Nevermore, p.18
Nevermore, page 18
Dearest Eddie,
We have gone to the market to buy the necessaries for tonight’s dinner with Colonel Crockett. We left at II. The door to your bedchamber was still closed and all was silent within. Oh, Eddie! It is so nice that you have finally managed to get a good night’s sleep! Here is your breakfast, dear. We will return later.
Your own
Muddy
I now recalled Crockett’s solemn vow to come and listen to Sissy’s enchanting repertoire of ballads. Of course! So that was the occasion to which he had been alluding when he took his departure last evening! The extraordinary events of the past twenty-four hours had driven all thoughts of his promised visit from my mind.
The mere prospect of having to play host to the frontiersman caused my heart to sink within my bosom. Few social requirements are more supremely wearying than the effort to maintain a convivial mien when one’s soul is weighted down by care. Still, I could see no way to avoid, much less to defer, tonight’s fête. So fervently had Sissy been anticipating the affair that I had no other alternative than to resign myself to its inevitable—and all-too-imminent—occurrence.
Fortifying myself with the simple but wholesome breakfast that Muddy had provided, I rose from the table and repaired to my study. I was painfully aware that an inordinate number of days had passed since I had last applied myself to my creative endeavors. I was already long overdue on the delivery of a promised tale of sensation for publication in a future number of the Southern Literary Messenger. And yet, to endeavor to engage in the act of literary composition seemed, at that moment, entirely futile. The all-too-vivid recollection of the horror I had witnessed on the previous eve—of the butchered old man buried beneath the floorboards of his own home—precluded the possibility of the sort of sustained imaginative effort necessary for artistic production.
It was imperative, moreover, that—until the present crisis was resolved—every modicum of my energy be devoted to its resolution. As long as the unknown perpetrator remained at large, no one in the city was safe from the maniac’s knife. There was, I confess, another and more immediately self-interested reason for my extreme sense of urgency. My latest encounter with the dark, uncanny female in the gloom of Montague’s dwelling had reinforced my conviction that—in some distinct, if still-inexplicable, way—the horrors that had descended upon our fair city were intimately connected with myself.
Closing the study door behind me, I crossed to my writing table. As I lowered myself into my seat, my gaze fell upon the yellowed newspaper review of my mother’s long-ago performance at the Front Street Theatre. No sooner did I notice this item—which lay precisely where I had left it the previous evening—than I was struck with a singular notion.
Up until that moment, I had scrutinized this article solely with an eye to identifying the various, eminent audience members whose names were mentioned within the text. The thought now occurred to me that a clue to the mystery might reside elsewhere—namely, in the particular play that was performed on that memorable evening in 1807. This, as the reader will recall, was Shakespeare’s supreme tragedy King Lear, in which my mother had won such excited acclaim in the rôle of Cordelia, the elderly monarch’s doomed, saintly daughter.
Retrieving my well-worn edition of Shakespeare’s complete dramatic works from the shelf on which it stood, I reseated myself at my desk and opened the heavy, leather-bound volume to the appropriate place. Within minutes, I was so entirely engrossed in this towering (if, perhaps, somewhat overly protracted) masterpiece that I grew entirely oblivious of my surroundings. By the time I arrived at the almost unbearable dénouement of the play, my eyes were moist—my bosom had begun to heave—and a thick mucosal lump, or globus hystericus, had risen into my throat The mental image of the anguished old man, cradling the corpse of his grievously wronged, yet ever-devoted, child proved more wrenching than my overtaxed emotions could tolerate (particularly since, within my mind’s eye, the lifeless figure draped in the howling king’s arms was that of my own deceased mother!). Laying the heavy book aside, I buried my face in my hands and wept.
Eventually my tears subsided. So intense—so utterly irresistible—was the spell cast by Shakespeare’s lofty genius that, reaching again for the book, I quickly became immersed in another of his plays—then another—and another. The single interruption occurred when Muddy appeared at my door to inform me that she and Sissy had returned from their expedition. We spent several minutes engaged in pleasant, if largely inconsequential, conversation before I returned to my reading. Thus the hours elapsed until—by the dimming of the daylight seeping in through my study window—I discerned that the afternoon was rapidly advancing and that Colonel Crockett’s arrival could not be far off.
It has frequently been observed that the entirety of human experience—all that can be known of nature, the world, and the “poor, bare, forked” beings who inhabit it—is contained within the compass of Shakespeare’s unsurpassed works. For this reason, the British poet Coleridge (whose opinions on literary matters, though rarely original, are asserted with a singular authority) deservedly describes the Bard as “our myriad-minded Shakespeare.” And indeed, should I ever find myself aboard an ocean-going vessel whose crew, after engaging in a violent mutiny, horribly butchers the officers and sets the surviving passengers adrift in a meagrely provisioned lifeboat; and should I then be washed ashore upon a tropical isle inhabited solely by savage cannibals, venomous serpents, and blood-thirsty predators—I think that I could still find contentment so long as I had, as my constant companion, my leather-bound volume of Shakespeare’s unexcelled oeuvre.
My examination of Lear and the other plays I perused that afternoon only confirmed this impression of the preternatural richness of the Bard’s inexhaustible imagination. Every aspect of existence seemed present in his work—every degree of baseness and nobility, of sacrifice and betrayal, of love and hatred, of soaring tragedy and coarse, uproarious comedy. Indeed, one thing only appeared to be missing from those pages.
Try as I might, I could not discover a single clue that would shed light on the meaning of the grim and inscrutable word “NEVERMORE.”
CHAPTER 19
Among the countless examples of unparalleled wisdom contained within the corpus of Shakespeare’s plays is the immortal observation put forth by the melancholic Jaques in the pastoral comedy As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players.” When one considers the degree to which every human being is compelled, from the era of earliest childhood, to conceal his innermost self behind a mask of conventional propriety, the fundamental truth of this epigram can hardly be contested.
Nevertheless, it is equally the case that certain exceptional men and women are more innately suited to play-acting than the rest of humankind. Such, indeed, was my own situation. From the days of my youth—when I had earned the plaudits of my classmates for my performance as Colonel Manly in a school production of Royall Tyler’s delightful comedy, The Contrast—I have been noted for the plenitude—if not, indeed, the prodigality—of my histrionic gifts. That I should have been endowed so abundantly with this skill is, of course, a matter of little surprise, considering the brilliantly talented being who brought me into this world. (That the father who sired me was also engaged in the theatrical trade has little bearing on the matter, since his abilities were of such a notoriously negligible stripe.) To be sure, science has yet to account for the mechanism by which certain traits of character and ability—no less than of physical appearance—are transmitted from one generation to the next. But that our intellectual powers, our aesthetic aptitudes, indeed even our moral faculties, spring primarily from heredity—far more than from the circumstances of our upbringing or education—can hardly be doubted.
At all events, my intrinsic capacities in this regard stood me in especially good stead on the evening of Crockett’s visit, permitting me to assume a façade of polite sociability, even while my soul remained in a state of extreme and tumultuous agitation.
Crockett arrived just at sundown, attired in his customary garb. In one hand he clutched a bouquet of posies; in the other, he held a small, oblong package wrapped in white paper and secured with a length of string.
Standing in the entranceway of our abode, he extended the paper-wrapped bundle towards Muddy, who had arrayed herself for the occasion in her most becoming blue-calico dress. “Blamed if you don’t look downright elegant in that get-up, Miz Clemm,” he declared. “Here. These sweetmeats are for you.”
Then—as Muddy accepted the gift with a delighted exclamation of gratitude—he held out the bouquet to Sissy. “And I brought these-here flowers for you, Miz Virginny.”
Snatching it from his hands, Sissy buried her face in the blossoms, deeply inhaled their aroma, then looked up at Crockett with her face all aglow. “Oooh, thank you, thank you, thank you! They are so very beautiful!”
“Not half so much as you, Miz Virginny,” replied the frontiersman with a smile.
“Oh, where shall I keep them?” cried Sissy, casting an inquiring look at Muddy.
“Come, dear,” said the good woman. “Let us find a nice jar and put them in water.” Then—excusing herself with a little curtsy—she turned and led Sissy in the direction of the kitchen.
As my two loved ones bustled down the hallway, Crockett turned in my direction and—after scrutinizing my visage for a moment—said with a frown: “Why, you are looking kind of blue around the gills, Poe.”
“The lineaments of distress that you perceive upon my countenance,” I replied, “are merely the natural response to the deeply unsettling events of the past several days.”
“Why, I can’t hardly blame you for that,” said Crockett. “Danged if this business ain’t left me feelin’ downright uneasy myself. Tell you what. Let’s me and you have us a pow-wow before I leave, so we can cipher out our next move.”
“I endorse your suggestion wholeheartedly,” I declared.
“All right, then,” said the frontiersman, reaching out a hand and clapping me upon the shoulder. “Now let’s go hunt up them two purty gals and have ourselves a time. Hang me up for bear-meat if I ain’t as hungry as seven wolves tied together by the tail!”
The frontiersman’s irrepressible enthusiasm, undiminished even by the grisly horror we had so recently witnessed in the home of Alexander Montague, ensured that the dinner would be an exceptionally lively one—at least from the viewpoint of Muddy and Sissy. As for me, the evening proved even more trying than I had anticipated; for I was compelled—despite my intensely agitated mood—to sustain an air of polite attentiveness while Crockett regaled us with endless tales of his heroic and wildly improbable frontier exploits.
Even the most far-fetched of these anecdotes, however—such as his wholly incredible account of capturing an enormous mammal of the species Procyon lotor (more commonly known as a raccoon) by grinning at the creature until it plummeted from its perch on a tree-branch—seemed reasonable in comparison to his concluding story. This outrageous narrative was related as our dinner finally drew to an end, in response to a somewhat impetuous query tendered by my darling Sissy.
Our meal—a simple but savory stew of beef potatoes, and various seasonal vegetables—having been completed, we were seated round the table, enjoying our post-prandial beverages while partaking of the store-bought confections Crockett had purchased. All at once, Sissy, who had been attending to our guest’s fantastical narratives with a look of delighted (and, to my eyes, intensely irksome) admiration, set her tumbler of milk down upon the table and exclaimed: “Colonel Crockett. You have told us such wonderful tales about your adventures! But there is one thing you haven’t told us. Have you ever been in love?”
“Virginia!” Muddy gasped in consternation, placing the fingers of one hand upon her lips. “What a little nosy-parker you are!”
“No, no, Miz Clemm!” chuckled the frontiersman. “No need for reproving the gal. It’s a natural enough question.” Then quaffing the remainder of his coffee, he replaced the cup upon its saucer, swivelled in his chair, and gazed at Sissy with a look of utter solemnity upon his countenance. “Yes, Miz Virginny, there was once a gal I loved so bad my heart would rise smack up into my throat and choke me like a cold potato whenever I thought of her.”
“Really?” cried Virginia. “And what happened?”
“Why, I couldn’t hardly go around feeling so tee-totaciously out-of-sorts all the time,” Crockett replied. “So I found a way to cure myself”
“Cure yourself ?” Virginia exclaimed.
“Yes, ma’am. Through the splendiferous healing powers of e-lectricity.”
Then, as both Muddy and Sissy gaped at him in wonder, the frontiersman folded his arms across his chest and continued thusly: “You see, a few years back, when I first came to Washington City, I heard-tell about this monstrous smart doctor that had found a way to put e-lectricity into glass bottles. And when a feller had the rheumatiz or the Saint Vitals dance or just about anythin’ else that was plaguing him, why this ol’ doc would just pour some of that e-lectricity down that feller’s throat, and blamed if it wouldn’t cure him as clean as a barked tree!
“So I saw how it was done and determined that whenever anything ailed me, I would try it. Only I didn’t give a hoot about the bottles, for I reckoned I could just as well take some e-lectricity in the raw as it came shooting from the clouds during a thunderstorm. You see, I had been used to drinkin’ out of the Mississippi without a cup, so I figgered I could just as well swallow the lightning straight from the sky.
“Now, as I was saying, along about this time, I fell in love with a gal by the name o’ Margaret Botts. Just looking at that little filly made my heart begin to flutter like a duck in a puddle. There was a problem, though. I’ll be hanged if that pesky little gal wasn’t already hitched to another feller!
“Well, ol’ Davy wasn’t about to go barking up another man’s tree. So I set about to study on the problem, and at last I calculated a solution. I reckoned I would get rid of my passions by swallowin’ some e-lectricity.
“I knew it had to be done by bringing the lightning right smack against my heart and driving the love clear out of it. So I waited ’til there was a pestiferous thundergust one afternoon. Then I went out into the countryside, and I stood there with my mouth wide open, so that the e-lectricity might run down and hit my heart and cure it of love. I stood so for an hour, and then I saw a thunderbolt a-coming, and I dodged my mouth right under it, and—bang!—it went clear down my throat! My land! It was as if a whole tribe of buffaloes was kicking inside my bowels. My heart spun around amongst my insides like a grindstone going by steam, but the lightning went dear through me and tore my trousers dean off as it come out t’other end.
“I had a mighty sore gizzard for two weeks afterward, and my innards was so hot that I used to eat raw vittles and they would be cooked before they got fairly down my throat.
“But that-there e-lectricity plumb did the job—for I ain’t never felt love since.”
While this crude backwoods “yarn”—with its unseemly emphasis on alimentary processes—struck me as entirely unsuitable for the dinner table, it elicited a lively, not to say intemperate, display of amusement from both Muddy and Sissy. At length—their hilarity having subsided—our guest sat forward in his chair, delivered a resounding slap to one knee, and declared: “Well now, ladies, I reckon I’ve done enough jabbering for one night.” Turning to gaze directly at Sissy, he said: “Miz Virginny, it would make me happier than a dog with two tails to hear you sing for a spell.”
Sissy clapped her hands excitedly. “Goody!” she cried. “Come!” Then—springing from her seat—she hurried from the kitchen.
Crockett, Muddy, and I rose from the table and proceeded into the parlor, where Sissy had already stationed herself in the center of the room. While Crockett lowered himself into the solitary easy chair positioned by the fireplace, Muddy and I arranged ourselves on the little settee. No sooner had we taken our places than Sissy—her delicate white hands clasped before her bosom and her sweet, seraphic countenance positively lustrous with excitement—announced her intention to commence with the engaging ditty, “We’re on Our Way to Baltimore.” Raising her eyes heavenward, she parted her lips and began to sing:
“We’re on our way to Baltimore,
With two behind and two before,
Around, around, around we go,
Where oats, peas, beans, and barley grow,
In waiting for somebody!
“’Tis thus the farmer sows his seed,
Folds his arms and takes his ease,
Stamps his feet and claps his hands,
Wheels around and thus he stands,
In waiting for somebody!”
As the rollicking melody poured from the darling maiden’s white and surpassingly shapely throat—filling the room with sounds unlike any ever heard by mortal ears in the mere sublunary realm—I could feel my extreme agitation of spirit begin to abate. Such was the intensely soothing effect of Sissy’s unearthly vocalizations that—however often I had listened in wonder to the wildly melodic rhapsodies that issued from her lips—they never failed to have a deliciously palliative, if not actively sedative, effect upon my soul.
No sooner had she completed the ditty than Sissy—after acknowledging our applause with a charming curtsy—embarked upon another song—then another—and another—until it became evident that we were to be treated to her entire musical repertoire. Very gradually—while Crockett clapped his hands and stamped his feet to the rhythm of each separate number—Sissy’s ineffable rendition of such standards as “Home, Daughter, Home,” “Green Willow,” and “The Butcher Boy” induced within my soul a condition not unlike that experienced by the confirmed user of opium who—having indulged to excess in his habitual vice—sinks into a profound, if not entirely disagreeable, trance.
