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“Why did you tie me?” I asked at length. “Are you going to murder me?”

He started and glanced up. “Not necessarily. Perhaps you will want to go. Man lives to learn; why cannot he die to learn? Is it not strange that human curiosity cannot overcome human fear? Are you afraid of the dark, Smithers? Will you not open the door for truth? What is the exact sensation of death, Smithers? Tell me—has that question never worried you?”

“Never,” I muttered. “Why should it?”

Martin shrugged his shoulders. “Perhaps it shouldn’t. But to me, it—well, you wouldn’t understand. Only the moon understands. But you must listen to my story. No doubt you will think it one long, red road of wanton cruelty and mad blood lust. No doubt you will be unable to appreciate the supreme sacrifice of a strong nature—the sacrifice of human flesh, of human love, on the altar of the muse—that sacrifice to kindle the immortal flame of genius and create the indestructible. What I have done for art no man has done; what I will do for art you must bear witness to. I have chosen you as my messenger to the world.”

At that instant a shaft of lightning flashed between us like a lifted sword blade. It was immediately followed by such a deafening peal of thunder that the tiny cabin echoed it like a hollow drum. Now the rain came down in a silver deluge, tapping on the boards overhead as though a multitude of hammers were at work. Several drops trickled through a chink between the logs and fell on my upturned face. And they kept on falling relentlessly while I listened to Martin’s confession.

XIX

“As you already know, Smithers,” Martin began, “my parents both died when I was very young and my aunt took me to live with her. In that great, gloomy house the books were my only companions. And what a collection! I believe every great horror tale ever written found a permanent resting place on the shelves which circled her library. And beside these, there were scores of volumes dealing with spiritualism and necromancy—volumes, gray with the dust of centuries, between whose covers lay many a forgotten tragedy like vivid, crimson flowers. And how I loved them all! How I lingered over them, forgetting time and place, drinking in great drafts of knowledge, reading on and on till often the pallid face of morning peered in at me through my window!

“But soon ambition began to lash me. Why could I not create horror tales which in no way would be inferior to those I now devoured with such avidity?’ Perhaps I might write even better. Certainly I had the will to persevere. No one could be more painstaking, no one could be more thorough. Surely, if Carlyle were right in his definition of genius, I might aspire to any heights.

“Thinking thus, I sat down in the library one sunny afternoon to start my career as a short-story writer, to create my first horror tale. Gradually, as the minutes passed, bright optimism flickered like the flame of a candle one breathes upon. I had thought that inspiration would envelope me like a fiery mantle, that I would be lifted out of myself and borne away to some strange kingdom of fancy where I could pick and choose from an unlimited treasure. But nothing of the kind happened. On the contrary, my mind seemed a vacuum. And then I realized the sickening truth: I was attempting to write and I had no imagination!

“Then I suffered, Smithers, as only the very young can suffer. Ambition was already planted deep in my soul and I felt that it could never flower without imagination. Tears gushed from my eyes; I was a plaything for grief. No doubt my literary career would have ended there and then, had it not been for the strange occurrence which befell on that same, sunshiny afternoon.

“My aunt had been very sick for over a month. Now she was dying. As I sat with weak tears running down my face, her nurse entered the library and took me to the sick room to say a last farewell. No doubt she considered that my emotion was caused by natural grief at the expectation of losing a near relative. She wiped my eyes and attempted to console me, before she led me to my aunt’s bedside.

“The old lady was almost at her last gasp. Her thin, yellow hands were fluttering over the coverlet, resembling the fallen, windswept leaves of autumn; the death rattle rasped harshly in her wizened throat with the mechanical vibration of an engine running down; her heavy, blue-veined eyelids were closed and did not open as I knelt beside her. Soon her breathing stopped. She was dead.

“On my way back to the library, the scene which I had just witnessed was pictured in glowing colors in my brain. Nothing could wipe it out. Wherever I looked, I saw my aunt lying in her great four-poster bed like a fallen branch on a snowbank.

“Once more I picked up my discarded paper and pencil and began idly to picture in words what I had just seen. And then a strange thing happened. I seemed to be again in the sick room which I had just quitted—alone there with the dying woman, listening to her wheezing breath and watching her dry, shriveled hands fluttering about like autumn leaves circling in the wind.

“How long this strange mental hallucination possessed me, I do not know. When I regained normal consciousness, it was to find both sides of the paper covered with my microscopic writing. With amazement, I read aloud what I had written.

“You cannot imagine my feelings, Smithers, when I realized that what I was reading was a masterpiece of description. As clear-cut and convincing as an ivory carving, it had a vividness of detail, a charm of style, which held the attention in an iron grip. To be sure, it was merely a sketch—a word-painting of my aunt’s death—but, for all that, it was worthy of immortality.

“And there could be no mistake—I had composed this morbid masterpiece. It was my writing without a doubt. What did it matter that I had been unconscious of the manual effort which guided the pencil? Surely true inspiration lifted the artist out of the shell in which he lived his normal days. And yet was this true inspiration? Surely not. This was no flight of the imagination. It was a realistic description of something I had seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears. My aunt’s death had been photographed on the film of my brain and I had developed it with all the art of a stylist into this perfect picture.

“Now true realization of the truth was born in upon me. I was, indeed, a writer without imagination and therefore I must rely solely on what I saw with my own eyes and what I heard with my own ears. I had determined to devote myself to horror tales. Very well. But in order to be a master of tragedy, I must steel my heart against all weakness, all feeling; I must, perhaps, witness the perpetration of crime so as to impress my readers with its reality. It was necessary for an unimaginative artist to associate with the scum of the world in order to rise above the world. Therefore I must tear out my heart so that my head might rise above the stars. All this I realized, but I did not turn back.”

There came another crash of thunder which drowned him out. His next few words were lost, swallowed up by the rattling of the pots and pans on the wall, the tapping fingers of rain, and a gust of wind which went howling about the cabin.

“For many months I trained myself for my future career,” Martin resumed. “Fortunately, at that time, I had no friends except a few household pets on which I had centered my affections. Because I loved them, I knew that they must go. I must have no human weaknesses to hold me back—nothing which could later interfere with art by making my will subordinate to mercy.

“So, coldly, methodically, but with unparalleled mental anguish, I tortured to death each one of my poor pets. My brain reeled, but my hand was steady; and, after each atrocious act, I felt the natural repulsion for these cruelties growing less and less. I slowly conquered myself.