“How very extraordinary!” she said. “What can we do about it?”
“Which foot is it?” asked Marchbanks. “Let us have a look at it.”
“I don’t like to,” said the poor devil.
“You’d better,” said Miss James.
He slowly pulled off his stocking, and showed his white left foot curiously clubbed, like the weird paw of some animal. When he looked at it himself, he sobbed.
And as he sobbed, the girl heard again the low, exulting laughter. But she paid no heed to it, gazing curiously at the weeping young policeman.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“It does if I try to walk on it,” wept the young man.
“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “We’ll telephone for a doctor, and he can take you home in a taxi.”
The young fellow shamefacedly wiped his eyes.
“But have you no idea how it happened?” asked Marchbanks anxiously.
“I haven’t myself,” said the young fellow.
At that moment the girl heard the low, eternal laugh right in her ear. She started, but could see nothing.
She started round again as Marchbanks gave a strange, yelping cry, like a shot animal. His white face was drawn, distorted in a curious grin, that was chiefly agony but partly wild recognition. He was staring with fixed eyes at something. And in the rolling agony of his eyes was the horrible grin of a man who realizes he has made a final, and this time fatal, fool of himself.
“Why,” he yelped in a high voice, “I knew it was he!” And with a queer shuddering laugh he pitched forward on the carpet and lay writhing for a moment on the floor. Then he lay still, in a weird, distorted position, like a man struck by lightning.
Miss James stared with round, staring brown eyes.
“Is he dead?” she asked quickly.
The young policeman was trembling so that he could hardly speak. She could hear his teeth chattering.
“Seems like it,” he stammered.
There was a faint smell of almond blossom in the air.
The Visit to the Museum
Vladimir Nabokov
Location: Montisert, France.
Time: November, 1939.
Eyewitness Description: “Then I found myself in darkness and kept bumping into unknown furniture until I finally saw a red light and walked out onto a platform that clanged under me – and, suddenly, beyond it, there was a bright parlour, tastefully furnished in Empire style, but not a living soul, not a living soul.”
Author: Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) the Russian-born author and academic is best known for his notorious novel, Lolita (1955) which records the obsession of a middle aged intellectual for a twelve-year-old girl and coined the term, “nymphet”. Nabokov studied at Trinity College, Cambridge in the late Thirties where he became aware of the work of M. R. James and wrote several fantasy stories. Among his relevant books from this time are The Enchanter (1928), The Eye (1930) and The Waltz Invention (1938), all written in Russian and not translated until Nabokov moved to America in 1940. Here he worked as a research fellow in entomology at Harvard before becoming professor of Russian literature at Cornell in 1948. Among Nabokov’s excellent fantasy stories must be mentioned “The Vane Sisters”, “Signs and Symbols” and “Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster,” with the nearest to a traditional ghost story being “The Visit to the Museum”. It can, though, be regarded as a significant step in the development of the genre and an outstanding contribution to the “Golden Era”. In praise of the story, Robert Aickman wrote in 1971, “Mr Nabokov’s genius unites the searchlight with the microscope.”
Several years ago a friend of mine in Paris – a person with oddities, to put it mildly – learning that I was going to spend two or three days at Montisert, asked me to drop in at the local museum where there hung, he was told, a portrait of his grandfather by Leroy. Smiling and spreading out his hands, he related a rather vague story to which I confess I paid little attention, partly because I do not like other people’s obtrusive affairs, but chiefly because I had always had doubts about my friend’s capacity to remain this side of fantasy. It went more or less as follows: after the grandfather died in their St Petersburg house back at the time of the Russo-Japanese War, the contents of his apartment in Paris were sold at auction. The portrait, after some obscure peregrinations, was acquired by the museum of Leroy’s native town. My friend wished to know if the portrait was really there; if there, if it could be ransomed; and if it could, for what price. When I asked why he did not get in touch with the museum, he replied that he had written several times, but had never received an answer.
I made an inward resolution not to carry out the request –I could always tell him I had fallen ill or changed my itinerary. The very notion of seeing sights, whether they be museums or ancient buildings, is loathsome to me; besides, the good freak’s commission seemed absolute nonsense. It so happened, however, that, while wandering about Montisert’s empty streets in search of a stationery store, and cursing the spire of a long-necked cathedral, always the same one, that kept popping up at the end of every street, I was caught in a violent downpour which immediately went about accelerating the fall of the maple leaves, for the fair weather of a southern October was holding on by a mere thread. I dashed for cover and found myself on the steps of the museum.
It was a building of modest proportions, constructed of many-coloured stones, with columns, a gilt inscription over the frescoes of the pediment, and a lion-legged stone bench on either side of the bronze door. One of its leaves stood open, and the interior seemed dark against the shimmer of the shower. I stood for a while on the steps, but, despite the overhanging roof, they were gradually growing speckled. I saw that the rain had set in for good, and so, having nothing better to do, I decided to go inside. No sooner had I trod on the smooth, resonant flagstones of the vestibule than the clatter of a moved stool came from a distant corner, and the custodian – a banal pensioner with an empty sleeve – rose to meet me, laying aside his newspaper and peering at me over his spectacles. I paid my franc and, trying not to look at some statues at the entrance (which were as traditional and as insignificant as the first number in a circus programme), I entered the main hall.
Everything was as it should be: grey tints, the sleep of substance, matter dematerialized. There was the usual case of old, worn coins resting in the inclined velvet of their compartments. There was, on top of the case, a pair of owls, Eagle Owl and Long-eared, with their French names reading “Grand Duke” and “Middle Duke” if translated. Venerable minerals lay in their open graves of dusty papier-maché; a photograph of an astonished gentleman with a pointed beard dominated an assortment of strange black lumps of various sizes. They bore a great resemblance to frozen frass, and I paused involuntarily over them for I was quite at a loss to guess their nature, composition and function. The custodian had been following me with felted steps, always keeping a respectful distance; now, however, he came up, with one hand behind his back and the ghost of the other in his pocket, and gulping, if one judged by his Adam’s apple.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Science has not yet determined,” he replied, undoubtedly having learned the phrase by rote. “They were found,” he continued in the same phony tone, “in 1895, by Louis Pradier, Municipal Councillor and Knight of the Legion of Honour,” and his trembling finger indicated the photograph.