Tales of Mystery and Imagination

Howard Phillips Lovecraft: In the vault

There is nothing more absurd, as I view it, than that conventional association of the homely and the wholesome which seems to pervade the psychology of the multitude. Mention a bucolic Yankee setting, a bungling and thick-fibred village undertaker, and a careless mishap in a tomb, and no average reader can be brought to expect more than a hearty albeit grotesque phase of comedy. God knows, though, that the prosy tale which George Birch's death permits me to tell has in it aspects beside which some of our darkest tragedies are light.

Birch acquired a limitation and changed his business in 1881, yet never discussed the case when he could avoid it. Neither did his old physician Dr. Davis, who died years ago. It was generally stated that the affliction and shock were results of an unlucky slip whereby Birch had locked himself for nine hours in the receiving tomb of Peck Valley Cemetery, escaping only by crude and disastrous mechanical means; but while this much was undoubtedly true, there were other and blacker things which the man used to whisper to me in his drunken delirium toward the last. He confided in me because I was his doctor, and because he probably felt the need of confiding in someone else after Davis died. He was a bachelor, wholly without relatives.

Birch, before 1881, had been the village undertaker of Peck Valley; and was a very calloused and primitive specimen even as such specimens go. The practices I heard attributed to him would be unbelievable today, at least in a city; and even Peck Valley would have shuddered a bit had it known the easy ethics of its mortuary artist in such debatable matters as the ownership of costly "laying-out" apparel invisible beneath the casket's lid, and the degree of dignity to be maintained in posing and adapting the unseen members of lifeless tenants to containers not always calculated with sublimest accuracy. Most distinctly Birch was lax, insensitive, and professionally undesirable; yet I still think he was not an evil man. He was merely crass of fibre and function- thoughtless, careless, and liquorish, as his easily avoidable accident proves, and without that modicum of imagination which holds the average citizen within certain limits fixed by taste.

Just where to begin Birch's story I can hardly decide, since I am no practiced teller of tales. I suppose one should start in the cold December of 1880, when the ground froze and the cemetery delvers found they could dig no more graves till spring. Fortunately the village was small and the death rate low, so that it was possible to give all of Birch's inanimate charges a temporary haven in the single antiquated receiving tomb. The undertaker grew doubly lethargic in the bitter weather, and seemed to outdo even himself in carelessness. Never did he knock together flimsier and ungainlier caskets, or disregard more flagrantly the needs of the rusty lock on the tomb door which he slammed open and shut with such nonchalant abandon.

Soy un hombre intranquilo, nervioso, muy nervioso; pero no estoy loco, como dicen los médicos que me han reconocido. He analizado todo, he profundizado todo, y vivo intranquilo. ¿Por qué? No lo he sabido todavía.

Desde hace tiempo duermo mucho, con un sueño sin ensueño; al menos, cuando me despierto, no recuerdo si he soñado; pero debo soñar; no comprendo por qué se me figura que debo soñar. A no ser que esté soñando ahora cuando hablo; pero duermo mucho; una prueba clara de que no estoy loco.

La médula mía está vibrando siempre, y los ojos de mi espíritu no hacen más que contemplar una cosa desconocida, una cosa gris que se agita con ritmo al compás de las pulsaciones de las arterias en mi cerebro.

Pero mi cerebro no piensa, y, sin embargo, está en tensión; podría pensar, pero no piensa... ¡Ah! ¿Os sonreís, dudáis de mi palabra? Pues bien, sí. Lo habéis adivinado. Hay un espíritu que vibra dentro de mi alma. Os lo contaré:

Es hermosa la infancia, ¿verdad? Para mí, el tiempo más horroroso de la vida. Yo tenía, cuando era niño, un amigo; se llamaba Román Hudson; su padre era inglés, y su madre, española.

Le conocí en el Instituto. Era un buen chico; sí, seguramente era un buen chico; muy amable, muy bueno; yo era huraño y brusco.

A pesar de estas diferencias, llegamos a hacer amistades, y andábamos siempre juntos. Él era un buen estudiante, y yo, díscolo y desaplicado; pero como Román siempre fue un buen muchacho, no tuvo inconveniente en llevarme a su casa y enseñarme sus colecciones de sellos.

La casa de Román era muy grande y estaba junto a la plaza de las Barcas, en una callejuela estrecha, cerca de una casa en donde se cometió un crimen, del cual se habló mucho en Valencia. No he dicho que pasé mi niñez en Valencia. La casa era triste, muy triste, todo lo triste que puede ser una casa, y tenía en la parte de atrás un huerto muy grande, con las paredes llenas de enredaderas de campanillas blancas y moradas.

Mi amigo y yo jugábamos en el jardín, en el jardín de las enredaderas, y en un terrado ancho, con losas, que tenía sobre la cerca enormes tiestos de pitas.

1 JONATHAN, JESSICA, AND I ROLLED OUR FATHER THROUGH THE DINING room and across the fancy Olde English kitchen. We had some trouble getting Father through the back door, because he was rather rigid.

This is no comment on his bearing or temperament, though he could be a chilly bastard when he wanted. Now he was stiff quite simply because rigor mortis had tightened his muscles and hardened his flesh. We were not, however, to be deterred. We kicked at him until he bent in the middle and popped through the door frame. We dragged him across the porch and down the six steps to the lawn. "He weighs a ton!" Jonathan said, mopping his sweat-streaked brow, huffing and puffing. "Not a ton," Jessica said. "Less than two hundred pounds." Although we are triplets and are surprisingly similar in many ways, we differ from one another in a host of minor details. For example, Jessica is by far the most pragmatic of us, while Jonathan likes to exaggerate, fantasize, and daydream. I am somewhere between their two extremes. A pragmatic daydreamer? "What now?" Jonathan asked, wrinkling his face in disgust and nodding toward the corpse on the grass. "Burn him," Jessica said. Her pretty lips made a thin pencil line on her face. Her long yellow hair caught the morning sun and glimmered. The day was perfect, and she was the most beautiful part of it. "Burn him all up." "Shouldn't we drag Mother out and burn the two of them at the same time?" Jonathan asked. "It would save work." "If we make a big pyre, the flames might dance too high," she said. "And we don't want a stray spark to catch the house on fire." "We have our choice of all the houses in the world!" Jonathan said, spreading his arms to indicate the beach resort around us, Massachusetts beyond the resort, the nation past the state's perimeters - the world. Jessica only glared at him. "Aren't I right, Jerry?" Jonathan asked me. "Don't we have the whole world to live in? Isn't it silly to worry about this one old house?"

"You're right," I said. "I like this house," Jessica said. Because Jessica liked this house, we stood fifteen feet back from the sprawled corpse and stared at it and thought of flames and ignited it in an instant. Fire burst out of nowhere and wrapped Father in a red-orange blanket. He burned well, blackened, popped, sizzled, and fell into ashes. "I feel as if I ought to be sad," Jonathan said. Jessica grimaced. "Well, he was our father," Jonathan said. "We're above cheap sentimentality." Jessica stared hard at each of us to be certain we understood this. "We're a new race with new emotions and new attitudes." "I guess so." But Jonathan was not fully convinced. "Now, let's get Mother," Jessica said. Although she is only ten years old - six minutes younger than Jonathan and three minutes younger than I - Jessica is the most forceful of us. She usually has her way. We went back into the house and got Mother.

2 THE GOVERNMENT HAD ASSIGNED A CONTINGENT OF TWELVE MARINES and eight plainclothes operatives to our house.

Agonizaba aquel día tropical: parecía, calenturiento como un tifoso en plena crisis; por el ocaso, ardían todos los matices del iris en una augusta bacanal de colores, y la tierra sudaba, echando bocanadas de vapor caliginoso.

El vicario abrió con alegría de escolar la puertecita del confesionario suponiendo que había terminado ya la chocante tarea de oír los nimios escrúpulos y veníales pecados de sus habituales penitencias.

¡Qué sabroso estaría el panzudo cangilón de aquel chocolate que sólo la adorable doña Corpus sabía condimentar!

La faena, como de costumbre, había sido ruda y cargante, sí, horriblemente fastidiosa; toda la chismografía local que se tamizaba por la rejilla penitenciaria para picotear sus oídos con picarescas anécdotas e intolerables monsergas, cosas que no le importaban, palabrerías de la gentecita que vive de lo vulgar, chocarrerías de viejas camanduleras, consultas de beatas y tonteras de paletos o pecadores de baja estofa.

Se hallaba libre al fin.

Su programa era encantador: tomaría la merienda con buen apetito, pasearía por el bosque una hora o dos, luego la lectura, ¡un libro nuevo!; después, las oraciones ordinarias y, por último, el confortante lecho donde noche a noche descansaba de las fatigas diurnas.

–Padre… ¡se puede…?

La bronca voz del hombre repercutió en los silentes dombos de la nave con acento majestuoso.

Alto, moreno, fornido, de magnífica musculatura, parecía un cíclope escapado de las fraguas de Vulcano.

–¿Se puede, señor cura…?

–Sí

La confesión fue lenta y fatigada.

Era un proyecto diabólico, un asesinato premeditado con singular vileza por un delincuente cobarde que antes de cometer su delito imploraba la absolución en el tribunal formidable de las conciencias.

El relato trastornó con intempestiva brusquedad el ánimo tranquilo del sacerdote, lo agitó, no de otra suerte que un chorro de pedruscos rebota el manantial sereno de aguas vivas.

Después de muchas vanas súplicas alejóse el penitente sin haber obtenido el perdón que allí imploraba.

El confesor llegó a sus aposentos profundamente emocionado.

Dejóse caer sobre un antiguo mueble forrado de terciopelo morado a grandes rosetones, y allí, sobando el lomo de su gato negro que hecho rosca dormitaba, se puso a meditar.

Heaven falls. Details at eleven.

José Emilio Pacheco: El asesinato de Lincoln

El 14 de Abril de 1865, en el teatro Ford de Washington, el presidente Lincoln asistía al estreno de una ficción política llamada The Murder of Abraham Lincoln. El escenario del teatro Ford representaba al teatro Ford con todo y plateas, palcoa, foso de la orquesta, y, desde luego, escenario donde se desarrollaba una ficción política llamada The Murder of Abraham Lincoln.

A punto de terminar la obra, el actor John Wilkis Booth, que hacía el papel de John Wilkis Booth, abrió la puerta del palco a la derecha del proscenio y miró a los actores que impresionaban al presidente, a la señora Lincoln, al Mayor Rathbone y a su novia. John Wilkis Booth sacó una pistola marca Derringer y disparó una bala que él supo de salva. El actor que encarnaba a Lincoln se desplomó herido de muerte. John Wilkis Booth se preguntó quién le había hecho esa broma pesada. Trató de huir. Se interpuso el mayor Rathbone. John Wilkis Booth lo hirió con un puñal y salió del palco.

En el Teatro Ford se produjo una confusión total. El público ya estaba muy desconcertado por la obra tan extraña que habían puesto. Abraham Lincoln aprovechó la oportunidad para desaparecer. Quedó en la historia como el emancipador de los esclavos, el hombre que hizo la guerra para liberar a los negros, no por los intereses comerciales del norte industrial contra el sur agrícola.

By those of my friends who happen to know that I sometimes amuse myself with hypnotism, mind reading and kindred phenomena, I am frequently asked if I have a clear conception of the nature of whatever principle underlies them. To this question I always reply that I neither have nor desire to have. I am no investigator with an ear at the key-hole of Nature's workshop, trying with vulgar curiosity to steal the secrets of her trade. The interests of science are as little to me as mine seem to have been to science.

Doubtless the phenomena in question are simple enough, and in no way transcend our powers of comprehension if only we could find the clew; but for my part I prefer not to find it, for I am of a singularly romantic disposition, deriving more gratification from mystery than from knowledge. It was commonly remarked of me when I was a child that my big blue eyes appeared to have been made rather to look into than look out of—such was their dreamful beauty, and in my frequent periods of abstraction, their indifference to what was going on. In those peculiarities they resembled, I venture to think, the soul which lies behind them, always more intent upon some lovely conception which it has created in its own image than concerned about the laws of nature and the material frame of things. All this, irrelevant and egotistic as it may seem, is related by way of accounting for the meagreness of the light that I am able to throw upon a subject that has engaged so much of my attention, and concerning which there is so keen and general a curiosity. With my powers and opportunities, another person might doubtless have an explanation for much of what I present simply as narrative.

My first knowledge that I possessed unusual powers came to me in my fourteenth year, when at school. Happening one day to have forgotten to bring my noon-day luncheon, I gazed longingly at that of a small girl who was preparing to eat hers. Looking up, her eyes met mine and she seemed unable to withdraw them. After a moment of hesitancy she came forward in an absent kind of way and without a word surrendered her little basket with its tempting contents and walked away. Inexpressibly pleased, I relieved my hunger and destroyed the basket. After that I had not the trouble to bring a luncheon for myself: that little girl was my daily purveyor; and not infrequently in satisfying my simple need from her frugal store I combined pleasure and profit by constraining her attendance at the feast and making misleading proffer of the viands, which eventually I consumed to the last fragment. The girl was always persuaded that she had eaten all herself; and later in the day her tearful complaints of hunger surprised the teacher, entertained the pupils, earned for her the sobriquet of Greedy-Gut and filled me with a peace past understanding.

A disagreeable feature of this otherwise satisfactory condition of things was the necessary secrecy: the transfer of the luncheon, for example, had to be made at some distance from the madding crowd, in a wood; and I blush to think of the many other unworthy subterfuges entailed by the situation. As I was (and am) naturally of a frank and open disposition, these became more and more irksome, and but for the reluctance of my parents to renounce the obvious advantages of the new regime I would gladly have reverted to the old. The plan that I finally adopted to free myself from the consequences of my own powers excited a wide and keen interest at the time, and that part of it which consisted in the death of the girl was severely condemned, but it is hardly pertinent to the scope of this narrative.

Soñé que un niño me comía. Desperté sobresaltado. Mi madre me estaba lamiendo. El rabo todavía me tembló durante un rato.

Amber Benson - Christopher Golden: Ghosts of Albion: Illusions

In my whole existence I have never seen a lovelier sight than my Louise smiling up at me before our lips touched for that very first time.

Her face was like the most precious of gems; there was always another facet to discover. On first appraisal she was quiet and demure, her translucent skin and pale green eyes only adding to the air of fragility that surrounded her. Yet, I realized later that it had been a mistake to judge her on appearance alone for there was a core of iron underneath the girlish façade.

I first met her at a dinner party thrown by my friend Ludlow Swift in honour of the famed illusionist Capernicus. It was the first and only time I encountered the man, but I sensed in him a great thirst for power that I knew could only end tragically. I once tried to explain this intuition to my friend Ludlow, but he was blind to the other man's faults. Perhaps he could not see the darkness in Capernicus because they were brother magicians, or perhaps it was because Ludlow himself had a great thirst for knowledge, and he wanted to believe that this was what he saw in his friend as well.

As dessert was being served, a tiny pianoforte was wheeled into the dining room by one of Ludlow's servants. A small child stepped out from behind the wooden frame of the instrument and sat down at the bench, smoothing her skirts underneath her.

I can still see in my mind's eye her tiny fingers as they began lovingly to coax a melody from the ivory keys. Then she opened her mouth and the voice that issued forth was that of a seraph. I was utterly charmed and spent the rest of the evening watching her every move as she sat beside her ill-fortuned father.

She was just thirteen at the time, but I sensed that our paths would one day cross again. Four years passed and then Ludlow received news that Capernicus had been killed in India, attempting one of his extraordinary illusions. In this same letter of loss was a postscript: Louise was now on her way back to London by train where she would take up residence with her new guardian... Ludlow Swift. Needless to say that this came as a shock to my friend. His son Henry was barely seven at the time and the Swift household had a full coterie of maids and butlers and cooks, yet it seemed the idea of having another child in the house was daunting to him. Perhaps it was that he was intimidated by the mere thought of having a young woman only now coming into full blossom under his roof.

I alone was not surprised at this turn of events. Capernicus would never have trusted another soul save his brother magician. For my part, I endured the days awaiting her arrival with great impatience and wonder. As barely more than a child the girl had enchanted me. I hungered to discover what she had become.

Noticias y Primavera; Fuera y Dentro.

La Señora miraba con sus ojos miel a través del cristal hacia el exterior, el cristal limpio que apenas existía, sus uñas color uña apoyadas delicadamente en el cristal para cederle existencia. La piel blanca de sus manos estaba fría como casi siempre, agradeciendo el calor que comenzaba a entrar a través del cristal. Dentro de su pecho, tic tac, tic tac, más calor se despertaba al ritmo del sol naciente. La Señora parpadeaba lentamente y despertaba lentamente, y se deleitaba mirando a través del cristal, sonriendo al jardín que empezaba a corresponderle floreciendo tímido.

El jardín estaba resguardado por un muro no muy alto de ladrillo, fuerte, recio, en muchas partes abrigado amablemente por enredaderas y setos frondosos. Los ladrillos que no disfrutaban de esa gentileza mostraban sus caras rojas arrugadas y estoicas, acumulando experiencia y fuerza como servidores de la última frontera. Quizás había orgullo en el muro. O simplemente lealtad. O el orgullo de ser leal a todo lo que protegía. Quizás el resto del jardín sintiera aquello; la Señora podía sentirlo y le hacía sentirse segura.

Había algunos árboles en el jardín, pero no muy altos, más bien rechonchos y de formas suaves, con sombras acogedoras, con colores siempre primavera. Los árboles estaban plantados en el centro del jardín y no se apoyaban en el muro, probablemente por respeto. Bajo ellos, las rosas aprovechaban su techo refugio y se abrían para despertar al pequeño mundo que las rodeaba, separaban sus pétalos, examinaban complacidas los regueros sinuosos pero firmes que les llevaban el alimento, y se preguntaban de dónde venían esos regueros, a dónde iban y qué misteriosos senderos recorrían a través de otras rosas, parterres y arbustos.

La Señora suspiró levemente y se alejó de la ventana no sin antes retocar un poco la caída de las cortinas y las volutas análogas de su vestido. Tic tac, tic tac, el amanecer avanzaba pausado marcando el ritmo de todas las cosas. Tic tac. Tic tac.

Ding dong.

La Señora se dirigió hacia el recibidor comprobando de reojo la disposición de cada mueble, cada utensilio y cada adorno, con serenidad, a medida que avanzaba con su paso siempre elegante. Cada cosa tenía su lugar dentro de su corazón, incluso los detalles más pequeños, incluso los detalles más grandes. Independientemente de la cantidad de espacio que ocuparan, dentro de ella se ajustaban a su verdadera importancia. Cuando los repasaba no pensaba: sentía.

Ding dong.

—¡Buenos días! —Al abrir la puerta la voz de la Señora se extendió a todo el exterior posándose como una segunda manta de rocío sobre las rosas, los setos, los árboles y el gran muro, y por partida doble sobre el recién llegado.

Morgan's Wonder Carnival moved into Riverville for an overnight stand, setting up its tents in the big ball park on the edge of the village. It was a warm evening in early October and by seven o'clock a sizable crowd had made its way to the scene of raucous amusement.

The traveling show was neither large nor particularly impressive of its type, but its appearance was eagerly welcomed in Riverville, an isolated mountain community many miles from the motion "picture houses, vaudeville theatres and sports arenas situated in larger towns.

The natives of Riverville did not demand sophisticated entertainment; consequently the inevitable Fat Lady, the Tattooed Man and the Monkey Boy kept them chattering animatedly for many minutes at a time. They crammed peanuts and buttered popcorn into their mouths, drank cup after cup of pink lemonade, and got their fingers all but stuck together trying to scrape the paper wrappers off colored taffy candies.

Everyone appeared to be in a relaxed and tolerant state of mind when the barker for the Hypnotist began his spiel. The barker, a short stocky man wearing a checkered suit, bellowed through an improvised megaphone, while the Hypnotist himself remained aloof at the rear of the plank platform erected in front of his tent. He appeared disinterested, scornful, and he scarcely deigned to glance at the gathering crowd.

At length, however, when some fifty souls had assembled in front of the platform, he stepped forward into the light. A murmur went up from the crowd.

In the harsh overhead electric glare, the Hypnotist made a striking appearance. His tall figure, thin to the point of emaciation, his pale complexion, and most of all his dark, sunken eyes, enormous and brilliant, compelled immediate attention. His dress, a severe black suit and an archaic black string tie, added a final Mephistophelean touch.

He surveyed the crowd coolly, with an expression betraying resignation and a kind of quiet contempt.

His sonorous voice reached to the far edge of the throng. "I will require one volunteer from among you," he said. "If someone will kindly step up—"

Everyone glanced around, or nudged his neighbor, but nobody advanced toward the platform.

The Hypnotist shrugged. "There can be no demonstration," he said in a weary voice, "unless one of you is kind enough to come up. I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, the demonstration is quite harmless, quite without danger."

He looked around expectantly and presently a young man slowly elbowed through the crowd toward the platform.

De pronto notó que se le había derrumbado su belleza que llegó a dolerle físicamente como un tumor o como un cáncer. Todavía recordaba el peso de ese privilegio que llevó sobre su cuerpo durante la adolescencia y que ahora había dejado caer —¡quién sabe dónde!— con un cansancio resignado, con un último gesto de animal decadente. Era imposible seguir soportando esa carga por más tiempo. Había que dejar en cualquier parte ese inútil adjetivo de su personalidad; ese pedazo de su propio nombre que a la fuerza de acentuarse había llegado a sobrar. Sí; había que abandonar la belleza en cualquier parte; a la vuelta de una esquina, en un rincón suburbano. O dejarla olvidada en el ropero de un restaurante de segunda clase como un viejo abrigo inservible. Estaba cansada de ser el centro de todas las atenciones, de vivir asediada por los ojos largos de los hombres. En la noche, cuando clavaba en sus párpados los alfileres del insomnio, hubiera deseado ser mujer ordinaria, sin atractivos. Dentro de las cuatro paredes de su habitación todo le era hostil. Desesperada, sentía prolongarse la vigilia por debajo de su piel, por su cabeza, empujando la fiebre hacia arriba, hacia la raíz de su cabello. Era como si sus arterias se hubieran poblado de unos insectos diminutos y calientes que con la cercanía de la madrugada, diariamente, se despertaban y recorrían con sus patas movedizas, en una desgarradora aventura subcutánea, ese pedazo de barro frutecido donde se había localizado su belleza anatómica. En vano luchaba por ahuyentar aquellos animales terribles. No podía. Eran parte de su propio organismo. Habían estado allí, vivos, desde mucho antes de su existencia física. Venían desde el corazón de su padre que los había alimentado dolorosamente en sus noches de soledad desesperada. O tal vez habían desembocado a sus arterias por el cordón que la llevó atada a su madre desde el principio del mundo. Era indudable que esos insectos no habían nacido espontáneamente dentro de su cuerpo. Ella sabía que venían de atrás, que todos los que llevaron su apellido tuvieron que soportarlos, que tuvieron que sufrirlos como ella cuando el insomnio se hacía invencible hasta la madrugada. Eran esos insectos los mismos que pintaban ese gesto amargo, esa tristeza inconsolable en el rostro de sus antepasados. Ella los había visto mirar desde su apagada existencia, desde su retrato, antiguo, víctimas de esa misma angustia. Todavía recordaba el rostro inquietante de la bisabuela que desde su lienzo envejecido pedía un minuto de descanso, un segundo de paz a esos insectos que allá, en los canales de su sangre, seguían martirizándola y embelleciéndola despiadadamente. No; esos insectos no eran suyos. Venían transmitiéndose de generación a generación sosteniendo con su diminuta armadura todo el prestigio de una casta selecta; dolorosamente selecta. Esos insectos habían nacido en el vientre de la primera madre que tuvo una hija bella. Pero era necesario, urgente, detener esa herencia. Alguien tenía que renunciar a seguir transmitiendo esa belleza artificial. De nada valía a las mujeres de su estirpe admirarse de sí mismas al regresar del espejo, si durante las noches esos animales hacían su labor lenta y eficaz, sin descanso, con una constancia de siglos. Ya no era una belleza, era una enfermedad que había que detener, que había que cortar en forma enérgica y radical.

Mi nombre es Víctor Frankenstein, nací en Ginebra a finales del siglo XVIII en el seno de una familia distinguida, como casi todo el mundo sabe gracias a cierta obra literaria; pero lo que nadie conoce es que al comienzo del siglo XXI, todavía estoy vivo; muy vivo. Después de tanto tiempo me apetece contar públicamente los resultados de algunos de los estudios y experimentos que he llevado a cabo a lo largo de mi vida.

En mi juventud decidí estudiar los orígenes de la vida, el porqué del funcionamiento de los seres vivos, la esencia que mueve a la materia a convertirse en un ente animado y consciente. Dediqué todas las fuerzas y entusiasmo de la juventud, junto con la fortuna de mi padre, al descubrimiento de los secretos de la creación.

Como consta en el relato que del principio de mi vida hace mi amada Mary Wollstonecraft mi única biógrafa y maravillosa compañera, relato que es fruto de infinidad de noches desveladas, tras desbordar nuestros sentidos con la pasión de la juventud, esa juventud que ahora queda tan lejos-, el final incierto permite que el lector piense que morí perdido, solo y arrepentido, yaciendo en la tundra helada o atrapado entre los hielos como justo castigo por mis pecados, o simplemente devorado por un oso polar; pero no fue así: sobreviví a todo ello. Perseguí a mi primera criatura durante algún tiempo y al fin la encontré, en una recóndita aldea en el norte de Siberia, donde vivía feliz tras haber fundado una familia. Pero no es de aquella, mi primera y desdichada criatura, de quien me propongo hablar, ya que la historia es de todos conocida; esta es otra historia.

Mi buen amigo y compañero de tertulia Herbert West, al que conocí casi un siglo después realizando estudios encaminados al mismo fin, sólo consiguió crear estúpidos zombis sin cerebro, terrores ambulantes que lo llevaron a un macabro final. Donde él fracasó yo he triunfado. En todo el tiempo transcurrido, especialmente desde que murió mi querida Mary, me he dedicado a crear nuevas criaturas cada vez más perfectas. No sé por qué no le devolví la vida a mi amada. Era tan dulce. Estaba tan viva. Tal vez tenía miedo de verla convertida en una patética criatura de andares rígidos y menguado cerebro. ¿Acaso ella me lo pidió antes de morir? Es posible. Los años no pasan en balde y los recuerdos se difuminan. Pero todavía veo con toda claridad su sonrisa y esa mirada dulce, que me provocaban bruscas erecciones en aquellas noches de alcohol, opio y orgías en la mansión de Lord Byron. Por aquel entonces, ocultaba mi identidad bajo el patético disfraz de poeta mediocre, pero pese a todo fueron tiempos muy felices.

WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the rationale of mesmerism, its startling facts are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession — an unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time than the attempt to prove, at the present day, that man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those of death, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that, while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound; and, finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and more pronounced.

I say that these — which are the laws of mesmerism in its general features — it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration; to-day. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.

I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.

The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-night this had been attempted in vain.

As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease.

"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works as well as in those of his European and American echoes. The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in my hands. I read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it logical, but the portions which were not merely logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Germany. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The will may assent — the soul — the intellect, never.