Натаниель Готорн - The Devil in Manuscript and Other Tales of Forbidden Books

“It came while I was at lunch,” he explained. “You told me that you’d be home for dinner, so I signed the book for you.”

“I’m much obliged,” I answered, drying my hands. “It’s probably from Mrs. Dyer. She’s been pestering, me to death about having her portrait finished before Christmas. This will be her third telegram.”

“It must be a wonderful feeling to know that one is so necessary to society at large,” Rupert said unpleasantly. “You’re a lucky dog, Smithers. But I’ve got to be going. Drop in and see me when art’s not beckoning.”

I made a rather careful toilet before I opened the yellow envelope. Telegrams were no novelty to me. I had learned by bitter experience that a certain class of women send them with no more urgent reason than so many children scribbling notes behind their teacher’s back.

At last I strode back into the studio where the red light from the setting sun touched one of the canvases as though with fire. Striding to the window, I tore open the telegram and glanced at it. The next instant it fluttered from my hand to the floor.

“Good God!” I muttered.

Unconsciously I looked down at the piece of yellow paper which lay in a band of crimson light that seemed to stain it as though with blood. The black letters leaped up from it into my brain. Once more I read their purport:

Paul is dead. Am bringing him home on the four-fifteen. Martin.

“Paul is dead,” I repeated. But it meant nothing to me then—nothing! It seemed as impossible as the wildest dream. Like a tongue-tied actor attempting to make his lines clear and convincing, I repeated those few words over and over again: “Paul is dead—Paul is dead.”

But still that thin partition standing between me and the realization of the truth, resisted the dull pounding of those hammer-like words. And suddenly a brain numbing fear stole over me, a fear that I could never be more than a puppet which had been wound up to repeat endlessly that meaningless phrase: “Paul is dead.”

“Come now!” I told myself. “You must make yourself realize what this telegram means. You must suffer. It is right that you should suffer. Other men would suffer in your place. Can you not understand? Paul is dead!”

But still that thin partition was standing bravely against those hammer-like words. And wonderingly, fearfully, like a child in the dark, I looked out over the city.

The sun was slowly setting far away over those dingy housetops which were like uneven stepping-stones above the murmur of a brook. The sky hung over them like a sea of blood dotted here and there with floating islands of ice. Somewhere in the distance the shrill voice of a siren drifted, melancholy, forlorn, tearing its way like a projectile through a muttering multitude of other sounds. Surely it was pain incarnate—pain which I sought and which evaded me.

And as I gazed wonderingly at the passionate sky, a thought edged its way into my benumbed brain. Surely it was after five o’clock. What was it that this yellow, wrinkled piece of paper at my feet warned me of? Something which Martin was bringing home on the four-fifteen. It was already an hour past that time. But what was this inanimate thing of which he spoke? Why, it was Paul—my brother Paul, dead, already cold—Paul who had joked and laughed with me, who had fought and forgiven me—Paul!

And like a weary swimmer who has dived from a high cliff into the sea, slowly true realization fought its way up through the dark depths. I was no longer a mere puppet, squeaking a meaningless phrase. Pain was born in an instant—blinding, unbearable pain.

Paul was dead! I, who had known him so intimately, who had loved him so dearly, realized that fully now. Striding to and fro, quite careless of the furniture which stood in my way, hearing nothing, seeing nothing, knowing nothing but this unforgettable fact, I was driven back and forth by the painful lash of memory like a wild animal in its cage.

I do not know how long I wandered aimlessly about the room. Suddenly I was brought to normal consciousness by loud knocking on the studio door.

“Come in,” I muttered. “Come in.”

The door opened and Martin strode swiftly into the room. In spite of my abnormal mental condition, I could not help noticing his altered appearance. The man seemed to have grown years older in those few short days. His face was heavily lined and as gray as a death’s head; the whites of his eyes were threaded with tiny crimson veins as though from prolonged weeping; and his voice was as hoarse as the cawing of a crow.

“How’s this?” he asked. “Didn’t you get my telegram?”

I pointed mutely to where it lay on the floor and once more began to pace the room.

“Well, why didn’t you meet me?” he cried angrily. “But it’s like you to dodge all your responsibilities!”

“Where is Paul?” I asked dully.

“I’ve had him taken to his apartment. Go there and you’ll find him.”

“I’ll go right away,” I said weakly. “Wait till I get my hat.”

“Don’t yqu want to know how he was killed?” he cried in a kind of rage. “I bring your only brother home dead and you treat the whole affair as a matter of course! Why, common curiosity should prompt you to ask a few questions!”

“You don’t understand me, Martin,” I said with a brave attempt at dignity. “What do I care about such details now? He’s dead—that’s all I care to know. Later, perhaps. Poor old Paul! If I’d gone with him”

But Martin interrupted me with a quick, authoritative gesture. “Listen, Smithers,” he ordered. “It happened this way: Our guide had a gallon of whisky. Paul began drinking again heavily. You know how it was when the stuff was in reach; he simply couldn’t resist it. I tried to reason with him, but it wasn’t any use. After the whisky was all gone, he had an attack of melancholia. You remember how depressed he used to get after a drinking bout at college?”

“Yes,” I muttered.

“Well, this time it was far worse. He refused to be dragged out of the depths. One night the guide and I awoke with the sound of a gunshot in our ears. We ran out of the cabin to find Paul lying on the ground.”

“Dead?”

“I should think so!” Martin answered brutally. “Why, he had a hole in his side that you could stick your arm into!”

The coroner bore out Martin’s statement in regard to Paul’s death. There was no doubt that the poor fellow, suffering from acute melancholia, had taken his own life. Tying a piece of string about the trigger of his shotgun, he had leaned his weight upon the muzzle and discharged it by pressing his foot down hard upon the loose, dangling cord. His death must have been almost instantaneous. The heavy buckshot had ripped its way through his heart.

My mother was prostrated by the news. Ever since father’s death she had been in poor health, and this was the last straw. On the day of the funeral she was so weak that the doctor refused to allow her to leave her bed. I was the only member of the family to attend the solemn ceremony. But Wilbur Huntington, although he knew Paul only slightly, was kind enough to accompany me.

It was one of those dismal days in late autumn, I remember—a day when all nature is solemn, melancholy, as though mourning for the wasteful abandonment of her youth. A gray drizzle of rain was falling which seemed to curtain us off from the outer world. Like strange, solemn ships, the funeral procession drifted slowly toward its goal.

Our snail’s pace through the glistening streets grated on my overtaxed nerves. I had a wild impulse to shout to the man on the box, to order him to whip up his horses and drive us faster.

Suddenly Huntington’s voice broke in upon my thoughts. “When a man takes a bitter dose of medicine, he takes it in a hurry. He doesn’t sip it for the taste, does he?”