The skullface feebly shifted its position to meet his gaze.
The man managed to speak, moaningly:
“Useless. I can't move—unless she lets me. Her eyes keep
me here—half alive. I'd have died long ago, but somehow—”
Poe thought of a wretched spider, paralyzed by the sting
of a mud wasp, lying helpless in its captive's close den until
the hour of feeding comes. He bent down, holding his blaz-
ing tinder close. He could see Gauber's neck, and it was a
mass of tiny puncture wounds, some of them still beaded
with blood drops fresh or dried. He winced, but bode firm
in his purpose.
“Let me guess the truth,” he said quickly. “Your wife was
brought home from the grave, came back to a seeming of
life. She put a spell on you, or played a trick—made you a
helpless prisoner. That isn't contrary to nature, that last.
I've studied mesmerism.”
“It's true,” John Gauber mumbled.
“And nightly she comes to drink your blood?”
Gauber weakly nodded. “Yes. She was beginning just
now, but ran upstairs. She will be coming back.”
“Good,” said Poe bleakly. “Perhaps she will come back to
more than she expects. Have you ever heard of vampires?
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
9 9
Probably not, but I have studied them, too. I began to
guess, I think, when first she was so repelled by the odor of
garlic. Vampires lie motionless by day, and walk and feed at
night. They are creatures of the moon—their food is blood.
Come.״
Poe broke off, put out his light, and lifted the man in his
arms. Gauber was as light as a child. The writer carried him
to the slanting shelter of the closed-in staircase, and there
set him against the wall. Over him Poe spread his old
cadet cloak. In the gloom, the gray of the cloak harmonized
with the gray of the wall stones. The poor fellow would be
well hidden.
Next Poe flung off his coat, waistcoat, and shirt. Heaping
his clothing in a deeper shadow of the stairway, he stood up,
stripped to the waist. His skin was almost as bloodlessly pale
as Gauber s, his chest and arms almost as gaunt. He dared
believe that he might pass momentarily for the unfortunate
man.
The cellar sprang full of light again. The cloud must be
passing from the moon. Poe listened. There was a dragging
sound above, then footsteps.
Elva Gauber, the blood drinker by night, had revived.
Now for it. Poe hurried to the niche, thrust himself in,
and pulled the trap door shut after him.
He grinned, sharing a horrid paradox with the blackness
around him. He had heard all the fabled ways of destroy-
ing vampires—transfixing stakes, holy water, prayer, fire.
But he, Edgar Allan Poe, had evolved a new way. Myriads
of tales whispered frighteningly of fiends lying in wait for
normal men, but who ever heard of a normal man lying in
wait for a fiend? Well, he had never considered himself
normal, in spirit, or brain, or taste.
He stretched out, feet together, hands crossed on his bare
midriff. Thus it would be in the tomb, he found himself
thinking. To his mind came a snatch of poetry by a man
named Bryant, published long ago in a New England review
1 0 0
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
—Breathless darkness, and the narrow house. It was breath-
less and dark enough in this hole, heaven knew, and narrow
as well. He rejected, almost hysterically, the implication of
being buried. To break the ugly spell, which daunted him
where thought of Elva Gauber failed, he turned sideways to
face the wall, his naked arm lying across his cheek and
temple.
As his ear touched the musty bedding, it brought to him
once again the echo of footsteps, footsteps descending
stairs. They were rhythmic, confident. They were eager.
Elva Gauber was coming to seek again her interrupted
repast.
Now she was crossing the floor. She did not pause or turn
aside—she had not noticed her husband, lying under the
cadet cloak in the shadow of the stairs. The noise came
straight to the trap door, and he heard her fumbling for the
latch.
Light, blue as skimmed milk, poured into his nook. A
shadow fell in the midst of it, full upon him. His imagina־
tion, ever outstripping reality, whispered that the shadow
had weight, like lead—oppressive, baleful.
"John,״ said the voice of Elva Gauber in his ear, “I've
come back. You know why—you know what for.״ Her voice
sounded greedy, as though it came through loose, trembling
lips. “You re my only source of strength now. I thought to־
night, that a stranger—but he got away. He had a cursed
odor about him, anyway.״
Her hand touched the skin of his neck. She was prodding
him, like a butcher fingering a doomed beast.
“Don’t hold yourself away from me, John,״ she was com-
manding, in a voice of harsh mockery. “You know it w o n t
do any good. This is the night of the full moon, and I have
power for anything, anything!״ She was trying to drag his
arm away from his face. “You won't gain by—״ She broke
off, aghast. Then, in a wild dry-throated scream:
“You’re not Johnl”
THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
101
Poe whipped over on his back, and his bird-claw hands
shot out and seized her—one hand clinching upon her snaky
disorder of dark hair, the other digging its fingertips into the
chill flesh of her arm.
The scream quivered away into a horrible breathless
rattle. Poe dragged his captive violently inward, throwing
all his collected strength into the effort. Her feet were
jerked from the floor and she flew into the recess, hurtling
above and beyond Poe’s recumbent body. She struck the
inner stones with a crashing force that might break bones,
and would have collapsed upon Poe; but, at the same mo-
ment, he had released her and slid swiftly out upon the floor
of the cellar.
W ith frantic haste he seized the edge of the back-flung
trap door. Elva Gauber struggled up on hands and knees,
among the tumbled bedclothes in the niche; then Poe had
slammed the panel shut.
She threw herself against it from within, yammering and
wailing like an animal in a trap. She was almost as strong as
he, and for a moment he thought that she would win out of
the niche. But, sweating and wheezing, he bore against the
planks with his shoulder, bracing his feet against the earth.
His fingers found the latch, lifted it, forced it into place.
“Dark,״ moaned Elva Gauber from inside. “Dark—no
moon—״ Her voice trailed off.
Poe went to the muddy pool in the comer, thrust in his
hands. The muck was slimy but workable. He pushed a
double handful of it against the trap door, sealing cracks
and edges. Another handful, another. Using his p
alms like
trowels, he coated the boards with thick mud.
“Gauber,״ he said breathlessly,
“All right—I think.״ The voice was strangely strong and
clear. Looking over his shoulder, Poe saw that Gauber had
come upright of himself, still pale but apparently steady.
“What are you doing?״ Gauber asked.
1 0 2
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
"Walling her up,” jerked out Poe, scooping still more
mud. "Walling her up forever, with her devil.״
He had a momentary flash of inspiration, a symbolic germ
of a story; in it a man sealed a woman into such a nook of the
wall, and with her an embodiment of active evil—perhaps
in the form of a black cat.
Pausing at last to breathe deeply, he smiled to himself.
Even in the direst of danger, the most heartbreaking mo-
ment of toil and fear, he must ever be coining new plots for
stories.
"I cannot thank you enough,״ Gauber was saying to him.
"I feel that all will be well—if only she stays there.״
Poe put his ear to the wall. “Not a whisper of motion, sir.
She’s shut off from moonlight—from life and power. Can you
help me with my clothes? I feel terribly chilled.״
His mother-in-law met him on the threshold when he
returned to the house in Spring Garden Street. Under the
white widow’s cap, her strong-boned face was drawn with
worry.
"Eddie, are you ill?” She was really asking if he had been
drinking. A look reassured her. "No,” she answered herself,
"but you’ve been away from home so long. And you’re dirty,
Eddie—filthy. You must wash.”
He let her lead him in, pour hot water into a basin. As he
scrubbed himself, he formed excuses, a banal lie about a
long walk for inspiration, a moment of dizzy weariness, a
stumble into a mud puddle.
"I’ll make you some nice hot coffee, Eddie,” his mother-in-
law offered.
"Please,” he responded, and went back to his room with
the slate mantelpiece. Again he lighted the candle, sat down,
and took up his pen.
His mind was embellishing the story inspiration that had
come to him at such a black moment, in the cellar of the
Gauber house. He’d work on that tomorrow. The United
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
IO 3
States Saturday Post would take it, he hoped. Title? He
would call it simply “The Black Cat.”
But to finish the present task! He dipped his pen in ink.
How to begin? How to end? How, after writing and publish-
ing such an account, to defend himself against the growing
whisper of his insanity?
He decided to forget it, if he could—at least to seek
healthy company, comfort, quiet—perhaps even to write
some light verse, some humorous articles and stories. For
the first time in his fife, he had had enough of the macabre.
Quickly he wrote a final paragraph:
There are moments when, even to the sober eye of
Reason, the world of our sad Humanity may assume
the semblance of a Hell—but the imagination of man is no
Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern. Alas!
The grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded
as altogether fanciful—but, like the Demons in whose
company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they
must sleep, or they will devour us—they must be suffered
to slumber, or we will perish.
That would do for the public, decided Edgar Allan Poe.
In any case, it would do for the Philadelphia Dollar News-
paper.
His mother-in-law brought in the coffee.
THE M A N WHO COLLECTED POE
The possibilities of what Edgar Allan Poe might have written had he
lived even a few more years continues to haunt most students of
literature. It is humanly natural that leading present-day writers who
acknowledge the influence of Poe, such as Robert Rloch, would con-
jecture on the subject. As the title suggests, this story deals with the
world’s greatest collector of Poe, whose acquisitive instinct was
boundless.
Robert Bloch might be called a second-generation influence of E d -
gar Allan Poe. Blach idolized H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft had
earlier worshiped Edgar Allan Poe. A number of the Lovecraft stories
were powerfully influenced by Edgar Allan Poe. Robert Bloch was in
turn at first highly imitative of H. P. Lovecraft.
The similarity of Bloch’s fantasies to those of H. P. Lovecraft de-
lighted readers and his work proved readily salable. Lovecraft’s
stories were appearing less frequently and those of Bloch were ex-
cellent pastiches. As the years passed, it became apparent that the
tales told in the Lovecraft manner, which had proved an easy method
by which a seventeen-year-old writer could attain professionalism,
would also prove a trap. Scores of the stories sold, but Bloch’s reputa-
tion remained on a perpetual plateau.
Gradually he developed his own powerfully imaginative approach,
laying the stress on the terrors of the mind rather than terrors of the
soul or superanimated disgust. His first big success in this vein was
“ Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” (W eird Tales, July 1 9 4 3 ) , telling of
the search for Jack the Ripper by one of his victims and of the un-
pleasant moment of encounter. This tale was anthologized many times
and used as the basis for several radio dramatizations.
Bloch’s problem was a sick wife and the necessity of grinding out
an endless barrage of fiction at full speed just to meet the rent. He
did not have the time to give his best ideas the thought and polish
they required for full impact.
Twenty-five years of effort preceded the Alfred Hitchcock adapta-
tion of his novel Psycho, which caused a sensation at the very time
when Bloch was in Hollywood and able to take advantage of the
publicity. It has since become apparent that he possesses one of the
THE M A N WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
1 0 5
most original imaginations of this era in the presentation of psychologi-
cal terror. His interest in Edgar Allan Poe is now a compliment to the
long-term vitality and influence of the master rather than a literary
debt.
The Man Who Collected Poe
By Robert B bch
a u t h o r 's i n t r o d u c t i o n
Would Edgar Allan Poe be able to sell his stories if he
were writing today? This is a question which has long
intrigued editors, authors, readers, and critics of fantasy.
It is a question I have sought to answer in the only pos-
sible way—by writing a story of Poe in the manner
which Poe himself might have written it. I do not claim
a tenth of his talent or a tithe of his genius . . . but I
have proposed deliberately, insofar as possible, to re-
create his style. Poe scholars will recognize my deliber-
ate inclusion of sentences and sections from “The Fall of
the House of Usher,” and the casual reader will quite
easily
discover them. The result is, I believe, a “Poe
story” in a rather unique and special sense . . . and one
which it gave me great pleasure to write as a tribute to a
figure to whom 1, like every other writer of fantasy, must
own indebtedness.
—R obert Bloch
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low
in the heavens, I had been passing alone, by automobile,
through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length
found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within
view of my destination.
I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house,
and the simple landscape features of the domain—upon the
bleak walls—upon the vacant eye-like windows—upon a few
106
THE M AN WHO CALLED HIMSELF POE
rank sedges—and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees
—with a feeling of utter confusion commingled with dismay.
For it seemed to me as though I had visited this scene once
before, or read of it, perhaps, in some frequently rescanned
tale. And yet assuredly it could not be, for only three days
had passed since I had made the acquaintance of Launcelot
Canning and received an invitation to visit him at his Mary-
land residence.
The circumstances under which I met Canning were
simple; I happened to attend a bibliophilic meeting in Wash-
ington and was introduced to him by a mutual friend.
Casual conversation gave place to absorbed and interested
discussion when he discovered my preoccupation with
works of fantasy. Upon learning that I was traveling upon a
vacation with no set itinerary, Canning urged me to become
his guest for a day and to examine, at my leisure, his unusual
display of memorabilia.
“I feel, from our conversation, that we have much in com-
mon,” he told me. “For you see, sir, in my love of fantasy I
bow to no man. It is a taste I have perhaps inherited from
my father and from his father before him, together with
their considerable acquisitions in the genre. No doubt you
would be gratified with what I am prepared to show you, for
in all due modesty, I beg to style myself the world’s leading
collector of the works of Edgar Allen Poe.”
I confess that his invitation as such did not enthrall me,
The Man Who Called Himself Poe Page 14
