by Poe · Cluster: Satire of Society · Epigram · Satire
Abstract
A drunken skeptic is plagued by a grotesque liquor-cask spirit who orchestrates a cascade of absurd accidents to punish his disbelief in the improbable; a comic extravaganza on chance and the grotesque.
Testo / Text
Parti / Parts
Readability (prose)64.5 Flesch ease9.8 FK grade12.6 Fog9% complex22.2 words/sent
Connections
Archetypes: Trickster, Fool Motifs: Wine and Drink, Supernatural, Fire, Dreams, Clock Themes & Concepts: Grotesque, Fate and Free Will, Satire of Society, Appearance vs Reality Forms & Genres: Short Story, Satire
Testo integrale / Full text
AN EXTRAVAGANZA.
It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed
not the least important item, and was sitting alone in the
dining-room, with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a
small table which I had rolled up to the fire, and upon which
were some apologies for dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles
of wine, spirit and _liqueur_. In the morning I had been reading
Glover’s “Leonidas,” Wilkie’s “Epigoniad,” Lamartine’s
“Pilgrimage,” Barlow’s “Columbiad,” Tuckermann’s “Sicily,” and
Griswold’s “Curiosities”; I am willing to confess, therefore,
that I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself
by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing, I betook myself to
a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully perused the column
of “houses to let,” and the column of “dogs lost,” and then the
two columns of “wives and apprentices runaway,” I attacked with
great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from
beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the
possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end
to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. I was
about throwing away, in disgust,
“This folio of four pages, happy work
Which not even critics criticise,”
when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
follows:
“The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was
playing at ‘puff the dart,’ which is played with a long needle
inserted in some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin
tube. He placed the needle at the wrong end of the tube, and
drawing his breath strongly to puff the dart forward with force,
drew the needle into his throat. It entered the lungs, and in a
few days killed him.”
Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly
knowing why. “This thing,” I exclaimed, “is a contemptible
falsehood—a poor hoax—the lees of the invention of some pitiable
penny-a-liner—of some wretched concoctor of accidents in
Cocaigne. These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of
the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable
possibilities—-of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a
reflecting intellect (like mine,” I added, in parenthesis,
putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) “to
a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems
evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these ‘odd
accidents’ is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part,
I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the
‘singular’ about it.”
“Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!” replied one of the
most remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a
rumbling in my ears—such as a man sometimes experiences when
getting very drunk—but, upon second thought, I considered the
sound as more nearly resembling that which proceeds from an empty
barrel beaten with a big stick; and, in fact, this I should have
concluded it to be, but for the articulation of the syllables and
words. I am by no means naturally nervous, and the very few
glasses of Lafitte which I had sipped served to embolden me no
little, so that I felt nothing of trepidation, but merely
uplifted my eyes with a leisurely movement, and looked carefully
around the room for the intruder. I could not, however, perceive
any one at all.
“Humph!” resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, “you mus pe
so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
zide.”
Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose,
and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a
personage nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His
body was a wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that
character, and had a truly Falstaffian air. In its nether
extremity were inserted two kegs, which seemed to answer all the
purposes of legs. For arms there dangled from the upper portion
of the carcass two tolerably long bottles, with the necks outward
for hands. All the head that I saw the monster possessed of was
one of those Hessian canteens which resemble a large snuff-box
with a hole in the middle of the lid. This canteen (with a funnel
on its top, like a cavalier cap slouched over the eyes) was set
on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole toward myself; and
through this hole, which seemed puckered up like the mouth of a
very precise old maid, the creature was emitting certain rumbling
and grumbling noises which he evidently intended for intelligible
talk.
“I zay,” said he, “you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and
not zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de
goose, vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. ’Tiz de
troof—dat it iz—eberry vord ob it.”
“Who are you, pray?” said I, with much dignity, although somewhat
puzzled; “how did you get here? and what is it you are talking
about?”
“Az vor ow I com’d ere,” replied the figure, “dat iz none of your
pizzness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat
I tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I
com’d here for to let you zee for yourzelf.”
“You are a drunken vagabond,” said I, “and I shall ring the bell
and order my footman to kick you into the street.”
“He! he! he!” said the fellow, “hu! hu! hu! dat you can’t do.”
“Can’t do!” said I, “what do you mean?—I can’t do what?”
“Ring de pell,” he replied, attempting a grin with his little
villanous mouth.
Upon this I made an effort to get up, in order to put my threat
into execution; but the ruffian just reached across the table
very deliberately, and hitting me a tap on the forehead with the
neck of one of the long bottles, knocked me back into the
arm-chair from which I had half arisen. I was utterly astounded;
and, for a moment, was quite at a loss what to do. In the
meantime, he continued his talk.
“You zee,” said he, “it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you
shall know who I pe. Look at me! zee! I am te _Angel ov te Odd_.”
“And odd enough, too,” I ventured to reply; “but I was always
under the impression that an angel had wings.”
“Te wing!” he cried, highly incensed, “vat I pe do mit te wing?
Mein Gott! do you take me vor a shicken?”
“No—oh no!” I replied, much alarmed, “you are no
chicken—certainly not.”
“Well, den, zit still and pehabe yourself, or I’ll rap you again
mid me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing,
und te imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel
ab _not_ te wing, and I am te _Angel ov te Odd_.”
“And your business with me at present is—is—”
“My pizzness!” ejaculated the thing, “vy vat a low bred buppy you
mos pe vor to ask a gentleman und an angel apout his pizziness!”
This language was rather more than I could bear, even from an
angel; so, plucking up courage, I seized a salt-cellar which lay
within reach, and hurled it at the head of the intruder. Either
he dodged, however, or my aim was inaccurate; for all I
accomplished was the demolition of the crystal which protected
the dial of the clock upon the mantel-piece. As for the Angel, he
evinced his sense of my assault by giving me two or three hard
consecutive raps upon the forehead as before. These reduced me at
once to submission, and I am almost ashamed to confess that
either through pain or vexation, there came a few tears into my
eyes.
“Mein Gott!” said the Angel of the Odd, apparently much softened
at my distress; “mein Gott, te man is eder ferry dronk or ferry
zorry. You mos not trink it so strong—you mos put te water in te
wine. Here, trink dis, like a goot veller, und don’t gry
now—don’t!”
Hereupon the Angel of the Odd replenished my goblet (which was
about a third full of Port) with a colorless fluid that he poured
from one of his hand bottles. I observed that these bottles had
labels about their necks, and that these labels were inscribed
“Kirschenwasser.”
The considerate kindness of the Angel mollified me in no little
measure; and, aided by the water with which he diluted my Port
more than once, I at length regained sufficient temper to listen
to his very extraordinary discourse. I cannot pretend to recount
all that he told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was
the genius who presided over the _contretemps_ of mankind, and
whose business it was to bring about the _odd accidents_ which
are continually astonishing the skeptic. Once or twice, upon my
venturing to express my total incredulity in respect to his
pretensions, he grew very angry indeed, so that at length I
considered it the wiser policy to say nothing at all, and let him
have his own way. He talked on, therefore, at great length, while
I merely leaned back in my chair with my eyes shut, and amused
myself with munching raisins and filliping the stems about the
room. But, by and by, the Angel suddenly construed this behavior
of mine into contempt. He arose in a terrible passion, slouched
his funnel down over his eyes, swore a vast oath, uttered a
threat of some character which I did not precisely comprehend,
and finally made me a low bow and departed, wishing me, in the
language of the archbishop in Gil-Blas, “_beaucoup de bonheur et
un peu plus de bon sens_.”
His departure afforded me relief. The _very_ few glasses of
Lafitte that I had sipped had the effect of rendering me drowsy,
and I felt inclined to take a nap of some fifteen or twenty
minutes, as is my custom after dinner. At six I had an
appointment of consequence, which it was quite indispensable that
I should keep. The policy of insurance for my dwelling house had
expired the day before; and, some dispute having arisen, it was
agreed that, at six, I should meet the board of directors of the
company and settle the terms of a renewal. Glancing upward at the
clock on the mantel-piece, (for I felt too drowsy to take out my
watch), I had the pleasure to find that I had still twenty-five
minutes to spare. It was half past five; I could easily walk to
the insurance office in five minutes; and my usual siestas had
never been known to exceed five and twenty. I felt sufficiently
safe, therefore, and composed myself to my slumbers forthwith.
Having completed them to my satisfaction, I again looked toward
the time-piece and was half inclined to believe in the
possibility of odd accidents when I found that, instead of my
ordinary fifteen or twenty minutes, I had been dozing only three;
for it still wanted seven and twenty of the appointed hour. I
betook myself again to my nap, and at length a second time awoke,
when, to my utter amazement, it _still_ wanted twenty-seven
minutes of six. I jumped up to examine the clock, and found that
it had ceased running. My watch informed me that it was half past
seven; and, of course, having slept two hours, I was too late for
my appointment. “It will make no difference,” I said: “I can call
at the office in the morning and apologize; in the meantime what
can be the matter with the clock?” Upon examining it I discovered
that one of the raisin stems which I had been filliping about the
room during the discourse of the Angel of the Odd, had flown
through the fractured crystal, and lodging, singularly enough, in
the key-hole, with an end projecting outward, had thus arrested
the revolution of the minute hand.
“Ah!” said I, “I see how it is. This thing speaks for itself. A
natural accident, such as _will_ happen now and then!”
I gave the matter no further consideration, and at my usual hour
retired to bed. Here, having placed a candle upon a reading stand
at the bed head, and having made an attempt to peruse some pages
of the “Omnipresence of the Deity,” I unfortunately fell asleep
in less than twenty seconds, leaving the light burning as it was.
My dreams were terrifically disturbed by visions of the Angel of
the Odd. Methought he stood at the foot of the couch, drew aside
the curtains, and, in the hollow, detestable tones of a rum
puncheon, menaced me with the bitterest vengeance for the
contempt with which I had treated him. He concluded a long
harangue by taking off his funnel-cap, inserting the tube into my
gullet, and thus deluging me with an ocean of Kirschenwässer,
which he poured, in a continuous flood, from one of the long
necked bottles that stood him instead of an arm. My agony was at
length insufferable, and I awoke just in time to perceive that a
rat had ran off with the lighted candle from the stand, but _not_
in season to prevent his making his escape with it through the
hole. Very soon, a strong suffocating odor assailed my nostrils;
the house, I clearly perceived, was on fire. In a few minutes the
blaze broke forth with violence, and in an incredibly brief
period the entire building was wrapped in flames. All egress from
my chamber, except through a window, was cut off. The crowd,
however, quickly procured and raised a long ladder. By means of
this I was descending rapidly, and in apparent safety, when a
huge hog, about whose rotund stomach, and indeed about whose
whole air and physiognomy, there was something which reminded me
of the Angel of the Odd,—when this hog, I say, which hitherto had
been quietly slumbering in the mud, took it suddenly into his
head that his left shoulder needed scratching, and could find no
more convenient rubbing-post than that afforded by the foot of
the ladder. In an instant I was precipitated and had the
misfortune to fracture my arm.
This accident, with the loss of my insurance, and with the more
serious loss of my hair, the whole of which had been singed off
by the fire, predisposed me to serious impressions, so that,
finally, I made up my mind to take a wife. There was a rich widow
disconsolate for the loss of her seventh husband, and to her
wounded spirit I offered the balm of my vows. She yielded a
reluctant consent to my prayers. I knelt at her feet in gratitude
and adoration. She blushed and bowed her luxuriant tresses into
close contact with those supplied me, temporarily, by Grandjean.
I know not how the entanglement took place, but so it was. I
arose with a shining pate, wigless; she in disdain and wrath,
half buried in alien hair. Thus ended my hopes of the widow by an
accident which could not have been anticipated, to be sure, but
which the natural sequence of events had brought about.
Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief
period; but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my
betrothed in an avenue thronged with the _élite_ of the city, I
was hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows,
when a small particle of some foreign matter, lodging in the
corner of my eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind.
Before I could recover my sight, the lady of my love had
disappeared—irreparably affronted at what she chose to consider
my premeditated rudeness in passing her by ungreeted. While I
stood bewildered at the suddenness of this accident, (which might
have happened, nevertheless, to any one under the sun), and while
I still continued incapable of sight, I was accosted by the Angel
of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a civility which I had
no reason to expect. He examined my disordered eye with much
gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in it, and
(whatever a “drop” was) took it out, and afforded me relief.
I now considered it high time to die, (since fortune had so
determined to persecute me,) and accordingly made my way to the
nearest river. Here, divesting myself of my clothes, (for there
is no reason why we cannot die as we were born), I threw myself
headlong into the current; the sole witness of my fate being a
solitary crow that had been seduced into the eating of
brandy-saturated corn, and so had staggered away from his
fellows. No sooner had I entered the water than this bird took it
into its head to fly away with the most indispensable portion of
my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the present, my suicidal
design, I just slipped my nether extremities into the sleeves of
my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the felon with all the
nimbleness which the case required and its circumstances would
admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As I ran at full
speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent only upon
the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived that my feet
rested no longer upon _terra-firma_; the fact is, I had thrown
myself over a precipice, and should inevitably have been dashed
to pieces but for my good fortune in grasping the end of a long
guide-rope, which depended from a passing balloon.
As soon as I sufficiently recovered my senses to comprehend the
terrific predicament in which I stood or rather hung, I exerted
all the power of my lungs to make that predicament known to the
æronaut overhead. But for a long time I exerted myself in vain.
Either the fool could not, or the villain would not perceive me.
Meantime the machine rapidly soared, while my strength even more
rapidly failed. I was soon upon the point of resigning myself to
my fate, and dropping quietly into the sea, when my spirits were
suddenly revived by hearing a hollow voice from above, which
seemed to be lazily humming an opera air. Looking up, I perceived
the Angel of the Odd. He was leaning with his arms folded, over
the rim of the car; and with a pipe in his mouth, at which he
puffed leisurely, seemed to be upon excellent terms with himself
and the universe. I was too much exhausted to speak, so I merely
regarded him with an imploring air.
For several minutes, although he looked me full in the face, he
said nothing. At length removing carefully his meerschaum from
the right to the left corner of his mouth, he condescended to
speak.
“Who pe you,” he asked, “und what der teuffel you pe do dare?”
To this piece of impudence, cruelty and affectation, I could
reply only by ejaculating the monosyllable “Help!”
“Elp!” echoed the ruffian—“not I. Dare iz te pottle—elp yourself,
und pe tam’d!”
With these words he let fall a heavy bottle of Kirschenwasser
which, dropping precisely upon the crown of my head, caused me to
imagine that my brains were entirely knocked out. Impressed with
this idea, I was about to relinquish my hold and give up the
ghost with a good grace, when I was arrested by the cry of the
Angel, who bade me hold on.
“Old on!” he said; “don’t pe in te urry—don’t. Will you pe take
de odder pottle, or ave you pe got zober yet and come to your
zenzes?”
I made haste, hereupon, to nod my head twice—once in the
negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the
other bottle at present—and once in the affirmative, intending
thus to imply that I _was_ sober and _had_ positively come to my
senses. By these means I somewhat softened the Angel.
“Und you pelief, ten,” he inquired, “at te last? You pelief, ten,
in te possibilty of te odd?”
I again nodded my head in assent.
“Und you ave pelief in _me_, te Angel of te Odd?”
I nodded again.
“Und you acknowledge tat you pe te blind dronk and te vool?”
I nodded once more.
“Put your right hand into your left hand preeches pocket, ten, in
token ov your vull zubmizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd.”
This thing, for very obvious reasons, I found it quite impossible
to do. In the first place, my left arm had been broken in my fall
from the ladder, and, therefore, had I let go my hold with the
right hand, I must have let go altogether. In the second place, I
could have no breeches until I came across the crow. I was
therefore obliged, much to my regret, to shake my head in the
negative—intending thus to give the Angel to understand that I
found it inconvenient, just at that moment, to comply with his
very reasonable demand! No sooner, however, had I ceased shaking
my head than—
“Go to der teuffel, ten!” roared the Angel of the Odd.
In pronouncing these words, he drew a sharp knife across the
guide-rope by which I was suspended, and as we then happened to
be precisely over my own house, (which, during my peregrinations,
had been handsomely rebuilt,) it so occurred that I tumbled
headlong down the ample chimney and alit upon the dining-room
hearth.
Upon coming to my senses, (for the fall had very thoroughly
stunned me,) I found it about four o’clock in the morning. I lay
outstretched where I had fallen from the balloon. My head
grovelled in the ashes of an extinguished fire, while my feet
reposed upon the wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the
fragments of a miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a
newspaper, some broken glass and shattered bottles, and an empty
jug of the Schiedam Kirschenwasser. Thus revenged himself the
Angel of the Odd.
[Mabbott states that Griswold “obviously had a revised form” for
use in the 1856 volume of Poe’s works. Mabbott does not
substantiate this claim, but it is surely not unreasonable. An
editor, and even typographical errors, may have produced nearly
all of the very minor changes made in this version. (Indeed, two
very necessary words were clearly dropped by accident.) An editor
might have corrected “Wickliffe’s ‘Epigoniad’” to “Wilkie’s
‘Epigoniad’,” but is unlikely to have added “Tuckerman’s
‘Sicily’” to the list of books read by the narrator. Griswold was
not above forgery (in Poe’s letters) when it suited his purpose,
but would have too little to gain by such an effort in this
instance.]