The Complete Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe. Эдгар Аллан По
among its leaves with most portentous velocity.
“I am in no hurry, Signor Pedro,” whispered a soft voice in the apartment.
“The devil!” ejaculated our hero, starting from his seat, upsetting the alabaster stand, and looking around him in astonishment.
“Very true!” calmly replied the voice.
“Very true! — What is very true? — How came you here?” vociferated the metaphysician, as his eye fell upon a man with singularly thin features, who lay, at full length, upon an ottoman in a corner of the chamber.
“I was saying,” continued the figure, without replying to Pedro’s interrogatories, “I was saying that I am in no hurry — that the business upon which I took the liberty of calling is of minor importance — that I can wait until you have finished your Exposition.”
“My Exposition! How do you know I am writing an Exposition? Good God!”
“Hush!” replied the figure in a shrill undertone; and, arising from the settee, he made a step towards our hero, while the arabesque lamp suddenly ceased its convulsive swinging and became motionless.
The philosopher’s amazement did not prevent a narrow scrutiny of the stranger’s dress and appearance. The outlines of a figure much above the common standard were blurred and rendered indefinite by the huge folds of a black Roman toga. Above his left ear he carried, after the fashion of a modern scribe, an instrument resembling the stylus of the ancients; and, from his left arm, depended a crimson bag of a material totally unknown to our hero, being luminous. There was another article of habiliment equally a mystery to the patrician. The toga, being left open at the throat, displayed the neatly folded cravat and starched shirt-collar of 1832. All these things excited little of Pedro’s attention; for his antiquarian eye had fallen upon the sandals of the intruder, and he recognised therein the exact pattern of those worn before the flood, as given, with minute accuracy, in the Ptolemaiad of the Rabbi Vathek.
I find, upon looking over certain archives in Venice, that “Garcia, the metaphysician, was an exceedingly little, yet pugnacious man.” Accordingly, when his visitor drew a chair close by the huge bowed window that looked out upon the sea, our hero silently followed his example.
“A clever book that of yours, Pedro,” said the stranger, tapping our friend, knowingly, upon the shoulder.
Pedro stared.
“It is a work after my own heart,” continued the former, “I suppose you knew Confucius.”
Our hero’s amazement redoubled.
A sad set of fools now-a-days I tell you. Philosophy is a mere trumpery. O, nous estin autos, as some one very justly observed, meaning ‘auyos.’ But, to tell the truth, it was very little better at any time. The fact is, Garcia,” here the stranger’s voice dropped to a whisper, “men know nothing about these matters. Your doctrines, however, come nearer to the point than any with which I am acquainted. I like your doctrines, Signor Pedro, and have come a long way to tell you so.”
The philosopher’s eyes sparkled, and he fumbled, in great haste, among the rubbish on the floor, for his overthrown MSS. Having found it, he took, from an ivory escrutoire, a flask of the delightful wine of Sauterne, and placing them, with the sable-bound volume, on the alabaster stand, wheeled it before the visitor, and reseated himself at his elbow.
Here, if the reader should wish to know why our hero troubled himself to place upon the stand any thing so ominous as that book in sable binding, I reply that Pedro Garcia was, by no means, a fool; no man ever accused him of being a fool. He had, accordingly, very soon arrived at the conclusion that his knowing friend was neither more nor less than his August and Satanic Majesty. Now, although persons of greater height have been frightened at less serious circumstances, and although under certain dispensations of Providence (such as the visitation of a spider, a rat, or a physician) Pedro did not always evince the philosopher, yet fear of the devil never once entered his imagination. — To tell the truth, he was rather gratified, than otherwise, at a visit from a gentleman whom he so highly respected. He flattered himself with spending an agreeable hour; and it was with the air of being ‘up to snuff’ that he accommodated his visitor with a volume best suited to his acquirements and literary taste.
“But I must say,” continued the stranger, without noticing Pedro’s arrangements, “I must say that, upon some points, you are wrong, my friend, wrong; totally out, as that rogue Sanconiathon used to say — ha! ha! ha! — poor Sanconiathon!”
“Pray, sir, how old — may — you — call yourself?” inquired the metaphysician, with a cut of his eye.
“Old? Sir? Eh? Oh! a mere trifle. As I was saying, you have certain very outre notions in that book of yours. Now, what do you mean by all that humbug about the soul? Pray, sir, what is the soul?”
“The soul,” replied Pedro, referring to his MSS., “is undoubtedly —”
“No, sir!”
“Indubitably —”
“No, sir!”
“Evidently —”
“No, sir!”
“And beyond all question —”
“No, sir! — the soul is no such thing.”
“Then what is it?”
“That is neither here nor there, Signor Pedro,” replied the stranger, musing, “I have tasted — that is I mean I have known some very bad souls and some pretty good ones.”
Here the stranger licked his lips; and having, unconsciously, let fall his hand upon the sable volume, was seized with a violent fit of sneezing upon which our hero, reaching his common-place book, inserted the follow memorandum: —
N. B. — Divorum inferorum cachinnatio sternutamentis mortalium verisimillima est.
The stranger continued. “There was the soul of Cratinus — passable! Aristophanes — racy! Plato — exquisite! Not your Plato, but Plato the comic poet — your Plato would have turned the stomach of Cerberus — faugh! Then — let me see — there were Catullus, and Naso, and Plautus, and Quinty — dear Quinty, as I called him when he sung a ‘seculare’ for my amusement, while I toasted him good-humouredly on a fork. But they want flavour, these Romans, one fat Greek is worth a dozen of them, and, besides, will keep, which cannot be said of a Quirite. — Terence, however, was an exception — firm as an Esquimaux, and juicy as a German — the very recollection of the dog makes my mouth water. — Let us taste your Sauterne.”
Our hero had, by this time, made up his mind to the ‘nil admirari,’ and merely filled his visitor’s glass. He was, however, conscious of a strange sound in the chamber, like the wagging of a tail, but of this he took no notice, simply kicking the large water-dog that lay asleep under his chair, and requesting him to be quiet. — The stranger proceeded.
“But, if I have a penchant, Signor Pedro, if I have a penchant, it is for a philosopher. Yet let me tell you, sir, it is not every dev — I mean every gentleman who knows how to choose a philosopher. Long ones are not good, and the best, if not very carefully shelled, are apt to be a little rancid on account of the gall.
“Shelled?”
“I mean taken out of the body.”
“What do you think of a physician?”
“Don’t mention them,” here the stranger retched violently, “ugh! I never tried but one, that rascal — (ugh!) — Hippocrates. Smelt of asafetida — (ugh! ugh!) — took particular pains with the villain too — caught a wretched cold washing him in the Styx — and, after all, he gave me the cholera morbus.”
“The wretch! the abortion of a pill box!” ejaculated Pedro, dropping a tear, and, reaching another bottle of Sauterne, he swallowed three bumpers in rapid succession. The stranger followed his example.
“After all, Signor Pedro,” said he,