Previous Page - Next Page - First Page - Home

The Angel Of The Odd An Extravaganza By Edgar Allan Poe
PAGE: 2

    "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.

Previous Page - Next Page - First Page - Home