American short stories : $b Selected and edited with an introductory essay on the short story by Charles Sears Baldwin
General
American short stories : $b Selected and edited with an introductory essay on the short story by Charles Sears Baldwin
American fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, American
The creature was awake. This was evidenced by the convulsive manner in
which the bed-clothes were moved in its efforts to escape. There was
something truly terrible in beholding, as it were, those second-hand
indications of the terrible writhings and agonized struggles for
liberty which themselves were invisible.
Hammond and myself had racked our brains during the long night to
discover some means by which we might realize the shape and general
appearance of the Enigma. As well as we could make out by passing our
hands over the creature’s form, its outlines and lineaments were human.
There was a mouth; a round, smooth head without hair; a nose, which,
however, was little elevated above the cheeks; and its hands and feet
felt like those of a boy. At first we thought of placing the being on a
smooth surface and tracing its outline with chalk, as shoemakers trace
the outline of the foot. This plan was given up as being of no value.
Such an outline would give not the slightest idea of its conformation.
A happy thought struck me. We would take a cast of it in plaster
of Paris. This would give us the solid figure, and satisfy all our
wishes. But how to do it? The movements of the creature would disturb
the setting of the plastic covering, and distort the mould. Another
thought. Why not give it chloroform? It had respiratory organs--that
was evident by its breathing. Once reduced to a state of insensibility,
we could do with it what we would. Doctor X---- was sent for; and after
the worthy physician had recovered from the first shock of amazement,
he proceeded to administer the chloroform. In three minutes afterward
we were enabled to remove the fetters from the creature’s body, and
a well-known modeler of this city was busily engaged in covering the
invisible form with the moist clay. In five minutes more we had a
mould, and before evening a rough _fac-simile_ of the Mystery. It was
shaped like a man,--distorted, uncouth, and horrible, but still a
man. It was small, not over four feet and some inches in height, and
its limbs revealed a muscular development that was unparalleled. Its
face surpassed in hideousness anything I had ever seen. Gustave Doré,
or Callot, or Tony Johannot, never conceived anything so horrible.
There is a face in one of the latter’s illustrations to “_Un Voyage
où il vous plaira_,” which somewhat approaches the countenance of
this creature, but does not equal it. It was the physiognomy of what I
should have fancied a ghoul to be. It looked as if it was capable of
feeding on human flesh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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