It is a phenomenon of our nature that a superabundance of any experience—whether pleasurable or painful—diminishes the impact of any single sensation. Just as a plethora of sensual delights renders any individual indulgence less intense, so too does a surfeit of woes reduce the onerous effect of any isolated affliction.
Thus it proved with the odious parcel left on my doorstep by Neuendorf. Had it occurred during a period of extended tranquillity, the unanticipated intrusion of this profoundly disquieting object would almost certainly have plunged me into a state of extreme distress. Arriving as it did, however, at a time of such intense, such unparalleled anxiety, I experienced it as merely one more vexation in a long series of unsettling events. Though certainly dismayed by this ghastly reminder of Neuendorf’s implacably vindictive temperament, I was too taken up with other, more urgent matters to dwell on it for very long.
The sense of alarm occasioned in me by the reception of this odious article was further assuaged by Crockett. Seated in his chaise with the excoriated strip of hide held aloft in one hand, he had insisted that the entire episode offered irrefutable proof of Neuendorf’s fundamentally pusillanimous nature.
“Why, looky here, Poe,” he had exclaimed. “If I aimed to skin a feller’s carcass, would I bother with such tomfoolery as sending him a chunk of horseflesh? No sir. I’d just show up one morning with my sharpest hunting knife and carve him up quicker than an owl can swallow a rat. You mark me, Poe, this here bit of nastiness don’t amount to shucks.”
And so saying, he had leaned over the front of the carriage and—with a contemptuous flick of the wrist—flung the vile article into the gutter, where it was instantly set upon and devoured by a pack of roving swine.
Among the many concerns preoccupying my mind in the days following our interview with Mrs. Nicodemus, one of the most pressing had to do with the latter’s impending gala. Immediately prior to our departure from her home, Mrs. Nicodemus had proposed that—to blend in more fully with her other guests, all of whom would be attending with partners of the opposite sex—Crockett and I each invite a female companion. When, upon returning to my dwelling, I had broached the subject with Virginia, she had responded with the utmost enthusiasm. It quickly occurred to me that Sissy and I could achieve a singularly vivid impression by arriving in costumes that embodied a related thematic or pictorial concept, so that—when viewed in conjunction with each other—we would produce the dramatic effect of a tableau vivant.
As I sat in my study on the following morning, cudgelling my brains over the still-unknown meaning of “Nevermore,” my gaze happened to fall upon a volume of Ovid’s Metamorphosis in Dryden’s excellent (if not consistently felicitous) translation. All at once, I was struck with an inspiration regarding the approaching masquerade. Within moments, I had sought out both Muddy and Sissy and excitedly shared my conception with them. They quickly perceived its charms and gave their eager approbation.
To assemble our costumes was simplicity itself. My own outfit was readily concocted from a few ordinary and easily obtainable household objects—viz. a bedsheet, a hammer, and a chisel (the last two articles being loaned to me for the occasion by a neighbor, Mr. Reuben Bourne, who earned his living as a mason). Another bedsheet—artfully stitched together by Muddy in the form of a surpassingly elegant gown of antique Grecian cut—likewise constituted Sissy’s principal garb. Her masquerade was completed with the aid of a thick white paste compounded of flour and water and skillfully applied to her face, thus creating the altogether convincing illusion that her lovely visage was composed of hewn, statuary marble.
By such simple, yet ingenious, means my conception was triumphantly realized; so that—when the eve of the gala finally arrived—Sissy and I stood forth as the living incarnations of that fabled antique couple, the sculptor Pygmalion and his exquisite statue, Galatea, whose beauty was such that—overwhelmed with desire for his own creation—the artist offered fervent supplications to the goddess Aphrodite, who answered his prayers by transforming the lovely marble figure into a being of flesh and blood.
At precisely six o’clock on Saturday evening, while Sissy and I stood in the parlor, effecting some final adjustments to our costumes, there came a resounding knock upon the front door of our dwelling: Colonel Crockett had arrived to convey us to the party. This summons was answered by Muddy, who—upon opening the door—gasped so loudly in wonderment that the noise carried clearly from the front hallway to the parlor. Her amazed ejaculation was immediately followed by the tramp of approaching footsteps. Seconds later, the frontiersman loomed before us. Framed in the doorway—with his feet spread wide, his chest thrust forward, and a proud, military elevation of his head—he stood as though posing for our inspection and admiration. And in truth, he cut a striking figure.
In dramatic contrast to his customary attire, he was garbed in a hunting shirt of dressed deerskin, fringed with beads of variegated colors and belted dose to his muscular body with a girdle of wampum, through which a gleaming hunting knife had been thrust. Resting upon his head was a raccoon-skin cap, the shaggy tail of which hung suspended from the side and lay draped across the collar of his shirt. His legs were encased in buckskin trousers, gartered to the knees with the sinews of deer; and upon his feet were moccasins fashioned out of scraps of buffalo hide and ornamented, in the Indian style, with porcupine quills. Cradled in one arm was a magnificent Kentucky rifle, its gleaming stock adorned with silver filigree. A pouch and horn, slung crossways over his brawny chest, completed the picturesque costume.
Our inspection of Crockett’s colorful garb lasted for nearly a minute—during which time the frontiersman scrutinized us in turn with an expression of intense bemusement. At length, he shook his head slowly and declared: “I been standing here and studying over it, but I’m blessed if I can cipher it nohow.”
“To what precisely are you referring?” I inquired.
“I’m referring,” he replied, “to why you ’n’ Miz Virginny are rigged out in them nightgowns.”
Seeking to correct this gross misapprehension, I proceeded to offer a brief, though in all essential respects comprehensive, synopsis of the classical myth of whose central protagonists Sissy and I were meant to be the living simulacra. “To judge from your own costume, Colonel Crockett,” I continued, “I see that you have chosen to attend tonight’s fête in the guise of a typical wilderness huntsman.”
“Typical, my eye!” he exclaimed in a voice ringing with disdain. “You are looking at the most savagerous son of a wildcat there ever was—the original iron-jawed, brass-mounted, copper-bellied King of the Wild Frontier!”
At this resounding declaration, Muddy—who had come up behind our visitor and now stood directly to his rear just beyond the threshold of the parlor—clapped her hands delightedly.
“Well, now,” said Crockett, “I reckon we ought to make tracks. Poe, you ain’t the only one who’s bringing a purty gal to this frolic. I got one waiting outside, and I’ll wager she’s growin’ a mite antsy by now.”
Bidding good-night to Muddy—who saw us to the front door, where she bestowed a fond maternal hug upon both Sissy and myself—the three of us emerged into the street. In place of the anticipated chaise there stood an elegant barouche, which Crockett’s ever-obliging host, Mr. Potter, had placed at the frontiersman’s disposal for the evening. A liveried driver occupied the box, while a young woman sat in the rear of the coach. She was garbed in the elaborate costume of a Turkish sultana, with the lower half of her face concealed beneath the folds of a diaphanous veil. Even so, I immediately deduced that she was the somewhat brazen individual who had attached herself to the frontiersman following his ferocious battle with Neuendorf, and whose family name, as I recalled, was Mullany.
My conjecture in respect to her identity was confirmed when Crockett introduced his companion by name. As Sissy and I mounted the carriage, Miss Mullany scrutinized us with an expression of undisguised perplexity.
Before I could enlighten her as to the signification of our costumes, Crockett exclaimed: “Why, they are rigged out as Mr. Pigmalion and his gal.”
“I don’t believe I am familiar with those individuals,” Miss Mullany said amiably as Sissy and I settled into the seats directly across from her.
“Well,” said the frontiersman, assuming his place beside his companion, “I can learn you all about ’em in two shakes of a dead lamb’s tail.”
Then—placing an arm around the exposed white shoulder of the colorfully attired young woman—he embarked on a lively, if somewhat garbled, rendition of the entrancing fable, while the driver maneuvered the coach down Amity Street and in the direction of Mrs. Nicodemus’ grand masquerade ball.