therefore, at great length, while I merely leaned back in my chair
with my eyes shut, and amused myself with munching raisins and
filliping the stems about the room. But, by-and-by, the Angel
suddenly construed this behavior of mine into contempt. He arose in
a terrible passion, slouched his funnel down over his eyes, swore a
vast oath, uttered a threat of some character which I did not
precisely comprehend, and finally made me a low bow and departed,
wishing me, in the language of the archbishop in Gil-Blas, "_beaucoup
de bonheur et un peu plus de bon sens_."
His departure afforded me relief. The _very_ few glasses of
Lafitte that I had sipped had the effect of rendering me drowsy, and
I felt inclined to take a nap of some fifteen or twenty minutes, as
is my custom after dinner. At six I had an appointment of
consequence, which it was quite indispensable that I should keep.
The policy of insurance for my dwelling house had expired the day
before; and, some dispute having arisen, it was agreed that, at six,
I should meet the board of directors of the company and settle the
terms of a renewal. Glancing upward at the clock on the
mantel-piece, (for I felt too drowsy to take out my watch), I had the
pleasure to find that I had still twenty-five minutes to spare. It
was half past five; I could easily walk to the insurance office in
five minutes; and my usual siestas had never been known to exceed
five and twenty. I felt sufficiently safe, therefore, and composed
myself to my slumbers forthwith.
Having completed them to my satisfaction, I again looked toward
the time-piece and was half inclined to believe in the possibility of
odd accidents when I found that, instead of my ordinary fifteen or
twenty minutes, I had been dozing only three; for it still wanted
seven and twenty of the appointed hour. I betook myself again to my
nap, and at length a second time awoke, when, to my utter amazement,
it _still_ wanted twenty-seven minutes of six. I jumped up to
examine the clock, and found that it had ceased running. My watch
informed me that it was half past seven; and, of course, having slept
two hours, I was too late for my appointment. "It will make no
difference," I said : "I can call at the office in the morning and
apologize; in the meantime what can be the matter with the clock ?"
Upon examining it I discovered that one of the raisin stems which I
had been filliping about the room during the discourse of the Angel
of the Odd, had flown through the fractured crystal, and lodging,
singularly enough, in the key-hole, with an end projecting outward,
had thus arrested the revolution of the minute hand.
"Ah !" said I, "I see how it is. This thing speaks for itself.
A natural accident, such as _will_ happen now and then !"
I gave the matter no further consideration, and at my usual hour
retired to bed. Here, having placed a candle upon a reading stand at
the bed head, and having made an attempt to peruse some pages of the
"Omnipresence of the Deity," I unfortunately fell asleep in less than
twenty seconds, leaving the light burning as it was.
My dreams were terrifically disturbed by visions of the Angel of
the Odd. Methought he stood at the foot of the couch, drew aside the
curtains, and, in the hollow, detestable tones of a rum puncheon,
menaced me with the bitterest vengeance for the contempt with which I
had treated him. He concluded a long harangue by taking off his
funnel-cap, inserting the tube into my gullet, and thus deluging me
with an ocean of Kirschenwässer, which he poured, in a continuous
flood, from one of the long necked bottles that stood him instead of
an arm. My agony was at length insufferable, and I awoke just in
time to perceive that a rat had ran off with the lighted candle from
the stand, but _not_ in season to prevent his making his escape with
it through the hole. Very soon, a strong suffocating odor assailed
my nostrils; the house, I clearly perceived, was on fire. In a few
minutes the blaze broke forth with violence, and in an incredibly
brief period the entire building was wrapped in flames. All egress
from my chamber, except through a window, was cut off. The crowd,
however, quickly procured and raised a long ladder. By means of this
I was descending rapidly, and in apparent safety, when a huge hog,
about whose rotund stomach, and indeed about whose whole air and
physiognomy, there was something which reminded me of the Angel of
the Odd, - when this hog, I say, which hitherto had been quietly
slumbering in the mud, took it suddenly into his head that his left
shoulder needed scratching, and could find no more convenient
rubbing-post than that afforded by the foot of the ladder. In an
instant I was precipitated and had the misfortune to fracture my arm.
This accident, with the loss of my insurance, and with the more
serious loss of my hair, the whole of which had been singed off by
the fire, predisposed me to serious impressions, so that, finally, I
made up my mind to take a wife. There was a rich widow disconsolate
for the loss of her seventh husband, and to her wounded spirit I
offered the balm of my vows. She yielded a reluctant consent to my
prayers. I knelt at her feet in gratitude and adoration. She
blushed and bowed her luxuriant tresses into close contact with those
supplied me, temporarily, by Grandjean. I know not how the
entanglement took place, but so it was. I arose with a shining pate,
wigless ; she in disdain and wrath, half buried in alien hair. Thus
ended my hopes of the widow by an accident which could not have been
anticipated, to be sure, but which the natural sequence of events had
brought about.
Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief
period; but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my
betrothed in an avenue thronged with the _élite_ of the city, I was
hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows, when a
small particle of some foreign matter, lodging in the corner of my
eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind. Before I could
recover my sight, the lady of my love had disappeared - irreparably
affronted at what she chose to consider my premeditated rudeness in
passing her by ungreeted. While I stood bewildered at the suddenness
of this accident, (which might have happened, nevertheless, to any
one under the sun), and while I still continued incapable of sight, I
was accosted by the Angel of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a
civility which I had no reason to expect. He examined my disordered
eye with much gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in
it, and (whatever a "drop" was) took it out, and afforded me relief.
I now considered it high time to die, (since fortune had so
determined to persecute me,) and accordingly made my way to the
nearest river. Here, divesting myself of my clothes, (for there is
no reason why we cannot die as we were born), I threw myself head
long
into the current; the sole witness of my fate being a solitary crow
that had been seduced into the eating of brandy-saturated corn, and
so had staggered away from his fellows. No sooner had I entered the
water than this bird took it into its head to fly away with the most
indispensable portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the
present, my suicidal design, I just slipped my nether extremities
into the sleeves of my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the
felon with all the nimbleness which the case required and its
circumstances would admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As
I ran at full speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent
only upon the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived that my
feet rested no longer upon _terra-firma_; the fact is, I had thrown
myself over a precipice, and should inevitably have been dashed to
pieces but for my good fortune in grasping the end of a long
guide-rope, which depended from a passing balloon.
As soon as I sufficiently recovered my senses to comprehend the
terrific predicament in which I stood or rather hung, I exerted all
the power of my lungs to make that predicament known to the æronaut
overhead. But for a long time I exerted myself in vain. Either the
fool could not, or the villain would not perceive me. Meantime the
machine rapidly soared, while my strength even more rapidly failed.
I was soon upon the point of resigning myself to my fate, and
dropping quietly into the sea, when my spirits were suddenly revived
by hearing a hollow voice from above, which seemed to be lazily
humming an opera air. Looking up, I perceived the Angel of the Odd.
He was leaning with his arms folded, over the rim of the car ; and
with a pipe in his mouth, at which he puffed leisurely, seemed to be
upon excellent terms with himself and the universe. I was too much
exhausted to speak, so I merely regarded him with an imploring air.
For several minutes, although he looked me full in the face, he
said nothing. At length removing carefully his meerschaum from the
right to the left corner of his mouth, he condescended to speak.
"Who pe you," he asked, "und what der teuffel you pe do dare ?"
To this piece of impudence, cruelty and affectation, I could
reply only by ejaculating the monosyllable "Help !"
"Elp !" echoed the ruffian - "not I. Dare iz te pottle - elp
yourself, und pe tam'd !"
With these words he let fall a heavy bottle of Kirschenwasser
which, dropping precisely upon the crown of my head, caused me to
imagine that my brains were entirely knocked out. Impressed with
this idea, I was about to relinquish my hold and give up the ghost
with a good grace, when I was arrested by the cry of the Angel, who
bade me hold on.
"Old on !" he said; "don't pe in te urry - don't. Will you pe
take de odder pottle, or ave you pe got zober yet and come to your
zenzes ?"
I made haste, hereupon, to nod my head twice - once in the
negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the other
bottle at present - and once in the affirmative, intending thus to
imply that I _was_ sober and _had_ positively come to my senses. By
these means I somewhat softened the Angel.
"Und you pelief, ten," he inquired, "at te last ? You pelief,
ten, in te possibilty of te odd ?"
I again nodded my head in assent.
"Und you ave pelief in _me_, te Angel of te Odd ?"
I nodded again.
"Und you acknowledge tat you pe te blind dronk and te vool ?"
I nodded once more.
"Put your right hand into your left hand preeches pocket, ten, in
token ov your vull zubmizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd."
This thing, for very obvious reasons, I found it quite impossible
to do. In the first place, my left arm had been broken in my fall
from the ladder, and, therefore, had I let go my hold with the right
hand, I must have let go altogether. In the second place, I could
have no breeches until I came across the crow. I was therefore
obliged, much to my regret, to shake my head in the negative -
intending thus to give the Angel to understand that I found it
inconvenient, just at that moment, to comply with his very reasonable
demand ! No sooner, however, had I ceased shaking my head than -
"Go to der teuffel, ten !" roared the Angel of the Odd.
In pronouncing these words, he drew a sharp knife across the
guide-rope by which I was suspended, and as we then happened to be
precisely over my own house, (which, during my peregrinations, had
been handsomely rebuilt,) it so occurred that I tumbled headlong down
the ample chimney and alit upon the dining-room hearth.
Upon coming to my senses, (for the fall had very thoroughly
stunned me,) I found it about four o'clock in the morning. I lay
outstretched where I had fallen from the balloon. My head grovelled
in the ashes of an extinguished fire, while my feet reposed upon the
wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the fragments of a
miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a newspaper, some broken
glass and shattered bottles, and an empty jug of the Schiedam
Kirschenwasser. Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd.
[Mabbott states that Griswold "obviously had a revised form" for use
in the 1856 volume of Poe's works. Mabbott does not substantiate this
claim, but it is surely not unreasonable. An editor, and even
typographical errors, may have produced nearly all of the very minor
changes made in this version. (Indeed, two very necessary words were
clearly dropped by accident.) An editor might have corrected
"Wickliffe's 'Epigoniad' " to "Wilkie's 'Epigoniad'," but is unlikely
to have added "Tuckerman's 'Sicily' " to the list of books read by
the narrator. Griswold was not above forgery (in Poe's letters) when
it suited his purpose, but would have too little to gain by such an
effort in this instance.]
~~~ End of Text ~~~
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MELLONTA TAUTA
TO THE EDITORS OF THE LADY'S BOOK:
I have the honor of sending you, for your magazine, an article which
I hope you will be able to comprehend rather more distinctly than I
do myself. It is a translation, by my friend, Martin Van Buren Mavis,
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 127