Matthew Pearl - The Poe Shadow

When a period was put to this poem, I felt triumphant. There reached my ears thinly scattered applause, drowned out by a few coughs. Peter frowned at me, and simultaneously threw a pitying glance at Hattie. Only a few guests who had not been listening, but were pleased for any distraction, seemed appreciative. Hattie still applauded after all the others had stopped.

"It is the finest recitation ever spoken on a girl's birthday," she said.

Soon, one of Hattie's sisters agreed to sing a song at the piano. Meanwhile, I'd taken more wine. Peter's frown, which had quivered into place during the recitation of the poem, remained fixed when, after the ladies excused themselves to another room and the men began smoking, he brought me to a private corner where the massive hearth sequestered us.

"Do you know, Quentin, that Hattie came quite close to not wanting to celebrate her birthday tonight, and relented at the last moment upon my insistence on a supper?"

"Not because of me, Peter?"

"How could someone who thinks so much of the world depends on him not see what does depend on him? You did not even remember it was her birthday. It is time to stop, Quentin. Remember the words of Solomon: ‘By slothfulness the building decayeth, by idleness of the hands the house droppeth through.'"

"I don't know what you're driving at," I said irritably.

He looked straight at me. "You know well enough! This queer behavior. First, your strange preoccupation with a stranger's funeral. And riding the omnibuses back and forth without destination like a gadabout-"

"But who told you that, Peter?"

And there was more, he said. I had been seen running through the streets a week earlier, my dress out at the elbows, chasing someone like I was a police officer making an arrest. I had continued to spend inordinate amounts of time in the athenaeum.

"Then there is the idea of imagining strangers are threatening you on the streets for the poems you read. Do you think your reading is so important that people would harm you for it? And you wandering around the old Presbyterian burial ground like a pretty resurrection man looking for bodies to steal, or like a man who walks under a spell!"

"Hold on," I said, regaining my composure. "How do you know that, Peter? That I was at that old burial ground the other day? I am certain I hadn't mentioned it." I thought of the carriage hurrying away from the burial yard. "Why, Peter! Was it you? You followed me!"

He nodded and then shrugged. "Yes, I followed you. And found you at that cemetery. I confess openly I have been most anxious. I wanted to be certain you were not involved in some trouble or that you hadn't joined some cracked Millerites, waiting in white robes somewhere for the Savior to descend from heaven two Tuesdays from now! Your father's money will not last forever. To be rich and useless is to be poor. If you are occupied in strange habits, I fear you will find ways to squander it-or that some woman, some lesser member of the kinder sex than Miss Blum, by the bye, finding you in such a lonely state, will squander it for you-even a man with the strength of Ulysses must fasten himself to his mast when facing the artful woman!"

"Why would you leave that flower at his grave?" I demanded. "To mock me?"

" Flower? What do you mean? By the time I found where you had gone, you were kneeling on the grave, as though praying before some idol. That's all I saw, and it was enough. Flower-do you think I have time for such things!"

On this point, I could not help but believe him, as he truly sounded as though he had never heard the word "flower" before or beheld one. "And did you send that man to me? That warning not to meddle. To try to dissuade me from my interests outside the office? Tell me at once!"

"Absurd! Quentin, listen to your own flat nonsense before they send for a straitjacket! Everyone understood you needed time after what happened. Your depression of spirits was…" He looked away from me for a moment. "But it has been six months." Actually, it had been five months and one week since my parents had been laid to rest. "You must think of all this, beginning now, or…" He never finished this statement, only nodded with decision to impress the point. "It's that other world you're fighting against."

"The ‘other world,' Peter?"

"You think me at odds with you. But I tried to gain greater sympathy with you, Quentin. I sought out a book of tales by that Poe. I read half of one tale-but I could go no further. It seemed…" Here he lowered to a confessional whisper. "It seemed as I read that God was dead to me, Quentin. Yes, it's that other world that I worry about for you-that world of books and bookmen who invade the minds that read them. That imaginary world. No, this is where you belong. These are your class, serious and sober people. Your society. Your father said that the idler and the melancholy man shall ever wander together in a moral desert."

"I know what my father would say!" I protested. "He was my father, Peter! Do you not think I keep a memory of him as strong as yours?"

Peter glanced away. He seemed embarrassed by the question, as though I was challenging his very existence, though in fact I sincerely wished to know his answer. "You have been like a brother to me," he said. "I mean only to see you contented."

A gentleman obliviously interrupted us, ending our discussion. I refused his offer of tobacco, but I did take a glass of warm apple-toddy. Peter was right. Unspeakably right.

My parents had given me a post in society, but it was now my place to earn its luxuries and fine associations. What dangerous restlessness had I been dandling! It was to be able to enjoy the comforts and delights of good circles that I labored at our law practice. To enjoy the company of a lady like Hattie, who never failed as a friend and a steady influence. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds-friendly sounds of contentment, which cordially surrounded me from every side and drowned out my riotous thoughts. In here people knew themselves, and never doubted for a moment that they understood the others around them and that they themselves were perfectly understood in return.

When Hattie returned to the room, I signaled her to come to me. To her surprise, right away I took her by the hand and kissed it, then kissed her cheek in front of everyone. The guests one by one fell silent.

" You know me," I whispered to her.

"Quentin! Are you unwell? Your hands feel warm."

"Hattie, you've known my feelings for you, whatever those who babble about me say, haven't you? Haven't you always known me, though they gape and simper? You know I am honorable, that I love you, that I loved equally yesterday and today."

She took my hand in hers and a thrill ran through me to see her so happy merely by a few honest words from me. "You've loved me yesterday and today. Tomorrow, Quentin?"

At eleven o'clock on this night, her twenty-third birthday, Hattie accepted my marriage proposal with a simple nod. The match was declared suitable by all present. Peter's smile was as wide as anyone's; he forgot entirely about his rough words to me, and more than once he took credit for the arrangement.