:46.079 --> 02:26:51.959
am constitutionally nervous. This with me is a family failing,

2065
02:26:52.479 --> 02:26:57.639
and I can't help it. In especial, the slightest appearance

2066
02:26:57.680 --> 02:27:02.639
of mystery of any point I cannot exactly comprehend, puts

2067
02:27:02.680 --> 02:27:08.479
me at once into a pitable state of agitation. There

2068
02:27:08.559 --> 02:27:14.520
was something, as it were, remarkable, Yes, remarkable, although this

2069
02:27:14.760 --> 02:27:17.760
is but a feeble term to express my full meaning

2070
02:27:18.360 --> 02:27:22.840
about the entire individuality of the personage in question. He

2071
02:27:23.159 --> 02:27:27.239
was perhaps six feet in height, and of a presence

2072
02:27:27.600 --> 02:27:34.000
singularly commanding. There was an air distingue pervading the whole man,

2073
02:27:34.319 --> 02:27:38.360
which spoke of high breeding and hinted at high birth.

2074
02:27:39.159 --> 02:27:43.639
Upon this topic, the topic of Smith's personal appearance, I

2075
02:27:43.680 --> 02:27:49.600
have a kind of melancholy satisfaction in being minute. His

2076
02:27:49.760 --> 02:27:52.440
head of hair would have done honor to a brutus.

2077
02:27:52.959 --> 02:27:57.680
Nothing could be more richly flowing, or possess a brighter gloss.

2078
02:27:58.680 --> 02:28:01.719
It was of a jetty blae black, which was also

2079
02:28:01.799 --> 02:28:06.000
the color, or more properly, the no color of his

2080
02:28:06.239 --> 02:28:11.639
unimaginable whiskers. You perceive I cannot speak of these latter

2081
02:28:11.719 --> 02:28:15.040
without enthusiasm. It is not too much to say that

2082
02:28:15.079 --> 02:28:18.360
they were the handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun.

2083
02:28:19.639 --> 02:28:24.920
At all events, they encircled, and at times partially overshadowed

2084
02:28:25.120 --> 02:28:30.399
a mouth utterly unequaled. Here were the most entirely even

2085
02:28:30.719 --> 02:28:36.159
and most brilliantly white of all conceivable teeth. From between them,

2086
02:28:36.479 --> 02:28:41.840
upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of surpassing clearness, melody,

2087
02:28:42.479 --> 02:28:47.399
and strength. In the matter of eyes, also, my acquaintance

2088
02:28:47.559 --> 02:28:52.319
was pre eminently endowed. Either one of such a pair

2089
02:28:52.959 --> 02:28:57.280
was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They

2090
02:28:57.280 --> 02:29:02.639
were of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrious, and

2091
02:29:02.719 --> 02:29:07.600
there was perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that

2092
02:29:07.719 --> 02:29:14.000
amount of interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression. The

2093
02:29:14.000 --> 02:29:18.239
bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I

2094
02:29:18.399 --> 02:29:21.520
ever saw. For your life could not have found a

2095
02:29:21.639 --> 02:29:27.200
fault with its wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off

2096
02:29:27.239 --> 02:29:30.840
to great advantage a pair of shoulders which would have

2097
02:29:30.920 --> 02:29:35.200
called up a blush of conscious inferiority into the countenance

2098
02:29:35.600 --> 02:29:40.280
of the marble Apollo. I have a passion for fine shoulders,

2099
02:29:40.520 --> 02:29:44.879
and may say that I never beheld them in perfection before.

2100
02:29:46.000 --> 02:29:50.719
The arms altogether were admirably modeled, nor the lower limbs

2101
02:29:50.799 --> 02:29:57.520
less superb. These were, indeed the knee plus ultra of

2102
02:29:57.600 --> 02:30:03.319
good legs. Every in such matters admitted the legs to

2103
02:30:03.360 --> 02:30:07.559
be good. There was neither too much flesh nor too little,

2104
02:30:08.280 --> 02:30:12.600
neither rudeness nor fragility. I could not imagine a more

2105
02:30:12.680 --> 02:30:18.200
graceful curve than that of the osphemeris. And there was

2106
02:30:18.360 --> 02:30:21.959
just that due gentle prominence in the rear of the fibula,

2107
02:30:22.440 --> 02:30:26.680
which goes to the confirmation of a properly proportioned calf.

2108
02:30:27.959 --> 02:30:32.319
I wish to God my young and talented friend Chipon Chippino.

2109
02:30:32.760 --> 02:30:36.639
The sculptor had seen the legs of Brevet Brigadier General

2110
02:30:36.760 --> 02:30:42.360
John A. B. C. Smith. But although men so absolutely

2111
02:30:42.479 --> 02:30:47.000
fine looking, are neither as plenty as reasons or blackberries.

2112
02:30:47.719 --> 02:30:50.479
Still I could not bring myself to believe that the

2113
02:30:50.600 --> 02:30:55.399
remarkable something to which I alluded just now, that the

2114
02:30:55.479 --> 02:30:59.680
odd air of Jenese croix which hung about my new acquaintance,

2115
02:31:00.120 --> 02:31:05.159
lay all together, or indeed at all, in the supreme

2116
02:31:05.319 --> 02:31:10.760
excellence of his bodily endowments. Perhaps it might be traced

2117
02:31:10.799 --> 02:31:14.239
to the manner. Yet here again I could not pretend

2118
02:31:14.319 --> 02:31:18.000
to be positive. There was a primness, not to say

2119
02:31:18.079 --> 02:31:23.600
stiffness in his carriage, a degree of measured and if

2120
02:31:23.639 --> 02:31:28.399
I may so express it, of rectangular precision attending his

2121
02:31:28.520 --> 02:31:33.760
every movement, which observed in a more diminutive figure, would

2122
02:31:33.760 --> 02:31:37.879
have had the least little savor in the world of affectation,

2123
02:31:38.799 --> 02:31:43.639
pomposity or constraint, but which noticed in a gentleman of

2124
02:31:43.680 --> 02:31:48.079
his undoubted dimensions, was readily placed to the account of

2125
02:31:48.200 --> 02:31:54.879
reserve hatour of a commendable sense, in short of what

2126
02:31:55.079 --> 02:32:00.639
is due to the dignity of colossal proportion. The kind

2127
02:32:00.680 --> 02:32:04.399
of friend who presented me to General Smith whispered in

2128
02:32:04.479 --> 02:32:07.920
my ear some few words of comment upon the man.

2129
02:32:08.639 --> 02:32:13.079
He was a remarkable man, a very remarkable man, indeed

2130
02:32:13.159 --> 02:32:17.000
one of the most remarkable men of the age. He

2131
02:32:17.120 --> 02:32:21.520
was an especial favorite too with the ladies chiefly on

2132
02:32:21.600 --> 02:32:27.760
account of his high reputation for courage. In that point,

2133
02:32:27.799 --> 02:32:31.959
he is unrivaled. Indeed, he is a perfect desperado, a

2134
02:32:32.079 --> 02:32:37.680
downright fire reader, and no mistake, said my friend here,

2135
02:32:37.799 --> 02:32:42.120
dropping his voice excessively low and thrilling me with the

2136
02:32:42.159 --> 02:32:46.719
mystery of his tone, A downright fire eater, and no

2137
02:32:46.879 --> 02:32:50.559
mistake showed that, I should say, to some purpose in

2138
02:32:50.600 --> 02:32:54.200
the late tremendous swamp fight away down south with the

2139
02:32:54.239 --> 02:32:59.399
bugaboo and kickaboo indians. Here my friend opened his eyes

2140
02:32:59.760 --> 02:33:04.000
to some extent, bless my soul, blood and thunder and

2141
02:33:04.040 --> 02:33:08.000
all that prodigies of valor heard of him. Of course,

2142
02:33:08.520 --> 02:33:13.600
you know he's the man man alive. How do you do? Why?

2143
02:33:13.760 --> 02:33:18.040
How are ye very glad to see ye? Indeed, here

2144
02:33:18.079 --> 02:33:22.639
interrupted the General himself, seizing my companion by the hand

2145
02:33:22.959 --> 02:33:27.879
as he drew near, and bowing stiffly but profoundly as

2146
02:33:27.920 --> 02:33:32.559
I was presented. I then thought, and I think so still,

2147
02:33:33.159 --> 02:33:36.959
that I never heard a clearer nor a stronger voice,

2148
02:33:37.399 --> 02:33:40.959
nor beheld a finer set of teeth. But I must

2149
02:33:41.000 --> 02:33:44.360
say that I was sorry for the interruption just at

2150
02:33:44.360 --> 02:33:48.760
that moment, as owing to the whispers and insinuations aforesaid,

2151
02:33:49.280 --> 02:33:53.239
my interest had been greatly excited in the hero of

2152
02:33:53.280 --> 02:33:59.879
the Bugaboo and Kickaboo campaign. However, the delightfully luminous conversation

2153
02:34:00.559 --> 02:34:05.120
of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith soon

2154
02:34:05.280 --> 02:34:11.120
completely dissipated this chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately. We

2155
02:34:11.159 --> 02:34:14.520
had quite a long tete a tete, and I was

2156
02:34:14.559 --> 02:34:19.319
not only pleased, but really instructed. I never heard a

2157
02:34:19.360 --> 02:34:23.319
more fluent talker or a man of greater general information.

2158
02:34:24.520 --> 02:34:29.200
With becoming modesty, he forebore, nevertheless to touch upon the

2159
02:34:29.200 --> 02:34:32.879
theme I had just then most at heart, I mean,

2160
02:34:33.040 --> 02:34:38.840
the mysterious circumstances attending the Bugaboo War, and on my

2161
02:34:38.959 --> 02:34:42.120
own part what I conceive to be a proper sense

2162
02:34:42.159 --> 02:34:47.479
of delicacy forbade me to broach the subject, although in

2163
02:34:47.559 --> 02:34:53.719
truth I was exceedingly tempted to do so. I perceived too,

2164
02:34:54.360 --> 02:34:59.680
that the gallant soldier preferred topics of philosophical interest, and

2165
02:34:59.760 --> 02:35:04.360
that he delighted, especially in commenting upon the rapid march

2166
02:35:04.879 --> 02:35:10.719
of mechanical invention, indeed lead him where I would. This

2167
02:35:11.000 --> 02:35:16.360
was a point to which he invariably came back. There's

2168
02:35:16.399 --> 02:35:19.680
nothing at all like it, he would say, we are

2169
02:35:19.719 --> 02:35:23.879
a wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age. Parachutes

2170
02:35:24.079 --> 02:35:29.079
and railroads, man traps and spring guns. Our steamboats are

2171
02:35:29.159 --> 02:35:32.559
upon every sea, and the Nassau Balloon Packet is about

2172
02:35:32.639 --> 02:35:36.559
to run regular trips fair either way, only twenty pounds

2173
02:35:36.559 --> 02:35:41.520
sterling between London and Timbuctoo. And who shall calculate the

2174
02:35:41.600 --> 02:35:47.879
immense influence upon social life, upon arts, upon commerce, upon literature,

2175
02:35:48.479 --> 02:35:51.840
which will be the immediate result of the great principles

2176
02:35:52.319 --> 02:35:56.719
of electromagnetics. Nor is this all? Let me assure you

2177
02:35:57.200 --> 02:36:00.120
there is really no end to the march of invention,

2178
02:36:00.600 --> 02:36:04.360
the most wonderful, the most ingenious. And let me add,

2179
02:36:04.440 --> 02:36:07.920
mister Thompson, I believe is your name. Let me add,

2180
02:36:08.000 --> 02:36:12.399
I say, the most useful, the most truly useful. Mechanical

2181
02:36:12.520 --> 02:36:17.280
contrivances are daily springing up like mushrooms, if I may

2182
02:36:17.319 --> 02:36:23.079
so express myself, or more figuratively, like a grasshoppers, like grasshoppers,

2183
02:36:23.120 --> 02:36:29.600
mister Thompson, about us and around us. Thompson, to be sure,

2184
02:36:30.280 --> 02:36:32.959
is not my name, But it is needless to say

2185
02:36:32.959 --> 02:36:36.280
that I left General Smith with a heightened interest in

2186
02:36:36.319 --> 02:36:41.000
the man, with an exalted opinion of his conversational powers

2187
02:36:41.239 --> 02:36:44.639
and a deep sense of the valuable privileges we enjoy

2188
02:36:45.200 --> 02:36:50.959
in living in this age of mechanical invention. My curiosity, however,

2189
02:36:51.399 --> 02:36:56.680
had not been altogether satisfied, and I resolved to prosecute

2190
02:36:56.719 --> 02:37:02.920
immediate inquiry among my acquaintances, touching the Brevet Brigadier General himself,

2191
02:37:03.440 --> 02:37:08.239
and particularly respecting the tremendous events quorum par magna fuit

2192
02:37:09.079 --> 02:37:15.440
during the Bugaboo and kick Aboo campaign. The first opportunity

2193
02:37:15.479 --> 02:37:21.639
which presented opportunity, which presented itself, and which horresco referens

2194
02:37:22.239 --> 02:37:25.840
I did not in the least scruple to seize, occurred

2195
02:37:25.879 --> 02:37:29.479
at the church of the Reverend Doctor Drummunump, where I

2196
02:37:29.520 --> 02:37:34.520
found myself established one Sunday just at sermon Tine, not

2197
02:37:34.600 --> 02:37:37.319
only in the pew, but by the side of that

2198
02:37:37.440 --> 02:37:42.440
worthy and communicative little friend of mine, Miss Tabitha T.

2199
02:37:43.120 --> 02:37:48.959
Thus seated, I congratulated myself and with much reason, upon

2200
02:37:49.040 --> 02:37:52.520
the very flattering state of affairs. If any person knew

2201
02:37:52.559 --> 02:37:56.600
anything about Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith,

2202
02:37:57.200 --> 02:38:01.000
that person, it was clear to me, was Miss Tabitha T.

2203
02:38:02.159 --> 02:38:06.399
We telegraphed a few signals and then commenced sodo voce

2204
02:38:07.000 --> 02:38:11.520
a brisk tete a tete, Smith said she, in reply

2205
02:38:11.680 --> 02:38:16.440
to my very earnest inquiry, Smith, why not General John ABC?

2206
02:38:17.159 --> 02:38:20.280
Bless me? I thought you knew all about him? This

2207
02:38:20.520 --> 02:38:25.680
is a wonderfully inventive age horrid affair that a bloody

2208
02:38:25.719 --> 02:38:30.760
set of wretches, those kickapoos fought like a hero prodigies

2209
02:38:30.799 --> 02:38:36.200
of valor, immortal renown Smith, Brevet Brigadier General John ABC.

2210
02:38:37.000 --> 02:38:42.280
Why you know he's the man? Man here broke in

2211
02:38:42.479 --> 02:38:45.959
doctor drummumump at the top of his voice, and with

2212
02:38:46.079 --> 02:38:50.680
a thump that came near knocking the pulpit about our ears,

2213
02:38:51.280 --> 02:38:53.719
man that is born of a woman hath but a

2214
02:38:53.760 --> 02:38:56.799
short time to live, But he cometh up and is

2215
02:38:56.879 --> 02:39:01.200
cut down like a flower. I start to the extremity

2216
02:39:01.200 --> 02:39:04.719
of the pew, and perceived by the animated looks of

2217
02:39:04.760 --> 02:39:08.200
the divine that the wrath, which had nearly proved fatal

2218
02:39:08.239 --> 02:39:11.200
to the pulpit, had been excited by the whispers of

2219
02:39:11.239 --> 02:39:15.600
the lady and myself. There was no help for it.

2220
02:39:16.239 --> 02:39:20.600
So I submitted with a good grace and listened in

2221
02:39:20.760 --> 02:39:25.000
all the martyrdom of dignified silence to the balance of

2222
02:39:25.040 --> 02:39:31.040
that very capital discourse. Don't go away weekly, spooky will

2223
02:39:31.040 --> 02:39:37.639
be right back. Next evening found me a somewhat late

2224
02:39:37.840 --> 02:39:41.959
visitor at the Rantipole Theater, where I felt sure of

2225
02:39:42.079 --> 02:39:46.520
satisfying my curiosity at once by merely stepping into the

2226
02:39:46.559 --> 02:39:52.159
box of those exquisite specimens of affability and omniscience, the

2227
02:39:52.239 --> 02:39:58.799
misses Arabella and Miranda Cognocenti. That fine tragedian climax was

2228
02:39:58.840 --> 02:40:03.120
doing lago to a very crowded house, and I experienced

2229
02:40:03.159 --> 02:40:08.360
some little difficulty in making my wishes understood, especially as

2230
02:40:08.399 --> 02:40:12.360
our box was next to the slips and completely overlooked

2231
02:40:12.399 --> 02:40:19.159
the stage. Smith, said Miss Arabella, as she at comprehended

2232
02:40:19.600 --> 02:40:28.040
the purport of my query. Smith, why not General John A. B. C. Smith,

2233
02:40:28.639 --> 02:40:33.120
inquired Miranda, musingly, God bless me, did you ever behold

2234
02:40:33.159 --> 02:40:37.920
a finer figure? Never, Madam, but do tell me, or

2235
02:40:38.000 --> 02:40:43.319
so imitable grace? Never upon my word, but pray inform me,

2236
02:40:43.719 --> 02:40:48.479
or so just an appreciation of stage effect, Madam, or

2237
02:40:48.559 --> 02:40:52.200
a more delicate sense of the true beauties of Shakespeare.

2238
02:40:52.840 --> 02:40:56.920
Be so good as to look at that leg the devil.

2239
02:40:57.760 --> 02:41:01.719
And I turned again to her sister Smith, She said,

2240
02:41:02.440 --> 02:41:06.000
why not General John A. B. C. Horrid affair, that

2241
02:41:06.440 --> 02:41:10.719
wasn't it, great wretches, those bugaboo savage and so on.

2242
02:41:11.360 --> 02:41:15.200
But we live in a wonderfully inventive age. Smith. Oh, yes,

2243
02:41:15.680 --> 02:41:21.559
great man, perfect, desperado, immortal, renowned prodigies of valor. Never heard.

2244
02:41:22.639 --> 02:41:26.600
This was given in a scream. Bless my soul. Why

2245
02:41:26.920 --> 02:41:31.959
he's the man Mandragora. Nor all the drowsy syrups of

2246
02:41:32.000 --> 02:41:36.680
the world shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

2247
02:41:36.879 --> 02:41:43.040
which thou oust yesterday. Here roared our climax, just in

2248
02:41:43.120 --> 02:41:46.159
my ear, and shaking his fist in my face all

2249
02:41:46.239 --> 02:41:49.879
the time, in a way that I couldn't stand, and

2250
02:41:49.959 --> 02:41:55.479
I wouldn't. I left the misses COGNOCENTI immediately went behind

2251
02:41:55.520 --> 02:41:59.360
the scenes forthwith and gave the beggarly scoundrel such a

2252
02:41:59.440 --> 02:42:02.520
thrashing as I trust he will remember till the day

2253
02:42:02.959 --> 02:42:06.879
of his death. At the soiree of the lovely widow

2254
02:42:07.000 --> 02:42:10.520
missus Kathleen O. Trump, I was confident that I should

2255
02:42:10.520 --> 02:42:15.000
meet with no similar disappointment. Accordingly, I was no sooner

2256
02:42:15.079 --> 02:42:18.040
seated at the card table with my pretty hostess for

2257
02:42:18.200 --> 02:42:22.280
vis a vis than I propounded those questions the solution

2258
02:42:22.479 --> 02:42:28.239
of which had become a matter so essential to my peace, Smith,

2259
02:42:28.639 --> 02:42:32.319
said my partner, Why not General John A. B. C.

2260
02:42:33.200 --> 02:42:37.680
Horrid affair, that wasn't it, diamonds? Did you say? Terrible wretches?

2261
02:42:37.719 --> 02:42:42.600
Those kickapoos? We are playing whist if you please, mister tattle. However,

2262
02:42:43.000 --> 02:42:46.520
this is the age of invention, most certainly the age,

2263
02:42:46.559 --> 02:42:50.760
one may say, the age par excellence. Speak French. Oh,

2264
02:42:50.879 --> 02:42:55.319
quite a hero, perfect desperado, no hearts, mister taddle. I

2265
02:42:55.360 --> 02:42:59.319
don't believe it. Immortal renown and all that prodigies of

2266
02:42:59.399 --> 02:43:04.079
valor never heard. Why bless me? He's the man man,

2267
02:43:04.799 --> 02:43:09.600
captain man here, screamed some little feminine interloper from the

2268
02:43:09.639 --> 02:43:13.760
farthest corner of the room. Are you talking about Captain

2269
02:43:13.840 --> 02:43:17.920
Man and the duel? Oh? I must hear? Do tell

2270
02:43:18.079 --> 02:43:21.959
go on, missus O Trump do now? Go on and

2271
02:43:22.040 --> 02:43:25.479
go on, missus O Trump, did all about a certain

2272
02:43:25.719 --> 02:43:30.200
captain man who was either shot or hung, or should

2273
02:43:30.239 --> 02:43:34.120
have been both shot and hung. Yes, missus o'trump, She

2274
02:43:34.239 --> 02:43:38.920
went on, and I I went off. There was no

2275
02:43:39.040 --> 02:43:43.159
chance of hearing anything farther that evening. In regard to Brevett,

2276
02:43:43.200 --> 02:43:48.520
Brigadier General John A. B c. Smith. Still, I consoled

2277
02:43:48.559 --> 02:43:52.120
myself with the reflection that the tide of ill luck

2278
02:43:52.360 --> 02:43:56.600
would not run against me forever, and so determined to

2279
02:43:56.680 --> 02:44:00.440
make a bold push for information at the rout of

2280
02:44:00.479 --> 02:44:08.120
that bewitching little angel, the graceful missus Pirouette Smith said,

2281
02:44:08.159 --> 02:44:11.719
missus p as we twirled about together in a past

2282
02:44:11.719 --> 02:44:16.079
des Effeir Smith, why not General John A. B c.

2283
02:44:17.239 --> 02:44:22.000
Dreadful business that of the Bugaboos, wasn't it? Dreadful creatures?

2284
02:44:22.079 --> 02:44:25.600
Those Indians do turn out your toes. I really am

2285
02:44:25.639 --> 02:44:29.600
ashamed of you, man of great courage, poor fellow, But

2286
02:44:29.760 --> 02:44:32.879
this is a wonderful age of invention. Oh dear me,

2287
02:44:33.520 --> 02:44:37.840
I'm out of breath, quite a desperado. Prodigies of valor

2288
02:44:37.959 --> 02:44:41.520
never heard. Can't believe it. I shall have to sit

2289
02:44:41.600 --> 02:44:46.239
down and enlighten you. Smith. Why he's the man? Manfred?

2290
02:44:46.280 --> 02:44:50.440
I tell you? Here, bawled out Miss Boss Bleu, as

2291
02:44:50.479 --> 02:44:54.760
I led missus Pirouette to a seat. Did ever anybody

2292
02:44:54.799 --> 02:44:58.479
hear the like it's Manfred, I say, and not at

2293
02:44:58.479 --> 02:45:02.799
all by any means? Man f Here, Miss Boss blue

2294
02:45:03.280 --> 02:45:07.360
beckoned to me in a very peremptory manner, and I

2295
02:45:07.520 --> 02:45:11.360
was obliged will I kneel I to leave missus p

2296
02:45:11.639 --> 02:45:14.719
for the purpose of deciding a dispute touching the title

2297
02:45:14.760 --> 02:45:19.000
of a certain poetical drama of Lord Byron's. Although I

2298
02:45:19.079 --> 02:45:23.799
pronounced with great promptness that the true title was Man Friday,

2299
02:45:24.360 --> 02:45:27.959
and not by any means Manfred. Yet when I returned

2300
02:45:27.959 --> 02:45:31.360
to seek Missus Pirouette, she was not to be discovered,

2301
02:45:31.799 --> 02:45:34.760
and I made my retreat from the house in a

2302
02:45:34.920 --> 02:45:39.760
very bitter spirit of animosity against the whole race of

2303
02:45:39.799 --> 02:45:46.079
the boss blues. Matters had now assumed a really serious aspect,

2304
02:45:46.600 --> 02:45:50.120
and I resolved to call at once upon my particular friend,

2305
02:45:50.319 --> 02:45:55.120
mister Theodore Cinevate, for I knew that here at least

2306
02:45:55.479 --> 02:46:01.280
I should get something like definite information. Smith U, said he,

2307
02:46:01.840 --> 02:46:06.319
in his well known peculiar way of drawling out his syllables.

2308
02:46:07.040 --> 02:46:13.639
Smith why not General John ABC savage affair that with

2309
02:46:13.760 --> 02:46:19.760
the kickapoos, wasn't it say? Don't you think so perfect

2310
02:46:19.799 --> 02:46:26.559
Desperadadoh great pity pawn, my honor wonderfully inventive age parodigies

2311
02:46:26.600 --> 02:46:29.719
of valor. By the bye, did you ever hear about

2312
02:46:29.760 --> 02:46:35.239
Captain ma'am Captain Man He did, said, I please to

2313
02:46:35.319 --> 02:46:40.000
go on with your story. Humph, oh, well quite la

2314
02:46:40.079 --> 02:46:45.559
mem choose, as we say in France, Smith, eh, Brigadier

2315
02:46:45.600 --> 02:46:50.479
General John ABC. I say, here, mister s thought proper

2316
02:46:50.559 --> 02:46:52.719
to put his finger to the side of his nose.

2317
02:46:53.399 --> 02:46:57.239
I say, you don't mean to insinuate now, really and

2318
02:46:57.280 --> 02:47:01.559
truly and conscientiously that you don't know all about that

2319
02:47:01.639 --> 02:47:05.040
affair of Smith's as well as I do, Eh, Smith

2320
02:47:05.600 --> 02:47:11.000
John ABC. Why bless me, he's the man, mister Cinevt,

2321
02:47:11.559 --> 02:47:16.600
said I, imploringly. Is he the man in the mask? No?

2322
02:47:18.040 --> 02:47:22.239
Said he looking wise, nor the man in the moon.

2323
02:47:24.159 --> 02:47:28.879
This reply I considered a pointed and positive insult, and

2324
02:47:28.959 --> 02:47:32.319
so left the house at once in high Dujon with

2325
02:47:32.399 --> 02:47:36.559
a firm resolve to call my friend mister Cinevate to

2326
02:47:36.680 --> 02:47:40.920
a speedy account for his ungentlemanly conduct and ill breeding.

2327
02:47:42.440 --> 02:47:46.120
In the meantime, however, I had no notion of being

2328
02:47:46.239 --> 02:47:51.639
thwarted touching the information I desired. There was one resource

2329
02:47:51.760 --> 02:47:55.120
left me yet, I would go to the fountain head.

2330
02:47:55.639 --> 02:47:59.680
I would call forthwith upon the General himself and demand

2331
02:48:00.120 --> 02:48:05.600
explicit terms a solution of this abominable piece of mystery.

2332
02:48:06.639 --> 02:48:10.440
Here at least there should be no chance for equivocation.

2333
02:48:11.639 --> 02:48:17.159
I would be plain, positive peremptory, as short as pie crust,

2334
02:48:17.440 --> 02:48:23.639
as concise as Tacitus or Montesquieu. It was early when

2335
02:48:23.680 --> 02:48:27.319
I called, and the General was dressing, but I pleaded

2336
02:48:27.479 --> 02:48:30.719
urgent business, and was shown at once into his bedroom

2337
02:48:30.760 --> 02:48:34.639
by an old negro valet, who remained in attendance during

2338
02:48:34.639 --> 02:48:38.559
my visit. As I entered the chamber, I looked about,

2339
02:48:38.559 --> 02:48:43.520
of course for the occupant, but did not immediately perceive him.

2340
02:48:44.159 --> 02:48:47.479
There was a large and exceedingly odd looking bundle of

2341
02:48:47.520 --> 02:48:50.399
something which lay close by my feet on the floor,

2342
02:48:50.760 --> 02:48:53.319
and as I was not in the best humor in

2343
02:48:53.360 --> 02:48:56.280
the world, I gave it a kick out of the way.

2344
02:48:57.000 --> 02:49:02.040
Hem ahem, rather civil that I should say, said the bundle,

2345
02:49:02.760 --> 02:49:06.719
in one of the smallest and altogether the funniest little

2346
02:49:06.799 --> 02:49:10.520
voices between a squeak and a whistle that I ever

2347
02:49:10.639 --> 02:49:15.440
heard in all the days of my existence. Ahem, rather

2348
02:49:15.559 --> 02:49:19.680
civil that I should observe. I fairly shouted with terror,

2349
02:49:19.920 --> 02:49:22.799
and made off at a tangent into the farthest extremity

2350
02:49:22.840 --> 02:49:28.079
of the room. God bless me, my dear fellow. Here

2351
02:49:28.120 --> 02:49:32.520
again whistled the bundle what what? What? Why? What is

2352
02:49:32.559 --> 02:49:35.520
the matter? I really believe you don't know me at all?

2353
02:49:37.760 --> 02:49:42.120
What could I say to all this? What could I?

2354
02:49:42.120 --> 02:49:46.079
I staggered into an armchair, and with staring eyes and

2355
02:49:46.200 --> 02:49:52.319
open mouth awaited the solution of the wonder strange you

2356
02:49:52.360 --> 02:49:56.319
shouldn't know me though, isn't it? Presently re squeaked the

2357
02:49:56.399 --> 02:50:00.319
nondescript which I now perceive was performing upon on the

2358
02:50:00.360 --> 02:50:07.159
floor some inexplicable evolution very analogous to the drawing on

2359
02:50:07.360 --> 02:50:12.280
of a stocking. There was only a single leg, however

2360
02:50:12.399 --> 02:50:16.719
apparent strange you shouldn't know me though, isn't it? Pompy?

2361
02:50:17.040 --> 02:50:21.040
Bring me that leg? Here? Pompey handed the bundle of

2362
02:50:21.280 --> 02:50:26.120
very capital cork leg, already dressed, which it screwed on

2363
02:50:26.520 --> 02:50:30.799
in a trice, and then it stood upright before my

2364
02:50:30.920 --> 02:50:36.200
eyes and a bloody action it was continued the thing

2365
02:50:36.600 --> 02:50:40.200
as if in soliloquy. But then one mustn't fight with

2366
02:50:40.280 --> 02:50:43.920
the bugaboos and kickapoos and think of coming off with

2367
02:50:44.000 --> 02:50:47.680
a mere scratch. Pompy, I'll thank you now for that

2368
02:50:47.840 --> 02:50:53.079
arm Thomas turning to me, is decidedly the best hand

2369
02:50:53.120 --> 02:50:55.799
at a cork leg. But if you should ever want

2370
02:50:55.799 --> 02:50:58.319
an arm, My dear fellow, you must really let me

2371
02:50:58.440 --> 02:51:03.079
recommend you to Bishop. Here Pompey screwed on an arm.

2372
02:51:03.600 --> 02:51:06.479
We had rather hot work of it, that you may say.

2373
02:51:07.079 --> 02:51:11.559
Now you dog slip on my shoulders and Bosom pettit

2374
02:51:11.680 --> 02:51:14.959
makes the best shoulders. But for a bosom you'll have

2375
02:51:15.040 --> 02:51:20.200
to go to Dukrau. Bosom said I, Pompy, will you

2376
02:51:20.360 --> 02:51:23.360
never be ready with that wig. Scalping is a rough

2377
02:51:23.399 --> 02:51:26.719
process after all, But then you can procure such a

2378
02:51:26.760 --> 02:51:32.840
capital scratch at de l'Orme's scratch. Now, you nigger my teeth.

2379
02:51:33.159 --> 02:51:35.120
For a good set of these, you had better go

2380
02:51:35.200 --> 02:51:39.600
to Parmley's at once high prices, but excellent work. I

2381
02:51:39.719 --> 02:51:43.479
swallowed some very capital articles, though, and when the big

2382
02:51:43.559 --> 02:51:45.879
bugaboo rammed me down with the butt end of his

2383
02:51:46.040 --> 02:51:52.079
rifle butt end rammed down my eye. Oh yes, by

2384
02:51:52.120 --> 02:51:54.959
the way, my eye here, Pompy, you scamp screw it in.

2385
02:51:56.000 --> 02:51:58.920
Those kickapoos are not so very slow at a gouge.

2386
02:51:59.559 --> 02:52:03.000
But he's a blied man, that doctor Williams. After all,

2387
02:52:03.280 --> 02:52:05.799
you can't imagine how well I see with the eyes

2388
02:52:05.840 --> 02:52:10.440
of his make. I now began very clearly to perceive

2389
02:52:10.520 --> 02:52:14.479
that the object before me was nothing more nor less

2390
02:52:15.600 --> 02:52:21.920
than my new acquaintance, Revett Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

2391
02:52:23.079 --> 02:52:27.840
The manipulations of Pompey had made, I must confess a

2392
02:52:28.000 --> 02:52:31.360
very striking difference in the appearance of the personal man.

2393
02:52:32.559 --> 02:52:37.600
The voice, however, still puzzled me no little. But even

2394
02:52:37.680 --> 02:52:43.000
this apparent mystery was speedily cleared up. Pompey, you black rascal,

2395
02:52:43.520 --> 02:52:46.600
squeaked the General. I really do believe you would let

2396
02:52:46.600 --> 02:52:52.479
me go out without my palate. Hereupon the negro, grumbling

2397
02:52:52.479 --> 02:52:55.680
out an apology, went up to his master, opened his

2398
02:52:55.719 --> 02:52:58.680
mouth with the knowing air of a horse jockey, and

2399
02:52:58.760 --> 02:53:03.719
adjusted therein a somewhat singular looking machine, in a very

2400
02:53:03.760 --> 02:53:10.000
dexterous manner that I could not altogether comprehend. The alliteration, however,

2401
02:53:10.319 --> 02:53:14.559
in the entire expression of the General's countenance was instantaneous

2402
02:53:14.639 --> 02:53:19.280
and surprising. Then he again spoke. His voice had resumed

2403
02:53:19.319 --> 02:53:22.440
all that rich melody and strength which I had noticed

2404
02:53:22.479 --> 02:53:27.760
upon our original introduction. Then the vagabonds, said he, in

2405
02:53:27.840 --> 02:53:32.120
so clear a tone that I positively started at the change.

2406
02:53:33.000 --> 02:53:36.159
Then the vagabonds, they not only knocked in the roof

2407
02:53:36.200 --> 02:53:38.920
of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut off

2408
02:53:38.959 --> 02:53:44.000
at least seven eighths of my tongue. There isn't Bonfante's equal, however,

2409
02:53:44.040 --> 02:53:48.319
in America, for really good articles of this description, I

2410
02:53:48.319 --> 02:53:52.399
can recommend you to him with confidence. Here the General bowed,

2411
02:53:52.959 --> 02:53:56.920
and assure you that I have the greatest pleasure in

2412
02:53:57.000 --> 02:54:01.639
doing so. I acknowledged his kindness in my best manner,

2413
02:54:02.120 --> 02:54:04.719
and took leave of him at once, with a perfect

2414
02:54:04.799 --> 02:54:10.040
understanding of the true state of affairs, with a full

2415
02:54:10.159 --> 02:54:13.680
comprehension of the mystery which had troubled me so long.

2416
02:54:14.840 --> 02:54:20.280
It was evident it was a clear case. Brevet Brigadier

2417
02:54:20.319 --> 02:54:25.959
General John A. B. C. Smith was the man, the

2418
02:54:26.000 --> 02:54:28.959
man that was used up