by Whit Burnett
served for heaven, then the penalty must be death. Again the
principle of unattainable beauty, the dead woman as the incarnation of the most beautiful theme known to poetry."
Then the bell rang and the others fled even more precipitately than they had on Monday. They had been in terror of being called on to read aloud after Helen Willis, and they
dropped their assignments on Edgar's desk and ran.
She came to him, and some lurking residue of caution kept
him from the revelation, even though he was certain that she
knew. It was not the time, somehow, not yet the time. So he
only said, "Miss Willis, your paper on Poe is as scholarly and
sy_mpathetic an appreciation as I have heard."
"That's a great compliment, Mr. Baker," she said, "comiDg
from you. I know what Poe means to you."
He looked deep into her eyes, past surface and mask, past
reserve, past personality. "You do," he said. "You really know."
Then it was the time and he made his decision, committing himself for all time.
"I have written a poem," he said. "I have written a poem for
you."
"For me?" He was reaching in his brief case, and he didn't
see the puzzled look in her face, the withdrawal. He handed
her the poem, written in longhand. She read :
To Helen
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-Land!
The sheet of paper, the paper on which he had copied Poe's
'To Helen' word for word, trembled in her hand. Wide-eyed
with dawning terror she looked up at him, and when she saw
his gleaming eyes she understood.
I Alii Ed&:ar • I f I
"You-wrote this-for me?" she asked, edging slowly toward the door.
"For you, Helen." He smiled proudly. "I wrote it for you.
Do you like it?"
·
She was in the doorway now, still facing him. "It's lovely,"
she said miserably. "May I have it?"
"Certainly you may, my dear. It's for you." He gathered· his
books from the desk and came toward her. Very tenderly, with
tears of pure love in his eyes, he said, "And now, Helen, now
that we understand, we have so many things to telL There is a
flowered meadow where-"
But she was gone, running down the corridor in panic.
By the time Helen Willis found the head of the English department and he found the dean and together they went to the president's house, it was well after dark. Helen told her story
for a third time and then she fainted. They drove to the girl's
dormitory and left her in charge of the house mother.
The shades were drawn at Edgar's house, and the house was
dark save for a faint flickering glow in the bedroom window.
Their . knock was not answered, and they opened the door and
went in. The bedroom door was open wide.
There were two tall tapers at the head and foot of the bed.
He had dressed . Eleanor in her wedding gown and crossed h�r
hands on her breast. Her features were unmarred and serene,
the death pallor on her cheeks accentuated by the lock of dark,
glossy hair that escaped from the bridal veil.
Edgar was sitting in a chair beside the bed, a pad of theme
paper in his lap. He was writing in pencil by the candlelight.
He did not look up when they entered.
The head of the English department, the dean, and the president looked at each other. Then the president drew a deep breath and went around the bed to Edgar. He touched him on
the shoulder.
"Mr. Baker," he said softly.
Edgar smiled up at the president with a look of amused tolerance on his face. "No," Edgar said. "Not Baker. My name is not Baker, you know."
The head of the English department and the dean peered
over the president's shoulder at the theme pad in Edgar's lap.
Edgar turned his head and smiled up at them.
"This will be one of my finest short stories," he said happily.
"I don't as a rule care to show my work until it's in a completed
form, but you may look at what I've done so far on this. I believe I establish a certain mood in the very first lines."
They looked at what he had written :
1 1 2 • !Nineteen Tales of Terror
Ligeia-a tale by Edgar Allan Poe
I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when or even
precisely where, I first became acquainted with the
lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my
memor)' is feeble throuih much suffering . . . •
I VAN BUNIN
THE CALLI N G CA R DS
IT WAS the beginning of autumn, and the river
steamer Goncharov coursed along an empty Volga. The chill
of early morning enveloped the vessel, and an icy wind swept
the Asiatic expanse of water and beat head on against the
steamer. The wind whipped the flag at the stem, tore at the
hats, caps, and clothing of the people walking the decks,
wrinkled their faces and snapped at their sleeves and skirts. A
single gull followed the ship aimlessly and dully-now drifting
just astern of the vessel, a sharp-pointed crescent swinging in
the air, now soaring away slantwise into the distance, as if it
did not know what to do with itself in the emptiness of the
great river and gray autumn sky.
The steamer was almost empty, too. There was a small
group of peasants on the lower deck and only three passengers on the upper. The three walked back and forth, meeting and passing: the two from the second class, hoth bound for
the same destination, always inseparable, always pacing the deck
together, constantly talking about something in a business-like
manner, and alike inconspicuous; and the passenger from the
first class. The latter was a man of about thirty, a newly renowned writer, distinguished by his serious air-not quite sad and not quite angry-and also by his outward appearance. He
was tall and robust-he even stooped a bit, as some strong
people do--well-dressed, and, in his way, handsome : a brunette of that Russian-eastern type one met among the old merchant families of Moscow. He came of such a family, although he no longer had anything in common with it.
He walked alone, with a firm step. In his checkered English
cap, black cheviot coat, and expensive, well-made shoes, he
paced the deck, breathing deeply of the bracing air. He
reached the stern and stood watching the spreading, running
surge of river beb..ind the vessel.
1 13
1 14 • Nineteen Tales of Terror
Then: turning sharply, he walked toward the prow once
more, lowering his head against the wind that clutched at his
cap, and hearing the loud, regular pulsation of the sidewheel as
each blade lifted to shed its glass-like cascade of rushing water.
A cheap black bOnnet rose above the stairs th
at led from the
third class, and he stopped short, smiling stiffly. Below the bonnet appeared the thin, sweet face of a young woman, his chance acquaintance of the previous evening. He hastened toward her.
She was also smiling as she came forward awkwardly, bent
over to fight the wind and holding her bonnet in place with a
bony hand. She wore a light coat and her legs below the coat
were thin.
"Did you sleep well?'' he asked loudly and cheerily as he
approached her.
"Marvelously!" she replied, a shade too gaily. "I always sleep
like a top."
He retained her hand in his large palm and looked into her
eyes. She met his glance with radiant intensity. .
"You overslept, my angel," he said familiarly. "Good folk
should be at the breakfast table by now."
"I lay in bed dreaming!" she answered, with an animation
quite out of keeping with her appearance.
"What were you dreaming of?''
"Just-things!"
"Oh, oh-watch out! Dreams can be dangerous," he said.
"Breakfasting is better. Let's have some vodka and fish soup,"
he added, thinking: · probably she can't afford breakfast in the
dining salon.
"Yes, vodka would be just right !" She stamped her feet. "It's
devilish cold."
They set off for the first class dining salon, walking briskly.
She led the way and he, following behind, observed her almost
greedily.
He had thought of her during the night. The previous evening he had struck up a conversation with her as the vessel approached a high black bank in the twilight. A scattering of lights shone at the foot of the dark shore. Later he sat with her
on the long bench which went all the way around the deck,
beneath the white shutters of the first class cabins. But they did
not sit there long, and at night, alone, he regretted they had not
lingered. That night he realized, to his surprise, that he wanted
her. Why? Because of the customary attraction of a brief encounter with a chance traveling companion?
Seated beside her in the dining salon, clinking glasses with
her between mouthfuls of cold black caviar and hot white rolls,
he knew now why she attracted him, and he waited impatiently for the affair to reach its culmination. The fact that all
Tile Calling Cards • 1 1 5
this-the vodka, her uninhibited bearing-was in strange contradiction to her normal self excited him the more.
"Well, another drink, and enough!" he said.
"It certainly will be enough !" she replied, in the same bantering tone he employed. "Excellent vodka!"
Of course, he had been touched by her confusion upon learning his name the previous evening. She had been astonished at thus unexpectedly meeting a well known writer. It was always
pleasant to witness this confusion. It is usually enough to warm
one toward any woman, if she is not absolutely ugly or stupid.
Immediately a certain intimacy arises, one becomes daring in
address, and somehow one feels a right to her. But it was not
merely this that had stirred him : evidently he impressed her as
a man, too--and he was touched by her very shabbiness and
artlessness. He already had acquired a lack of constraint with
admirers : he knew how to make a light and rapid shift from the
first few moments of acquaintance to a free and easy, pseudobohemian manner, and from that to the studied simplicity of the questions : Who are you? Where are you from? Married or
not? Thus had he questioned her the previous evening as they
watched the varicolored lights of the forecastle reflected on the
black water. The reflections stretched far out over the surface
of the river. They could see the red glow of a bonfire on a river
barge. "This scene is worth remembering," he thought. The
smoke drifting up from the fire carried the smell of fish soup.
"May one ask your name?" he had said.
She told him her name and surname quickly.
"Are you on your way home?''
"I have been visiting my sister in Sviyazhk. Her husband
died suddenly and-well, you understand-she was left in a
terrible position . . . . "
At first she was embarrassed and looked away, gazing into
the distance. Then she began to answer more boldly.
"Are you married?"
She smiled wrily. "Yes, I'm married-alas! This is not my
first year as a wife."
"Why alas?"
"I was stupid enough to marry very young. One hardly has
time to look about before life passes one by."
"It will be a long time before you need worry about life pass-
ing you by."
"Alas, not so long! And I haven't seen anything of life yet."
"It isn't too late to start."
Here she suddenly nodded her head, smiling. "I'm starting!"
"Who is your husband? An official?"
"Oh, he is a very good and kind man. But unfortunately not
at all interesting . . . . The secretary of our rund district court."
1 1 6
Nineteen Tales ol Terror
•
"How sweet she is, and how unhappy," be thought. He
·
opened his cigarette case.
"Do you want a cigarette?"
"Very much !"
She took a light bravely but clumsily, and then drew on the
cigarette with quick, woman-like putfs. Pity for her quivered
within him-pity for her confusion, and tenderness; and with
all that a sensuous desire to take advantage of her na'ivete
and inexperience. The inexperience, he felt, would surely be
accompanied by extreme daring.
Now, seated in the dining salon, he glanced impatiently at
her thin hands, her faded features that were all the more pathetic for being faded, and the dark hair, done up somewhat carelessly. After removing her bonnet she had slipped her gray
coat off her shoulders and over the back of the chair, revealing
a dark cotton dress. She kept tucking back stray strands of
hair.
He was moved and stirred by the frankness with which she
had spoken of her family life and her lost youth, and now her
sudden boldness excited him ; she was saying and doing the
very things that least became her. The vodka brought color to
her face. Even her pale lips grew red, and her eyes took on a
starry, merry brightness.
"You know," she said suddenly, ''we were speaking of
dreams. Do you know what my fondest dream was in high
school? To have calling cards. We were quite poor then. We
had sold the last of the estate and moved to the city, and there
was absolutely no one to call on anyway, but how I dreamed of
having calling cards! It was so silly."
He pressed her hand, feeling all the bones through the gaunt
flesh. Misunderstanding completely, she raised her hand to his
lips like an experienced coquette and gave him a languorous
glance.
"Let's go to my cabin."
"Let's. It's so stuffy here, with all this smoke."
Tossing her head, she reached for her bonnet.
In the corridor he embraced her. She glanced back at him
over her shoulder, proudly and ecstatically. He almost bit her
cheek out of the hatred that comes with passion and love. Over
her shoulder she presented her lips voluptuously.
<
br /> In the cabin, hastening to please him and to take full and
audacious advantage of the unexpected happiness that had suddenly fallen to her lot in the person of this handsome, strong, and famous man, she tugged at the buttons of her dress and
stepped out of it, letting it fall to the floor. She remained in her
light petticoat and white underpants, l'ler shoulders and anns
bare; and in the half light that entered the cabin through the
Tlla Calling Cards • 1 1 1
shutters she was shapely as a boy. The poignant naivete of it
all pierced him.
"Shall I take everything off?" she whispered, just like a young
girl.
"Everything, everything," he said, growing sadder and
sadder.
Obediently and swiftly she stepped out of her underwear and
stood naked, her flesh gray-purple with that peculiarity of the
female body when it shivers nervously and the skin becomes
taut and transparent and is covered with goose pimples. She
stood there in only cheap stockings, worn garters, and cheap
black shoes, and she gave him a triumphant, drunken glance as
she reached back to remove her hairpins. Chilling, he watched
her.
Her figure was better and younger than one might have
thought. Her collar bone and ribs were clearly outlined, as
might have been expected from her pinched face and bony
shins. But her thighs were large. Her belly was flat, with a
small, deep Ravel, and the curving triangle of dark, beautiful
hair below the belly conformed to the thick mass of hair on her
head. She removed the hairpins, and her hair fell down her
gaunt spine, with its protruding vertebrae.
She bent over to pull up her slipping stockings; her little
breasts, with their cold, shrivelled brown nipples; hung like
small pears, charming in their meagerness. And he forced her
to experience the extreme of shamelessness, so unbecoming to
her and therefore so exciting to his senses, rousing all his pity,
tenderness, and passion . . . . Nothing could be seen through the
slats of the shutter, but she kept glancing toward the shutter in
rapturous fright, hearing the unconcerned voices and steps of
people passing on the deck outside the window; and this exaggerated still more his terrible exultation at her depravity.
