Nevermore, page 20
I nodded in the affirmative.
“But what in tarnation does all this dad-blasted business have to do with her?”
“That, Colonel Crockett, is precisely what I intend to find out.”
Declaring that he was feeling “dog-tired,” Crocked: took his leave soon afterwards—though not before we had resolved upon a course of action. From my earlier perusal of the newspaper clipping, I had already determined that, among the eminent Baltimoreans identified in the review, only one now remained alive: Mrs. Henrietta Nicodemus, whose late husband, Josiah, had made a considerable fortune as the owner of a large fleet of merchant vessels, following a singularly adventurous career as the captain of the brig Grampus. The aged widow, who remained a prominent figure in Baltimore’s flourishing social scene, resided in baronial splendor in one of the city’s most fashionable districts. It was this magnificent residence—and the elderly (though still-vital) personage who inhabited it—that the frontiersman and I proposed to visit on the morrow.
After bidding me good-night—and enjoining me to tell Muddy and Sissy that the evening had been a “regular slam-whanger”—Crockett departed. No sooner had I locked the front door behind him than, returning to my study, I began to pace rapidly about the floor, my soul in a state of extreme and unbridled agitation.
Throughout the course of our dinner party, I, like Crockett, had managed to keep my anxieties at bay. Now that I was alone—the frontiersman having departed, Muddy and Sissy asleep in their chambers—these forcibly suppressed emotions returned with an overpowering intensity. Especially unnerving was the memory of the anomalous female being, whose uncanny countenance (a precise description of which I had deliberately withheld from Crockett) filled me with even greater feelings of foreboding and dread than the fearfully mutilated visage of the murder victim.
All at once, as I circumambulated the floor for the dozenth time, my gaze fell upon the volume that had so riveted my interest when I had discovered it among the books sent to me for review by my employer, Mr. Thomas White. It lay atop a stack of papers on a corner of my writing table, where I had left it the previous afternoon. I refer to the remarkable study by the German scholar Heinrich Maelzel, Curious Beliefs and Peculiar Customs among the Savage Peoples of Melanesia.
Seating myself at my desk, I snatched up this volume and quickly searched through its pages until I came upon the passage that had impressed me so forcibly the previous afternoon, during my initial examination of the book. The section in question, which I had underscored in pencil, read as follows:
Among the myriad superstitions that beset the mind of the Fijiian islander, perhaps none is more striking than his deeply rooted conviction that his shadow is a living entity, possessed of the power to detach itself from its owner and travel abroad on its own mysterious—and not infrequently sinister—errands. Such a phenomenon most often occurs in the night-time, when a person is asleep, although—under certain conditions—the shadow may take temporary leave of its owner even during broad daylight.
Once separated from its owner, this spectral being may assume human shape. According to the beliefs of these savages, such an entity will be a kind of mirror reflection of the original: left-handed where the owner is right, cunning where the owner is guileless, etc. (Indeed, it may even appear as a being of the opposite sex.) Thus disguised, it is at liberty to move freely throughout the world, engaging in behavior of the most immoral and even atrocious kind—in bestial violence, implacable vengeance, or vulgar sensuality: behavior which is utterly forbidden to (though perhaps secretly desired by) its owner.
In this way, the shadow can be viewed as the manifestation of those diabolical impulses so deeply buried within the bosom of its owner that even he is unaware of their existence. Thus is he able to perpetrate the most hideous deeds, while maintaining a steadfast ignorance of the evil which his own hidden longings have wrought.
The emotional effect elicited in me by this passage can scarcely be formulated in words. As I perused it again in an agony of superstitious terror, I began to quiver in every fibre of my being. Flinging down the heavy volume, I staggered to my feet and retreated to my bedchamber, where I threw myself headlong upon the mattress and endeavored to find refuge in the sweet oblivion of sleep.
But in vain! For no sooner had I shut my eyes than a grim, an appalling, vision materialized within my mind, rendering sleep an utter impossibility. It was she!—the same ghastly female being whom I had encountered on two separate occasions and whose very existence—I now believed with a certainty that caused the very marrow to chill within my bones—was intimately bound up with my own!
CHAPTER 21
Since the inception of our nation as an autonomous political entity following the War of Independence, the American citizen has always taken the deepest patriotic pride in the egalitarian principles upon which his country is founded. The redoubtable Crèvecoeur—in identifying the particular attributes that distinguish our youthful republic from the hidebound societies of the Old World—placed the utmost emphasis on the matter of comparative wealth, proclaiming that “the traveller through our districts views not the hostile castle and the haughty mansion, contrasted with the day-built hut and the miserable cabin. The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe.”
Like so many beliefs cherished by the multitude, however, this assertion of the relative economic equality permeating our society bears only a tenuous relation to the truth. To be sure, the American system is blessedly free of that privileged, aristocratical order whose preeminence stems from no other cause than the accident of birth. Nonetheless, only the most undiscerning observer could fail to perceive the extreme disparities in circumstance that characterize the classes in America. However theoretical our dedication to egalitarian ideals may be, there is quite as much practical inequality in the New World as the Old. The magnates of the Exchange do not strut less proudly in Manhattan than in London; nor are their wives and daughters more backward in supporting their pretensions. Man’s vanity—and the desire for distinction inherent in our all-too-human nature—simply cannot be altered by any merely political or legislative principle.
Indeed, it may be argued that the commercial essence of the American system renders our society even less attractive, in certain notable regards, than the aristocratical nations of Europe. For—however undeserving the nobility may be of the inordinate wealth and power that accrue to it simply by virtue of inheritance—it is nonetheless the case that, historically, men of highborn rank have always served as the primary patrons of the arts; whereas, in our own country, the possessors of wealth are, by and large, those inordinately successful members of the mercantile class devoid of the slightest appreciation of music, painting, or literature. As a result, it is the Philistine who dominates in America; while men of rare talent—I may even say genius—in the fields of literary and artistic pursuit are often reduced to die most humble, even desperate, of circumstances.
These reflections were inspired in me by my first, astonished glimpse of the remarkable Nicodemus mansion, tales of whose extravagant architectural features I had often listened to in wonder, though—until that moment—I had never had occasion to observe them at first hand.
In accordance with the arrangements we had made the night before, Colonel Crockett had arrived at Amity Street shortly after breakfast time, driving the handsome chaise so generously furnished to him by his exceedingly accommodating host. Climbing onto the seat beside the frontiersman, I had found him in freshly restored spirits, his buoyant mood undamped by die cold and constant drizzle that fell from the overhanging clouds.
Following a journey of some twenty-five minutes through the damp and cheerless streets, we arrived at our destination. Occupying almost the entirety of a city block, the Nicodemus estate was encompassed by a ponderous wall of solid brick. Crouched atop the gateposts of this lofty rampart were two carved, glowering creatures with leonine torsos, vulture wings, heads like those of snarling dragons, and the taloned legs of eagles.
Passing between these exceptionally fanciful sculptures—which loomed like the ferocious chimeras that guard the portals of ancient Near-Eastern temples—we proceeded along a curving pathway, canopied by die overspreading branches of many gigantic, gnarled trees, and at length found ourselves in a cobblestoned courtyard, gazing upward at the strange—the grotesque—the wildly idiosyncratic—exterior of the fabled house of Nicodemus.
While Crockett climbed down from the carriage and tethered the reins to an elaborately wrought hitching post, I stared in silent wonderment at the façade of this singular edifice. Its owner and principal designer, Josiah Nicodemus, had led a life of far-flung maritime adventure in his youth and early manhood, first as a cabin boy, then a common sailor, until—ascending by degrees through the ranks of third, second, and chief mate—he had at length become captain of the whaling vessel Grampus. In these various capacities he had voyaged to every part of the globe, viewing at first hand the glory that was Greece—the grandeur that was Rome—the exotic splendor of the East—the savage beauty of darkest Africa—and the paradisaical charm of the Polynesian tropics.
After retiring from the sea, Nicodemus had invested his savings in the shipbuilding trade, eventually achieving a success that surpassed his wildest hopes. Wealthy beyond measure, he had set about to construct a residence that would re-create the combined wonders of all the sights that had so bedazzled his senses in his youth. This singular ambition was realized in the remarkable building that now loomed before me, whose design was characterized by a discordant—if not utterly bizarre—juxtaposition of architectural embellishments, from medieval battlements, to Corinthian columns, to Oriental minarets, to the sort of elaborately scrolled buttresses characteristic of the Italian baroque—the entire, unparalleled combination giving to the whole an air of Arabian Nights fantasticalness, as though the building had sprung full-blown from the teeming reveries of an inordinately imaginative child.
Taken individually, each of these elements displayed a considerable degree of tasteful craftsmanship. I could not help but be impressed, for instance, by the exceedingly fine example of arabesque tilework that coveted the architrave above the main doorway, and that appeared to be modelled on the glorious mosaics embellishing the fabled tomb of Itimadud-Daula in Agra, India. The sheer profusion and inconsistency of the countless decora, however, bespoke a sensibility that was the very opposite of tasteful—i.e., one given to the most vulgar display of garish ostentation. Indeed, thought I as I contemplated the surpassingly gaudy manse, only someone entirely devoid of aesthetic sensitivity would mistake such flamboyance for true elegance and grandeur.
This reflection was confirmed only seconds later when, stepping to my side, my companion glanced upward at the extravagant façade and exclaimed: “Well, I’ll be jiggered if this-here Nicodemus lady ain’t got the bullyest place I ever struck. Makes that ol’ Asher house look as low-down as the south end of a northbound horse.”
Curbing my impulse to reply to this observation with a suitably sardonic rejoinder, I ascended the steps and pounded on the wrought-iron knocker. Seconds later, the front door was opened by a stooped and white-haired manservant, who—after giving us a slow, appraising glance—politely inquired as to our business.
“We are here to speak to Mrs. Henrietta Nicodemus about a matter of the utmost importance,” I replied “My name is Mr. Edgar Poe, and this,” I added, gesturing towards my companion, “is Colonel Crockett of Tennessee.”
The mere mention of the latter’s name elicited a singular response from the elderly servitor. His eyes seemed to protrude from their sockets, and his mouth fell open to its fullest extent.
“Colonel Crockett? You mean Davy Crockett?”
“The original ripsnorter,” said the frontiersman, crossing his arms over his brawny chest.
“Naw,” exclaimed the incredulous servant. “Can’t be!”
“It’s me for a fact,” Crockett asserted. “Tough as a hick’ry branch, savage as a meat-axe, and fierce as a Texas tornado.”
“Well dog my cats,” said the old man with a chuckle. “You two gen’mun wait right here while I go tell Miz Henrietta. Why, she’ll be fit to bust when she hears this.” So saying, he swivelled on his heels and shuffled away with a rapidity that seemed wholly anomalous in one whose grizzled head, wrinkled visage, and shrivelled frame clearly marked him as a septuagenarian.
As the elderly—if still remarkably spry—manservant vanished into the extensive interior of the Nicodemus manse, I turned to my companion and dryly remarked: “Your name, Colonel Crockett, appears to be a veritable open sesame.”
“An open what?” he replied with an expression of intense puzzlement.
I proceeded to explicate both the meaning and derivation of the phrase with a concise synopsis of the story of “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” as recorded in the celebrated collection of Arabic tales, The Thousand and One Nights, a massive, handsomely illustrated volume of which—as translated by the renowned Orientalist, Antoine Galland—had been one of the beloved divertissements of my childhood. Before I could provide my companion with anything more than a superficial conception of this work, however, the venerable manservant—still moving with an alacrity that belied his hoary age—reappeared at the doorway and beckoned us inside.
As we proceeded through the many intricate passageways and commodious chambers that formed the ground floor of the manse, I was struck by the unparalleled eccentricity of the decor, which was marked by the same wild—if fantastic—eclecticism that characterized the façade. In both the selection and arrangement of the embellishments, the evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little, if any, attention had been paid to what is technically known as keeping, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from objet to objet and rested upon none: neither upon the huge totemic carvings of the untutored inhabitants of Micronesia—nor the mummified felines of the ancient Egyptians, displayed in their ornate sarcophagi—nor the elaborately carved opium pipes of the heathen Chinese. In their sheer variety and strangeness, the multitudinous artifacts filling the house reminded me of nothing so much as the collection of rare and exotic curios to be found at the world-renowned Baltimore Museum.
At length, my companion and I were ushered into an enormous apartment, crammed, like the rest of the house, with a bizarre and promiscuous assortment of bibelots: intricately engraved walrus tusks—shells of tropical cocoa-nuts, chiselled into the form of grotesque human faces—taxidermically preserved infant alligators, arranged in whimsical poses—and much, much more. A capacious chair, or rather throne—whose rosewood arms were carved in the shape of grinning dolphin-heads—occupied one corner of the room. Seated in this imposing piece of furniture was an equally imposing, if rather unsettling, specimen of womanhood, whom I immediately took to be the very personage Crockett and I had come to interview.
She was attired in a handsome dress of dark, plum-colored satin, trimmed with black lace and ornamented with a large cameo brooch. What struck the eye of the observer, however, was not the richness of her garb but the extraordinary dimensions of her physique. To put the matter with the greatest sensitivity and tact, Mrs. Henrietta Nicodemus was a being of remarkable corpulence, with arms as meaty as a pair of smoked Virginia hams, and a row of double chins that descended like a marble staircase to the snowy vastness of her bosom. That her late husband, whose fortune had been founded in the whaling business, had taken such a woman for his wife seemed entirely apt, since her flesh appeared to be composed of the same cretaceous material to which the former ultimately owed his remarkable success—viz. that oil-rich substance commonly known as “blubber.”
Notwithstanding her unwieldy size, the widow—whose age was impossible to determine, though she could not have been younger than fifty—proved to be as agile as her wizened manservant; for, upon spying the frontiersman, she heaved her bulk from the seat and came waddling toward him with surprising celerity.
“It is you, my dear man!” she cried, gazing up at my companion with her dark, if exceptionally small and rounded eyes, which resembled nothing so much as a pair of plump little raisins embedded in a mound of bread dough. “I did not believe Toby when he said so.”
“It’s me for a certainty,” replied Crockett, gazing inquisitively at the woman. “Though I can’t rightly say that I recollect ever meeting you before.”
“You never have. And yet, I feel as though I know you as a friend, for I have been positively enthralled by your wonderful autobiography. What an adventurous life you have led! And how thrillingly you recount it in your book!”
“Why thank you, ma’am,” Crockett said with a little bow of the head. “I am right tickled to hear it.”
Scrutinizing my companion with a look of undisguised admiration, the widow continued: “You look precisely as I imagined you would—though far more fashionably dressed than I would have expected ‘The King of the Wild Frontier’ to be!”
Emitting a low chuckle, my companion replied: “Them ol’ buckskins of mine is the very thing for hunting varmints in. But they just won’t do when it comes to calling on a purty gal.”
A delighted ejaculation—not dissimilar in both volume and pitch to the distinctive cry of the North American whooping crane—erupted from the matron’s throat. “You have my express consent to keep talking, Colonel Crockett,” she exclaimed. “I could listen to your delightful ‘palaver’ all day.”
Knowing all too well how little encouragement the frontiersman required to embark on one of his interminable disquisitions—and fearing that he might misconstrue the widow’s hyperbole for a literal invitation—I hastily cleared my throat in an effort to deflect our hostess’ attention away from my companion.
